Awaken: A Springtime Photovoice Practice

January has always felt like a tricky time to set new goals or find clarity on the path ahead. Winter is a time to rest, to slow down and turn inwards, to embrace the dark. So we turn to the Spring Equinox as a waymarker for new beginnings. Ours is a three week crossing, a time for deep noticing, for witnessing the subtle shifts of light, time, & energy.

One way that we can unlearn the harmful patterns of capitalism is to align ourselves with the cycles we see in nature. There are cycles everywhere that we can follow to guide our work, guide our lives. For example, the rising and setting sun (daily), the phases of the moon (monthly), the turning of the seasons (quarterly). There are guideposts everywhere if we are willing to look for them.

Intentional practices offer support in the midst of the complex crisis we’re experiencing in the world around us. Politicized somatics teaches us that we are always practicing something and without intention that can often end up being things that aren’t aligned with our values. 

This is not a workshop for setting big audacious goals, this is a call for daily practice, for staying true to yourself and aligned with what you care about most (whatever that is, you get to decide). It’s a practice of care-forward relationship: to yourself, others, and nature. 

Core Practices

Photovoice

Photovoice is a practice of giving our feelings & thoughts a voice through a visual medium. Photovoice invites us into noticing the world around us. Photovoice allows us to go a layer deeper, an embodied noticing of our inner world. Photovoice reconnects us to our environment and the natural cycles of our days. 

Technically, photovoice is a qualitative research method used in community-based participatory research. I was fortunate to be able to employ this creative, inclusive methodology during my career as an evaluator. I loved how it engaged people and allowed us to find layers of meaning that language didn’t always uncover. So I've reimagined photovoice for self-reflection, a methodology for reflecting on our own lives.

Centering is a practice from politicized somatics. We center to get open, present, and connected to ourselves, to each other, to what we care about. Centering helps us to notice what’s happening inside of us and outside of us. We center to remember who we are and what we want for our lives. We center for more choice, so under all the pressures of the world you have a place to come back to. We center so we can take action from an aligned, principled place.