Thank you all so much for reading each week. Your subscription means so much to me - it helps me create the time to think, write and edit. Please do consider either a free or paidsubscription! Thank you 🙏🏼

At first glance, this painting appears disarmingly simple: a mother holds her squirming toddler as two weary pilgrims kneel before them.

A slower look, though, offers the contemporary viewer the opportunity to pause and remember their spirituality (regardless of their religion or lack thereof).

Caravaggio’s Madonna of Loreto was painted sometime between 1604 and 1606 for the altar of the Cavalletti Chapel in the church of Sant’Agostino in Rome.

Its subject was determined by the devotional inclinations of Ermete Cavalletti, an aristocratic Roman citizen who belonged to the confraternity of the Most Holy Trinity of Pilgrims and Convalescents. The confraternity’s primary charitable mission was ministering to the needs of the poor on pilgrimage in Rome.

Cavalletti specified in his will that the chapel should be dedicated to ‘Our Lady of Loreto’ and the altar equipped with a painting of this subject.

It is believed that Mary’s house in Nazareth, where she was born and grew up, was miraculously transported by angels to Loreto in the Italian Marches region (via a brief layover in Croatia). It continues to be a popular pilgrimage destination.

Instead of depicting the flying house, Caravaggio fixes on the moment two poor pilgrims encounter the Madonna and Child in the doorway of an only partly visible, shabby doorway.

The woman’s weathered face gazes up at the holy figures from under a dirty and ragged cap, while the man leans forward with a dazzled attention, his hands almost touching the Christ Child’s food above him.

The entire work is about this moment of interaction: the humble pilgrims, because of their unwavering faith, have been visited by the holy pair.

For 17th century viewers this was shocking.

Standing in the chapel an obvious entry point to the painting is the kneeling pilgrim’s grubby soles.

These muddy feet caused an uproar! The 17th century painter and historian, Giovanni Baglione, wrote that Caravaggio painted: ‘two pilgrims: one of them has muddy feet…and because of this pettiness…the public has made a great fuss over it.’

The cracked skin, swollen joints and embedded dirt dominate the paintings foreground and have been depicted with extraordinary care. Giovanni Bellori, another contemporary painter, declared that Caravaggio was bringing the end of painting because he encouraged artists to seek out ‘common and vulgar things…filth and deformity’, rather than idealised and classicising beauty. Enraged, he describes the Madonna of Loreto as a painting where ‘one is presented with filthy feet of the Pilgrim’.

The muddy feet are crucial to the altarpiece’s devotional message and conform to what is known of devotional practices around the shrine.

When entering Loreto, pilgrims removed their shoes to indicate the holiness of the ground on which they walked and often went through town on their knees. They knelt and kissed the steps of the basilica which holds the Holy House and then knelt again at the threshold of the house itself before entering.

These pilgrims are people who have walked. The dirt is evidence of their devotion. Rather than distracting us from holiness, their feet testify to it.

The central axis of the composition highlights another foot: Mary’s arched right one, poised on tiptoe, provides a visual counterpoint to the muddy pair we’ve just encountered.

The foot is a direct visual quotation of Michelangelo’s Mary in the Last Judgement of the Sistine Chapel.

In presenting a moving and holy vision for his humble pilgrims, Caravaggio needed to distinguish his Virgin. Borrowing the feet of Michelangelo’s Mary transports the enthroned Madonna down to the grimy presence of pilgrims in Loreto.

Caravaggio does what he does best: he brings a subject that has traditionally floated in heavenly realms firmly down to Earth. Divine grace enters ordinary human experience in a setting that feels real and accessible.

Spiritual success is embodied in this poor, old and exhausted pair of pilgrims.

They teach us that recognising the sacred relies on nothing more than humility and faith…

…and not being afraid to get your feet dirty.

Thank you for reading this pocket pause!

Making a ‘snap decision’ is an extraordinary ability that relies on the thinnest slices of experience.

Every time you meet someone for the first time, or pick up an unread book, or click on a link to a new substack, firm judgements are spontaneously formed.

These are made quickly and also relatively unconsciously.

We live in a world that assumes the quality of a decision is directly related to the time and effort put into making it. The phrases ‘haste makes waste’, ‘look before you leap’, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, ‘stop and think’ are drummed into us from childhood.

Gathering loads of information and spending as much time as possible in conscious deliberation before taking action is considered sensible and reliable behaviour.

