Your Artist's Practices and Rituals
getting into our 'zone'
What practices and rituals most serve your artist?
Other approaches to productivity focus on habits and discipline. For me, I prefer an approach that comes from the inside-out. I do things because I want to and because I know what it means to me. Not because someone told me to or I feel I should based on external forces. I prefer the words ‘practices and rituals’ to habits or disciplines.
Practices and rituals offer a way to connect to ourselves and our values no matter where we are. These daily acts offer a repetition that is grounding, comforting, and guiding.
What’s the difference between a practice and a ritual? This could be merely semantics, but I spent a lot of time pondering the difference because how we name things is very important.
Practices = something you do again and again with an aim to improve or strengthen. Showing up for my yoga practice, my writing practice and my coaching practice doesn’t make me a better person per se. The cumulative effect of practice, however, can be powerful. Self-trust, self-awareness, and self-love are all overall benefits that a consistent practice gives me. Over time, a writing practice you consistently show up for will make you a better writer.
Rituals = repeated actions that evoke a certain state of being and connection. A ritual invites an altered state of consciousness, offering a connection to realms beyond the mundane. Rituals signal to your artist that you are deliberately setting aside your other commitments for the moment.
How we name and frame things has an incredible impact on how we show up for things. A practice could sound like a duty, and a creative person may shrug off ‘shoulds’. The word ‘ritual’ could evoke a more magical and compelling feeling that helps make it easy to show up for. Maybe you like the word ‘habit’.
I help my clients name and frame things all the time. Naming and framing is a way to claim the approach that rings true for us.
Writing out these definitions for you, I feel that I could call my practices ‘ritual practices.’ Some of my rituals include:
yoga
daily walk
morning journaling
lighting candles
coffee and tea making and sipping
cooking
art-making
studio tidying
pulling tarot and angel cards.
While it’s nice to have my tools for practice, I don’t really need them. My studio loveseat, my espresso maker, my favorite notebooks and pens…it’s not the objects that are important but the gestures. The ritualistic slowing down, tuning in. I can do that anywhere.
My friend Tonja is a folk herbalist who leads bespoke pilgrimages, workshops, and retreats from her home in the west of Ireland. Her daily writing ritual begins with lighting a candle and selecting a tarot card (currently loving the Irish language version of the Rider-Waite deck).
Each morning, she weaves in a series of prompts connecting her to the seasons, the moon cycle, and practices inspired by the Irish Wisdom Tradition. She has been writing a Haiku-esque reflection called Daily Sacred Act by candlelight each morning for almost ten years. (You can subscribe to that!)
Identifying our rituals, practices, or habits is a way to see our commitment. Imagine your life is a movie. What scenes or actions do you take that would show a viewer that this person is a committed artist? (I bet endlessly scrolling social media is not a scene that shows your artist’s place in your life!)
INVITATION
Make a list of the practices and rituals that show your artist they are a priority.
See which ones feel truly vital for you and which might need a reboot or a replacement. What do you know really works for your artist now?
Affirmation: My practices and rituals feel good and support my creativity.
Share in the comments: What word do you prefer: ritual or practice? Or something else?
I haven’t explored the idea of “ritual” as I’ve associated with things like lighting candles which don’t do it for me. But I’ve just reframed my music, exercise and meditation as ritual, based on your definition, and it feels good. Exciting even.
Still catching up from travels and then being sick...and then traveling again.
Practices is the right word for me. I have practices, but no conscious rituals. More or less quarterly I do a mind map or a Workflowy list of what I want to write about. The Workflowy versions tend to be detailed enough to be first-pass outlines. Then I have a usual workflow for writing my blogposts, including looking at photos and doing word sketches of feelings and impressions, followed by the full process of writing. Then comes choosing photos and all the steps of posting a piece, including SEO and all that stuff.
I fantasize rituals like reading a poem every morning before I start ... but I never do it. I don't even know whom to read. I was a history major, not an English major, so I'm not turned into that. And the idea of lighting candles at my desk doesn't feel like the right step. The idea makes me feel self-conscious.