Daily Nourishment for February 15, 2024: “Direct Your Heart Upward” with Flowers, Death, and More
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 40 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 10-15 minutes
“Direct your heart upward.”
Pause.
Take six deep breaths with a six-count inhale and a six-count exhale while looking at the art on this Instagram post at @art_and_theology.
Prompt.
The German text in the folk artwork linked above translates to “Flowers are not all red. All men hasten toward death. Man cannot remain here, so direct your heart upward, 1802.”
Set a timer for five minutes and take notes in response to that quote.
Practice.
Set a timer for seven minutes and write in response to the questions below.
Google images of flowers. Which are your favorites? Describe them. What colors are they? Which red flowers catch your attention?
Write a few lines of prose or poetry about the flowers you’ve looked at online.
Now think a bit about how your hastening toward death intersects with your creative work and take notes.
How can knowing death’s reality be motivation to write or motivation to skip writing?
What are some specific ways you can “direct your heart upward”? How can this idea nourish your soul and help you notice how you belong to yourself, your creative work, and the divine?
Want More?
Look at this painting over at Google Arts & Culture:
“The splendid bunch of flowers, painted by Brueghel for Cardinal Federico, is the oldest documented painting of this type. It consists of about a hundred different species of flowers, some of which are very rare and of great quality. In a letter we read that Brueghel was working on it in 1606 and that he had seen these flowers in the garden of Archduke Alberto and Archduchess Isabella in Brussels, and that he had wanted to ritrare dal natural. In his Musaeum, Borromeo has this to say about the work: ‘Brueghel painted a diamond on the lower part of the vase...: he wished to show that the value of his work was equal to that of the jewel and this is the price that we paid to the artist.’”
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Upcoming Workshops & Gatherings
February: February Co-Writing schedule and registration options are ready.
February: Online Thoughtful Readers Gatherings with Crystal Wilkinson(2/18), and Erik Fuhrer(2/25)
February-March: Online Narrative Writing with Tanya Davis: Friday Cohort, Four Sessions
February 24: Online Revision Stations Designed by Lauren F. Winner
Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.
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