But there are moments when haste does not make waste and our snap judgements can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and consciously.

The psychologist Nalani Ambady performed an experiment to test this. She gave university students three 10-second videotapes of a professor in action – all with the sound turned off – and asked them to decide how good a teacher they thought he was.

The students had no trouble determining the professor’s effectiveness.

Ambady then cut the clips back to 5 seconds and then again to 2 seconds.

Remarkably, the ratings she received were consistent regardless of whether the students had watched 10, 5 or 2 seconds.

The results were compared with student evaluations made of the same professor after a full term of teaching. Ambady found that they were essentially the same.

Thus, a person watching a silent 2 second video clip of a professor he or she has never met will reach the same conclusions about how good that teacher is as a student who has sat through an entire terms worth of classes.

The art historian Bernard Berenson was known to infuriate colleagues with his inability to articulate how he could see so clearly the tiny defects and inconsistencies in a particular work of art that branded it to be a fake. In one court case, Berenson was able to say only that his stomach ‘felt wrong’, he had a curious ‘ringing’ in his ears, and he felt ‘woozy and off balance’. Hardly scientific descriptions.

Being innately suspicious of this kind of rapid cognition makes it difficult to practice and develop our snap decision capabilities.

However just as we teach ourselves to think logically and deliberately I believe it would be worthwhile to trust ourselves to make better snap judgements.

Could this lead to a more energy efficient and hassle less life?

I believe it could.

Thank you for reading this pocket pause!

Last week my daughter finished nursery. Just like that a chapter of our lives completed as she moves to big school in September.

The milestone caught me off-guard. Unable to hold back my tears I sobbed as I hugged the amazing teachers who have nurtured and loved her.

Perhaps this is the paradox of parenthood: every exciting new beginning is also an ending. Saying goodbye to a stage of life that felt like it would last forever but actually passes in a flash.

The next morning we packed the car and drove down to Cornwall to stay with my in-laws who visit every summer.

The house is full, the days are gloriously chaotic and our daughter is in absolute heaven with her cousins.

Sandy feet, salty curls, burgers on the beach and adventures from breakfast until bedtime.

We are all invigorated by a kind of freedom that seems to blossom in childhood summers. Especially in a place like this: Cornwall is mystical and magical. The piksies and mermaids rule.

My husband’s family has a phenomenal ability to put the children at the heart of the holiday. The result is pure joy and a kind of lively peace that feels surprisingly restorative for everyone.

Here are 3 things I’ve learnt this week about getting the most out of a family holiday:

1. Less is more

   

   The rhythm of the tides, the rock pools teeming with tiny worlds, the expansive beaches - when you stay somewhere so abundant with natural treasure you really don’t need anything else to fill the day with bliss!

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Over the years I have been drawn to visiting holy sites and tombs throughout Israel, Europe and the UK.

Today I am sharing a small collection of destinations that are inspired less by traditional places of pilgrimage and more by the elements.

I’ve found that these locations don’t ask me to believe anything. They simply invite me to arrive and remember. If I’m willing to listen they remind me that the land has its own wisdom and a deep deep resonance.

Jotunheimen (Norway)

Jotunheimen is home to Norway’s highest mountains and vast glacial landscapes. Its name means ‘Home of the Giants’ in Norse mythology. It’s easy to understand why.

My father and his brothers have spent their lives climbing and skiing through this landscape.

I have been taught from a very young age to respect the mountain and to recognise my humble place within the elements. There is no such thing as bad weather - only bad preparation still rings in my ears.

Some of my most special memories with my dad have been in this place. On one occasion the two of us took on the Besseggen ridge. Famous for its incredible views the narrow ridge sits high above two sapphire lakes. As we approached I grew more and more nervous: surely we were not going to climb something so steep?!

My dad led the way and as we climbed the path became more exposed and more vertical. There was no space for overthinking: it demanded my full attention. If I looked too far ahead the summit felt impossibly distant. If I looked to either side the sheer drops were terrifying.

The only way forward was to keep my eyes on the next step, trust my footing and continue moving.

When we reached the top my dad hugged me with relief, apologising that he had forgotten just how steep it was. I think I might have punched him?!

But the climb offered me a powerful lesson: I was struck by how often I can become distracted by comparison or overwhelmed by the size of the challenge ahead or paralysed by what might happen if I fall.

