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Expressions of Stillness
In celebration of the March 7th, 2023 release of the book
“Creating Stillness: Mindful Art Stories & Practices for Anxiety, Stress & Fear”
creatives we asked to reflect and express on how they create stillness in their own lives.
The following images, writings, videos and expression's capture each creators unique interpretation of what stillness feels like, means, and is found in their own unique lives.
We invite you to slowly scroll through the gallery savouring each unique perspective.
You are then invited to respond to this collection in the comment section below through words or poetry deepening the process beyond...
Fragmented Augmentation
As a highly sensitive person, my thoughts can turn intrusive and can consume my inner life leading to a place of constant anxiety. The thoughts that only I know can consume me and stop me in my tracks. I need to physically work through my thoughts and feelings so they do not overtake me. To process these thoughts, I have turned time and time again into making. Making has provided me a way to manifest my thoughts physically. It is within the process of art-making in both a cognitive and physical way that I feel most myself.
- Mary Lamson-Burke
- Mary Lamson-Burke
Dawn's Revelations
Brought delight to my morning walk.
- Sheila Tiessen
- Sheila Tiessen
Reclaiming My Broken Heart
Reclaiming my Broken Heart, a journey of recovery and self love
- Lisa
- Lisa
Anxiety
The panic I feel will pass.
- Jacqueline Marcia Mepstead
- Jacqueline Marcia Mepstead
Every year we go camping with dogs and kids and some stragglers my husband collects who all need my attention. The one creative thing I always do for myself is to wander the area and gather whatever is blooming to make a centerpiece for the picnic table. This simple act of collecting flowers and arranging them in a mason jar helps to shift my brain to that creative space where everything is still. The beautiful arrangement serves as a daily reminder to just be, and connect with the nature around me.
- Susan Stone
- Susan Stone
Whatever flows through
- Tushima
The Collective
I enjoy stillness when I am in the painting process. This is a reflection of my desire to be connected to all.
- Penney Mellen
- Penney Mellen
Stillness with My Spirit Doll
I hear nudges from the Universe in objects from here and there. I put them together with my intentions, my visions, my dreams ... and a spirit doll claims form. She holds my visions for me when I'm busy and adrift. She stays close to Earth and anchors me. I say hello to her whenever I'm in the garden. Sometimes she asks me to remember. Sometimes she replies in poetry. Sometimes she just sits with me in peaceful silence.
- Nadine Rajeh
- Nadine Rajeh
I find stillness while doing embroidery. My mind relaxes and I feel fully at peace.
- Gladys
- Gladys
Covid collage cards to soothe my anxiety.
- Sarah Conrad Yoder
- Sarah Conrad Yoder
Release
Charity Troy is an alchemist of emotions. She turns the emotions of life into beauty through intuitive paintings. By channeling her intuition she creates abstract expressionist paintings of feelings as they pass through her and flow to the canvas. This painting is an oil on canvas titled “Release.”
- Charity Troy
- Charity Troy
My Soul Quiet
- Laura Craig
Before Strings Sing
- Nandeenee Naiken
Poils de chèvre/Esprit calme devant la feuille blanche/Envie de noir
- Gabriella Tamas
- Gabriella Tamas
Sapience... from a dropped blueberry
Eating at my desk (yes, a bad habit), I hear the soft plop of a blueberry as it lands—somewhere—on the carpet, which means I must find it, and quickly. Otherwise, I’ll forget and its purply juice will ooze and stain the beige carpet.
I cautiously tiptoe to the other side of the room to better survey the area around my desk. But I do not see the errant blueberry. I get on knees and belly, look under the desk, the bed, and the dresser, anywhere it might have rolled. I gingerly grope behind each leg of the furniture.
The blueberry continues to elude me. I close my eyes and let my ‘mind’s eye’ roam that ethereal space beyond the corporeal realm in hopes that memory of sound and sense of space will reveal what eyes cannot see.
With eyes still closed, it hits me. This practice of inner visualization is a place I (have) experience(d) quiescence that, on more than one occasion, helped me see / locate things elided in the corporal realm.
One example . . .
Years ago, a client file at the law firm where I worked went missing. We all knew it had to be in the office, somewhere, but no one could find it. While drifting off to sleep one night, after a week of searching, I mentally tabbed through each of the file cabinet drawers and ‘saw’ the missing file, in my mind’s eye, where it had been misplaced.
The next morning, I check and . . . cha-ching, I find it!
The thin file had slipped downward, between other files, to the bottom of the cabinet and, thus, not visible whenever anyone looked. Perhaps I was the one who misfiled it and, in that ethereal space, re-remembered (saw) me doing so. Allowing my mind to visualize, in a state of quiescence, helped find what was hidden.
The blueberry eventually finds me when I am no longer looking. Nestled behind one of the desk legs—a place I thought I checked—the pulpy meat, now beginning to ooze, dampens fingers as I reach for a book laying nearby.
I embrace the blueberry’s metaphors, its sapience. . . What we search for isn’t always at hand. And finding what we are looking for—like learning, exploring, and discovery—takes time. It also happens in states of unconscious quiescence, as we choose—not to give up, but—to move forward, recognizing that what may not be at hand may reveal itself when least expected.
- kvk
I cautiously tiptoe to the other side of the room to better survey the area around my desk. But I do not see the errant blueberry. I get on knees and belly, look under the desk, the bed, and the dresser, anywhere it might have rolled. I gingerly grope behind each leg of the furniture.
The blueberry continues to elude me. I close my eyes and let my ‘mind’s eye’ roam that ethereal space beyond the corporeal realm in hopes that memory of sound and sense of space will reveal what eyes cannot see.
With eyes still closed, it hits me. This practice of inner visualization is a place I (have) experience(d) quiescence that, on more than one occasion, helped me see / locate things elided in the corporal realm.
One example . . .
Years ago, a client file at the law firm where I worked went missing. We all knew it had to be in the office, somewhere, but no one could find it. While drifting off to sleep one night, after a week of searching, I mentally tabbed through each of the file cabinet drawers and ‘saw’ the missing file, in my mind’s eye, where it had been misplaced.
The next morning, I check and . . . cha-ching, I find it!
The thin file had slipped downward, between other files, to the bottom of the cabinet and, thus, not visible whenever anyone looked. Perhaps I was the one who misfiled it and, in that ethereal space, re-remembered (saw) me doing so. Allowing my mind to visualize, in a state of quiescence, helped find what was hidden.
The blueberry eventually finds me when I am no longer looking. Nestled behind one of the desk legs—a place I thought I checked—the pulpy meat, now beginning to ooze, dampens fingers as I reach for a book laying nearby.
I embrace the blueberry’s metaphors, its sapience. . . What we search for isn’t always at hand. And finding what we are looking for—like learning, exploring, and discovery—takes time. It also happens in states of unconscious quiescence, as we choose—not to give up, but—to move forward, recognizing that what may not be at hand may reveal itself when least expected.
- kvk
