Daily Nourishment for August 14, 2024: Grief and Beauty
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 40 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 10 minutes
“First my dad, then Charlie and I, take handfuls of her ashes and face the ocean and offer them up to the breeze. Freddy winds up and pretends to throw a fastball with his. A slow procession from the crowd takes their turns. We watch each one. The wind is such that for a moment each handful hangs in the air like a beautiful specter contemplating our group–nearly returning to us, then spirited away, sometimes almost a recognizable shape, sometimes something entirely unfamiliar.” — The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs
Pause.
Meditate on Georgia O’Keeffe Red Hills and Bones for a few minutes.
Prompt.
Writing can help us attend to the light that remains even in our darkest moments. Draft a scene from your experience of loss, but look for the light. Was there a flower on the sill, a trill of a child’s laughter, kindness exchanged? Did you find relief and release through a moment of dark humor? Set a timer for five minutes and write this.
Practice.
Take no more than five minutes to gather a sheet of paper, glue/tape scissors, and scraps of spare or discarded material from your home: wrapping paper, tissue paper (or just tissues), rubber bands, found objects from your giveaway pile awaiting its lift to the Goodwill. Using these materials, make a collage.
Want More?
Read My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman
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Upcoming Workshops & Gatherings
—The August Co-Writing Schedule is live.
—Spiritual Direction for Writers® + Enneagram for Creativity Gathering will take place on Saturday, September 28th. Recordings will be available if you can’t join us live. You can register here.
August 31— Online Revision Stations Designed by Lauren F. Winner
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Catherine Ricketts. This Pause, Prompt, and Practice were originally shared on April 13, 2023.
Catherine Ricketts is an essayist, songwriter, and writing instructor. Her nonfiction on the arts, grief, joy, and spirituality appears in the Kenyon Review Online, the Ploughshares blog, Electric Literature, The Christian Century, Image, The Millions, Paste, and the music blog for the NPR-affiliate WXPN. She studied writing at the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MFA in nonfiction from Seattle Pacific University. Her first book is The Mother Artist, a work of literary nonfiction on motherhood and artistic practice. Find her on Instagram at @bycatherinericketts, or stay in touch via her newsletter.
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