Sometimes the path is simple: just keep going. One step at a time. Not looking left or right but staying present with what is directly in front of me.

More often than not that’s enough to carry me safely to the other side.

Arthur’s Stone (Herefordshire)

Near Dorstone in Herefordshire stands Arthur’s Stone, a Neolithic chambered tomb that has overlooked the Golden Valley for around 5000 years.

Although later folklore connected it with King Arthur, the monument predates those legends by millennia.

Over the last 6 years I have spent a lot of time in Herefordshire - it is a beautiful and wild place. There have been moments when I have been tested to find hidden resources in myself: to know that I am strong, protected and never alone.

I first discovered Arthur’s Stone almost 6 years ago. I was experiencing an early pregnancy loss and felt determined to connect with an uplifting power.

The drive up there was so steep that my first attempt failed (I stalled right after encountering a descending tractor) but eventually I made it and met the ancient stones.

Standing amongst them, overlooking the extraordinary Golden Valley I always feel humbled by deep time.

Places like this were chosen with great care and an understanding that the landscape itself could become a place of ceremony, remembrance and connection.

(For those interested it was here that local antiquarian, Alfred Watkins, first had the insight that led to his theory of ley lines - the idea that ancient sites and landmarks are connected by straight alignments across the landscape.)

Merlin’s Cave (Tintagel, Cornwall)

Continuing on with Arthurian legend…

Believed to be the home of the magician and mentor to the young King Arthur, Merlin’s cave sits beneath the dramatic cliffs of Tintagel.

It is 100m long and can only be accessed during low tide, which lasts roughly 4 hours a day.

I have visited once with my small family and hope to return again soon. The cave is majestic and passes entirely from one side of the island to the other. Standing there it felt like being inside a cauldron: the swirling and swelling tides of life contained within the dark wet walls.

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One of the main reasons I decided to study art history is because I was fascinated by how I see and how that could be different from the way you see.

As a teenager I read Gombrich’s ‘Art and Illusion’. It is a treatise on seeing and the way art can help us understand that our perception is an active choice.

Gombrich uses an example of a circle that is almost complete except for a gap in its circumference. On looking at it most viewers will say: it is a circle. Their visual system will fill in the gap for them.

We do the same with unfinished sketches.

The gestural strokes that sweep across the page mark out the slope of a woman’s shoulder.

Gombrich states: ‘When we look at a sketch…we immediately take in the situation. We do not feel tempted for a moment to interpret its images literally’. Rather, ‘what we read into these accidental shapes depends on our capacity to recognise in them things or images we find stored in our minds’.

We use ourselves to fill in the gaps. I look at Leonardo’s sketch and instead of seeing a decapitated bust my imagination completes the picture. I fill the negative space in the top third of the page with mental projections based on my own unique and personal archive of images, memories and experiences. My viewing is active. It is creative.

How many times have I found myself in social situations where lines are broken or I’m dealing with fragments unable to see the full picture? I can’t help but complete the circle, filling in with assumptions and expectations.

This is a fundamentally human thing to do. The unfinished image ‘can arouse the imagination’, projecting on the blank screen ‘what is not there’. Gombrich continues that perception ‘is always conditioned by our expectations and adapted to situations.’

In order to see clearly we must start by truly seeing ourselves.

To see out there with some discernment we must cultivate a kind of inner seeing.

This is not always a pleasant experience because inevitably when we have the courage to dig inside we will encounter darkness. Shadows that have long been kept hidden or out of sight will emerge.

Love your darkness. Cherish it. It is what makes you human.

Cinema is built as much from darkness as from light.

A film projected at twenty-four frames per second is not a continuous stream of images. Each photograph is separated by a fraction of darkness while the projector’s shutter closes and advances the film. The screen disappears and returns, disappears and returns.

We don’t consciously perceive these black intervals. They are stitched together by our visual system.

Meaning is rarely found only in what is shown.

It is created in the pause between images: in the darkness between flashes of light.

Thank you for reading this pocket pause!

When I first started training in Uri’s unique Alexander Technique studio in Tel Aviv I had absolutely no aspirations to teach. My dreams at the time were to be a renowned documentary filmmaker. It felt confusing to me that I had somehow ended up in a quiet, modest and unheard of corner in Tel Aviv, working with my hands and breath to rebalance myself and others. Being in this place made no sense to me because it didn’t at all fit with my well-thought out and goal-oriented career plan.

