A touch piece
Practical magic from a spell book called: my personal experience
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I thought I was doing one thing: creating an image, purely visual. A broken shell repaired, but visibly so. Crafted with care, honouring the break and the repair. But while drilling the holes, stitching the fracture, pulling the brass wire, I recognised something. A feeling of alchemy.
making = healing
At least for me sometimes.
Well okay... often.
Once repaired, I held the shell in both hands. Whole again; sturdy, light and forever changed. Tracing the lines with my fingers felt like acknowledging my own process. Healing as a tangible object.
Making is part of my recovery. Not always possible, but when it is, something almost magical happens.
Whole again (not like new)
Healing is een process of full attention.
Dare to let unnecessary noise fade into the background. Getting better means making space and to get that, you will have to claim it. As it turns out. Every process knows its own time, every phase deserves its place within it.
Breaking, grieving, accepting, repairing, growing.
Inevitable: not exclusively in that order and rarely just once, though no phase can ever be exactly the same.
Trust in zooming in and zooming out, trust in intuition, trust in unpredictability. Healing is not measured in minutes, or hours, or days, it knows a different form of time. The time of repetition, of recognition, of harmony, of safety.
⋆ ˖ ݁.⟡₊ ݁ . A ritual to honour healing . ݁₊⟡. ݁˖ ⋆
Find a place that feels safe. Close to water if possible, the sea if you’re that lucky. But any quiet space will do.
Examine the fracture, trace the repair, again and again.
Use all your senses, but especially touch: feel it. Let the weight of time rest in your hands. Let light shine through it.
Feel with your fingers; horizontal, vertical and diagonal. Move with the lines and softly against the grain. Press and feel and touch with care and precision.
Repeat these actions until every detail is known. Until it becomes a worn-in path, a processed memory, a much-travelled road.
Acknowledge everything, every step, nothing lacked value. Don’t forget us.
You did not exist in this form before.
And that's exactly as it should be.
⁂
✶ Series:
Shellter – On sheltering, shell murmur, and the body as a temporary home.
✶ Pecten I. is mine and will remain mine, I have decided. But the idea behind it is for everyone. Because we all break and heal.
I hope to be able to make many more of these touch pieces, for those who need them. And maybe, when I am a little further along in my process, I can also explain how you can make one. Because healing is something you do.
✦ Image is from the precious matters personal collection, now part of this growing archive. A lifetime of small moments, gathered with care: fragments of a soft universe in the making.
✧ Originally written in Dutch by Merel Slootheer. Translated with care and intuition by Blackbird Ditchlord.
Everything here grows slowly,
with care, in my own rhythm.
𓆑 𓂃 ˖ ݁.