The Joy is in the Mystery

A prompt & a video link for you today

Thank you for joining us last weekend!

What’s the difference between happiness & joy?

As we teeter on the fractured edge of the Anthropocene in a parade of unending horrors & holiday deals, we’re all pretty tuned-in to the ways in which our mental states are being manipulated by entities which profit off our manipulation…

Scrolling—> anxiety—>the hollow and helpless sense that something has gone seriously sideways for humanity—>A Limited Time Offer!—>scrolling…

Which makes me really interested in antidotes— the ways we can promote positive & beneficial sensations within ourselves and our communities via the means available to us.

As a regular human person (and as an artist) what’s available to me is: my curiosity, my attention, my intentions & the various tools of my creative practice...

Image Word Mystery co-creative sketchbook jam desk scene: this is my Joy Chalice & “My Cheeks Lead With Light”

Since the late 90s, when I started training in theatre as a tool for social change, I’ve been learning different ways we can use these most basic of human tools— music-making, mark-making, improvisation, movement, visualization, writing and group collaboration— to do some really magical & life-affirming stuff together, even when (and especially when) things get hard.

This is the bedrock from which all of my offerings spring forth— the Art of Dying creative death cafes, my work with Girls Rock!, and all of the various classes and workshops I’ve offered over the years including Image Word Mystery, all share this artfully impactful play in their DNA.

So, while preparing to lead “The Joy is in the Mystery”— last Sunday’s co-creative sketchbook jam in which I gathered folks to blow off steam and promote some positive energy via creative flow— I first got really curious about the felt experience of joy….

This is a great gut-check question to ask yourself (or your notebook!) like I did:

What’s the distinction between happiness and joy?

What exactly *is* joy? Where does joy come from? Where does it live? How do we access it? In other words, how can we understand joy better so that we can engineer it for ourselves when we need it most?

Part of my research lead me to Ingrid Fetell Lee, a designer who got interested in how her designs promoted joy — You can watch her shorter TED talk about the “aesthetics of joy” here or listen to this interview on Ten Percent Happier:

I really liked her pragmatic approach to understanding the simple correlations between aesthetics and the sensations of joy. What happens with the amygdala when you work with jagged lines? What’s the link between bright colors and a sense of levity? This is the kind of stuff I love understanding & playing with as an artist who leads creative explorations.

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Last Sunday we made ourselves apprentices to joy by playing with some of these ideas and with internal & external sensations. We dove into our senses, visualized & played with a progressive series of word & image-based prompts to turn the concept around and around. Then we invited the mystery by taking in one another’s work and generating a longer poem from the themes we discovered swimming between us (I always love the mystery part of a gathering)…

Here’s my ending poem that gathered ideas from everyone’s joy:

divine & earthly
a conversation, a harmony
that which is gifted
that which we receive

a conversation, a harmony
beginning in my chest
that which we receive
is what we allow

beginning in my chest
and radiating
is what we allow
softly

and radiating
that which is gifted
softly
divine & earthly

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[If you’re interested in more simple, concrete and fascinating ways you can help boost your own mind-body-spirit with tools available to you right now, check out the work of my friend John Leonard Ph.D. I had the great pleasure of working with him to animate The Brain Genie which he is using to help hospitalized children reduce stress. John’s Creating Inner Peace in Troubling Times is another lovely public service. I use his deceptively simple practices all the time to help me move through hard stuff.]

Got any more recommendations along these lines? I’d love to hear more about what helps you through—

Questions for y’all on how you’d like to meet, interact, play & envision stuff together:

I love that so many of you value communal creative play the way I do & that you join me for these gatherings!

But— we all have constraints on our time & energy—

So I’d love to hear from you how often you’d like to gather together for live, guided creative experiences.

Do you like the consistency of having a monthly space to return to?

Or— would you find it easier if the pressure was off monthly live engagements and we did them less frequently (but made them a touch longer?)— and paid subscribers instead received links to audio field trips, visualizations, worksheets and special prompts during the months we aren’t hanging out live together?

Share your thoughts with a comment, replying to this email or contacting me here— and I’ll weave this info into the first 2024 season!

I’m so grateful for your sweet support and friendship on this creative path. These workshops, creative prompts & writing bring me a lot of joy to share with you.

Below is the link to watch the recording of December 3rd’s live gathering for those paid supporters who couldn’t make it— (I’ll be back with another regularly-scheduled prompt this Friday for everyone)— and I look forward to gathering again with you all in 2024!

Until then, may you apprentice yourself to joy with all the tools available to you.

xo,