But it really felt right.

I had found a teacher that was helping me understand my humanity and a way to live in the most simple and easeful way.

‘Look after the means whereby and the ends will come of themselves and by themselves.’

Over the last decade I have refused, wrestled with and eventually come to accept this quote by F.M Alexander, the man who created the technique. My understanding of it is that instead of obsessing over single-minded goals I can choose a preferred direction and set up the best possible conditions for myself to go that way.

A key concept in the technique is called ‘end-gaining’. Alexander used this term to describe the deeply human habit of fixing so intensely on a desired outcome (‘the end’) that you override, bypass and ultimately destroy the intelligence available to you in the process of getting there.

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A student is taught to stop (or inhibit) before they take action. This allows for a simple pause, a breath and a softening. It opens up possibilities that might go unnoticed when we focus solely on the goal ahead. Stopping before moving, doing or speaking allows us to slow down enough to be here, aware of our aliveness within this moment.

The ability to focus on healthy conditions rather than successful outcomes helped me understand my creative process and distill some key lessons I had learnt as a film student.

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After completing an academic art history degree, my year at film school was a terrifying and transformative time. In the first week I was instructed by my teacher Andrea, to borrow a 16mm camera from the equipment room and ‘go make your first film’. The exercise was simple: to make a 3 minute film with a beginning, middle and end. I made a very short film that captured the creation of a ceramic pot. This initial experience taught me an enormous amount. The following three skills are ones that I continue to foster in myself and my students as I believe that they are essential for our creativity and our health.

1. Trust

Contacting a ceramic studio out of the blue and asking them if I could randomly film one of their potters felt daunting. I was amazed that they were so willing to help a student filmmaker and that Les, the old man in the film, was so happy to spend a Saturday filming with me. I know it seems childishly simple but this experience taught me that the world is full of kind strangers who are willing to help me when I ask.

There have been subsequent moments that have felt much more challenging than this and help has felt almost impossible. For me, the only way through these tough experiences has been to remember that I can trust my intuition and have faith that I exist in a cooperating universe. Asking for help, even as a silent prayer, has amazingly always brought the necessary guidance, encounter or direction.

2. Yield

Before the shoot at the pottery studio I envisaged every single second of the film. My imagined plan and shot-list gave me a sense of security and control when I showed up with my camera to film. But the actual experience that day was completely unexpected and far better than anything I had imagined. Letting go of my rigid structure and instead responding in real time to Les, as he threw, pinched and patted a lump of clay allowed me to capture images that felt authentic and surprising. This is not to say that my planning was a waste of time: in fact I believe that it enabled the success of the shoot that day. But instead of being locked in by the minutiae of every little detail it provided a loose framework that allowed Les to do his thing and me to capture and respond to it. I have observed that this ability to yield and let go of a plan is essential for healing. It allows for real relaxation, which in turn provides an overstressed nervous system the opportunity to release and reset. A healthy nervous system is absolutely critical for wellbeing.

3. Being Seen

After completing my first cut of this little film I was TERRIFIED to show it to my class. As I connected my hard drive to the big screen I apologised about a thousand times for my ‘terrible’ film. But as the images flickered in front of the other students I had an opportunity to see it with fresh eyes. They experienced it in a way that I couldn’t. I observed their reactions and realised that being seen isn’t about being good or bad or about being accepted or rejected. It’s about having the chutzpah to be comfortable with being imperfect and realising that growth can only happen when we are brave enough to share with others. As a student at school and university I had conditioned myself to believe that the grades I received for my work defined and determined my worth. Learning how to make films was an initial step in an education that broke this conditioning. Getting an A* or a D was irrelevant. What counted was much more energetic. A film felt successful if it made the viewer feel something. Enabling a person to laugh, cry, question or connect through seeing a sequence of moving images felt powerful, real and relevant.

Working in Uri’s studio allowed me to discover dormant parts of myself. Instead of caring about fitting into a neat box with a clearly defined label I started to love my multi-faceted nature. With time I started to slowly share these different parts of myself with the world. It felt scary at first: I remember feeling self-conscious when I first shared my artwork online (who was I to call myself an artist?!), and I remember feeling terrified before I taught my first yoga class (who was I to call myself a yoga teacher - I can barely touch my toes!) But every time the experience of being witnessed has been essential part of my growth and my healing.

