Do You Need Recalibration?

Friends,

I don’t watch many TED talks, but this one caught my eye, and today’s thoughts are based around the idea of engaging creativity and what that means as the seasons (literally and of our life) change.

In this video, actor Ethan Hawke talks about how we give ourselves permission to be creative, and what it means to choose creativity.

Here are a few things he says:

“Human creativity is nature manifest in us.”

“To thrive, to express ourselves, here’s the rub: we have to know ourselves.”

“Creativity…it’s vital. It’s the way we heal each other.”

“If you want to help your community, family, friends, you have to express yourself.”

“There’s no path til you walk it, and you have to be willing to play the fool.”

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I’m fairly obsessed with the changing of the seasons, how it leads us to examine changes in our own lives, bodies, and minds. And the word that always comes to me is recalibration. It sounds so scientific, and of course, it is, but I like to take scientific words and re-imagine them for everyday life, for intimate understandings.

This is a definition of calibrate: adjust (experimental results) to take external factors into account.

So, as autumn comes to us, this external factor, this change, we ask what it means to re-examine things around us—not in a judgmental, I haven’t gotten the shit done kind of way, but with grace and kindness, gentle glances to notice what we might not have noticed before.

The world around us, those external factors, are asking something of me. How do I stay grounded to who I am as I recalibrate?

Today, I’m holding onto the words that Ethan shares about creativity. I’m letting myself rest in creative expression (even if it’s part of my work, the work of words) as change comes upon my life.

How can do you do this? Remember some of Ethan’s words:

“Creativity…it’s vital. It’s the way we heal each other.”

“If you want to help your community, family, friends, you have to express yourself.”

We express ourselves, we dive into creativity in its many nuanced and beautifully complex forms, as the world around us lays expectations at our heart’s door. And that can be difficult to balance.

So, I’m offering us a Recalibration Ritual, a way to ground ourselves in the knowledge of external factors and expectations while holding steady to our own magic.

I’d love to know if you try out this ritual and what it teaches you, so please let me know by responding directly or sharing your experience in the comments.

I plan to practice this ritual throughout September, and can’t wait to see what moments of grounding come from it.

If you’re interested in further expression, grab a journal or open a new document on your computer and keep track of these rituals and what they speak to you in this coming season.

The audio for this ritual is included above, so that you can listen to it as I guide you through. And please, share this with someone who might need it, someone who is leaning into the coming season and asking what magic can be found there.

Recalibration Ritual

Find a quiet corner on the couch, your bed, or the floor of your favorite room at home.

Light a candle or two.

Take 3 deep breaths and speak over yourself, I have arrived.

Close your eyes and let your mind wander to a favorite nature scene. Maybe it’s mountains, forests, lakes, beaches, winter snowstorms.

Breathe deeply, not shallow from your chest but all the way from your belly, in and out, and let yourself wander there for a minute.

Open your eyes and slowly look around at your environment.

Say quietly or in your mind, I honor this life. I honor this season. I honor the changes. I honor my own story.

Continue with your own substitutions. What do you honor about your life, your spaces, your body, your experiences? Name 3 or 4 things you honor.

Take 3 more deep breaths.

Now turn your attention to those external factors that are sure to show up in the coming season.

Speak to them:

I will acknowledge your presence in my life.

I will set boundaries with you.

I will hold steady to myself when you show up.

I will release you.

Blow out the candles if you have any lit as a sign of that release.

Take 3 more deep breaths.

Close your eyes.

Come back to your nature landscape, the one you visited at the beginning of the ritual.

Stay here as long as you need to, and when you begin to worry, speak to yourself, Recalibration is a gift, and I will accept it.