Creating beauty and tiny altars in your home can nourish you in ways that soothe you and leave you less vulnerable to using food. I love attending to my surroundings. I love the placing and considering of objects.. the adding and the taking away..the creating of little shrines and tiny altars. It is truly one of my favorite ways to move into that peaceful creative flow where I lose sense of time.
I love the visual, the tactile, and the play of all of the pieces against each other. I am looking at a huge rough chunk of pink stone/crystal, against the curving lines of a terracotta pot, filled with a spindly but green fern, against the very old yellow-y English pine drop leaf table that has been with me in each of my homes over 3 decades.
I love the silver on ice blue inside my old kitchen hutch, now in our living room, with white-chipped candlesticks, and finials and a primitive wooden star. The mix of the formal and the simple.
Sometimes I feel like I live in a life-sized dollhouse. I move the pieces around a little bit every day and just look at them. I find so much pleasure in this, I always have. In this way I am surely my mother’s (and father’s daughter), designers both, lovers and creators of beauty everywhere.
I live happily in this tradition.
Creating tiny spaces of beauty and then standing back to take pleasure in favorite objects, anew, from a different perspective. Changing the relationships of the pieces to each other. Putting some away for a little while and then bringing them back out to appreciate with fresh eyes.
I love all of these simple pleasures.
These practices are also ways of being mindful for me, of being fully present, in the present-moment. Immersed in the pleasure of detail, focused on making a slight change that will create a different kind of beauty in the room. Even arranging pencils in a jar, and picking out which jar, makes me happy. Looking at the angels on my wall…a favorite touch-point.
I am not sure what my point was when I started this post- trust me it was something totally different than where I have concluded. But I will leave this here with this parting thought that beauty can be everywhere. Surrounding yourself with beauty in tiny ways, taking the time to make a change that will make your eyes a little happier and bring you a bit more pleasure, can be incredibly nourishing, surprisingly satisfying.
Create one tiny corner, one little altar to something that makes you happy when your eyes rest there. Let it be a corner where you also play a bit… rearrange things.. add and subtract, change it according to the seasons. Lose yourself in these small activities like children playing with favorite toys on the floor.
Simple pleasures. Simple powerful satisfying heart-filling pleasures.
I want that for you.
How are you creating small pleasures for yourself? Where do you need a little more beauty, accessible daily beauty that is just for you, designed just for you?
This is something I would love to help you create… for your body, for your home, your closet, the food you eat, your marriage… all of these can be places that flourish with attention to beauty, in ways you may not have thought of. Let me help! Check out my “Knowing Beauty” session on the Work With Me Page...this is a session designed to help you create quickly, beautifully, fully- whatever it is that’s snagging your attention.
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