Thank you for reading this pocket pause!

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During an Alexander Technique lesson a teacher will invite their student to remember their ‘directions’:

Let the neck be free.

So that the head can go forward and up.

So that the back can lengthen and widen.

So that the legs can release away from the torso.

So that the shoulders can release out to the side.

Direction is not where you are going.

We tend to think about our direction as the place we are heading, a destination somewhere over there in the future.

But in the Alexander Technique ‘direction’ means something almost opposite. It is not about the future at all. It is about the quality of intention you bring to the present moment, right now, in your body.

Let the neck be free. So that the head can go forward and up…

The paradox at the heart of these directions is that you cannot do them! You can only WISH them! The moment you try to perform the directions you produce more of the same habitual tension that you are trying to release.

The directions work through a conscious intention lightly held: a thought rather than an action.

The compass finds direction before progress can be measured.

This is exactly what the Alexander Technique insists on. Before speed, before destination, before any measurement of how far you’ve come or how long it’s going to take: orient your direction first.

The directions are not goals to achieve. They are a continuous, present-moment quality of attention given to the relationship between different parts of the body - particularly the head, neck, and spine - that allows the whole system to organise itself more efficiently and freely.

Our culture has taught us to fix so intensely on where we want to get to that we completely override all the intelligence available to us in the present moment. Alexander called this ‘end-gaining’. I’m calling it clock mentality: the tyranny of the destination.

Tick tock tick tock: mechanical time has encouraged us humans to measure our lives by productivity, output and progress toward fixed goals. The invention of the clock created unnatural schedules and a need to constantly be moving forward, faster (the operating system that modern careers run on).

I’d like to invite a gentle revolt against clock-time thinking. Not because progress doesn’t matter but because progress without direction is just acceleration.

During moments of crisis I have not suffered from a lack of speed but from a loss of orientation.

You cannot clock your way to meaning and embodiment. But you can compass your way there!

Clock thinking: how much, how fast, how far? Compass thinking: which way is true for me, right now?

The Alexander Technique teaches you to become your own compass and develop such a refined sensitivity to what is genuine versus what is habitual that you can orient yourself in each moment, regardless of how confused or painful the preceding moments may have felt.

I hope you have enjoyed this pocket pause!

The Wishing Feather

Clara woke up each morning with a yawn and a stretch. She followed her daily routine mostly without resistance: breakfast, school, home, supper, bath, bed.

One afternoon as she hopped over the cracked and broken paving stones on her walk home she noticed something glowing on the dirty pavement. A feather! She held it up to the sky admiring its lightness. Wow Clara exclaimed her mother You’ve found a wishing feather!

Once they were home Clara’s mother explained that a wishing feather was a rare and magical thing: it could grant Clara one wish every day. But how will I know what to wish for? She asked her mother. Don’t worry about the how, start listening and slowly you will know the what…

I’ve been making up this story for my daughter and each night inventing new chapters with new wishes for Clara.

My relationship with wishing is not straightforward. On the one hand I believe we must all practice wishing. And not killing our wish wisdom with BUT HOW?!

On the other hand though I believe that the HOW is oftentimes more important than the WHAT.

A foundational Alexander Technique principle is to focus on the means whereby rather than end-gaining. By focusing on the quality of the process rather than fixating on the end goal a student shifts focus from what they are trying to achieve (the end) to how they coordinate their body to achieve it (the how).

After years of practicing this, contemplating it and applying it I realise that healthy growth and momentum requires a balance of the WHAT and the HOW.

One of the most frequent challenges faced by people who have sought out Alexander Technique lessons with me has been a kind of career crisis. For example: they’ve been offered two new jobs but they aren’t sure which one to take. Or, they’re considering a new direction all together (usually something creative) but feel nervous to pursue the unknown. Or, they feel completely stuck and don’t know where or how to take a step forward.

I have spent a lot of my adult life wondering about this thing so many of us obsess over: careers.

The word ‘career’ originally had nothing to do with jobs. It comes from the Latin word carrus meaning ‘chariot’ or ‘wheeled vehicle’. This evolved to the Italian carriera meaning ‘road’, ‘racecourse’ or ‘track’. Around the 1800s career acquired its modern meaning in English as the course of a person’s professional life.

My own ‘career’ has unfolded in different directions across multiple countries. The road has and continues to be a wiggly one and at times a slow path rather than swift racecourse. It has looked unconventional and probably unsuccessful to observers. The reason for this is because I am terrible at compartmentalising it. I wonder: how many tracks can a person be on in life at the same time?

Our circumstances determine our choices and needs. But I have this niggling feeling that the era of professional and personal transformation we are all living through right now is opening up possibilities to create ways forward in life and career that has previously been impossible. The tools that are available to us to utilise our unique capabilities are unprecedented. If you want to build something, test something or create something it has never been easier to do so.

Anyway, back to the career crises that kept arriving on the chair or table in Uri’s studio.

One example was a young management consultant. He felt confused about whether or not to take a promotion at his company or accept an offer to go in house at a smaller startup. The position was not precisely what he wanted but he had been hoping to leave the consultancy and join something else for a while.

Obviously, I had no way to advise him on this decision.

We started working and stopped talking.

As I work with each individual I tune into my nervous system and let my instincts guide my hands to places of tension in their bodies. My work is mostly silent - as in no speaking - because the conversation between my nervous system and that of my student is usually very alive. Talking is distracting and tends to reinforce unhealthy thought patterns that are embedded in a person’s physicality. It can oftentimes be extremely uncomfortable for a new student to remain silent during a session. Slowly, slowly they grow more comfortable with being supported and held.

At the end of the session I decided to do some chair work with this man and my curiosity for his predicament sparked a few questions. We spoke very briefly in an open ended way - there was an ease in his replies that I had not picked up on previously.

After the lesson he messaged me to tell me he had decided to take the job at the startup and felt excited about this new direction. He also told me that the angst about making a wrong decision had dissolved. He felt trusting that if this step did not work out he could just take another step in a new direction.

The most common career crisis isn’t a lack of options. It’s an inability to distinguish your own genuine signal from the noise of other people’s expectations, cultural conditioning or fear.

Many people don’t know what they truly want because they’ve spent years in a kind of chronic physical and psychological contraction - performing, adapting, pleasing - that has muffled their own inner voice.

When the body begins to release this noise something more reliable becomes audible. Not ambition, not anxiety. Something more like a deep knowing.

We all have access to this deep knowing.

Can you see your racecourse? Slow down and listen.

Close your eyes, find your feather and make a wish.

Who knows where it might lead.

Thank you so much to all the readers who have upgraded to a paid subscription. I am incredibly grateful: your support helps me create the time and space to think, write, edit and share this Pocket Pause. Thank you 🙏🏼.

Again and again I return to Franciscan monk, Richard Rohr’s quote:

We are not so much human beings trying to become spiritual. We’re already inherently spiritual beings and our job is learning how to be good humans! I believe that’s why Jesus came as a human being: not to teach us how to go to heaven, but to teach us how to be a fully alive human being here on this earth.

How to be fully alive?

The wheel turns and we pass through different seasons in our lives. Right now my daily life probably looks repetitive, small and unadventurous. It is! But that is how I like it as a parent to two tiny people: we have figured out the routines that work for us. Stability and predictability anchors the chaos.

Fully alive.

It resonates differently for all of us. Of course it does! But I’m noticing that there are simple tools that can be practiced to engage and invigorate our unique vitality.

Create more than you consume

In Hebrew, the word for ‘healing’ shares the same root as the word for ‘creation’.

From early childhood my mother encouraged me to explore my creativity. It took many different forms: making up games with my siblings, filmmaking, dancing, making paper-dolls and scrap-booking.

For me, teaching is a creative practice. Whether I’m leading a yoga class or collage workshop or private bodywork session, I enjoy the opportunity to deliver ideas or experiences in a way that feels individualised and uniquely me.

I have experienced and witnessed that living in alignment with our creativity opens ourselves to healing on many levels.

Harness your ‘physical intelligence’

When I was 24 I spent a month in Tel Aviv. Every morning I would take the number 10 bus at 8.45am to get to the centre of town. Waiting at the bus stop I encountered the same white-haired man in his 80s who traveled a short while on the bus with me. Reflecting on this now fills me with a warmth and awe for the way this chance encounter gently changed the direction of my life and profoundly impacted the way I relate to my life…

At the time I as an ambitious, stubborn and confused documentary filmmaker. From the outside everything looked fine: I had a job making art history documentaries and I had time to pursue my own projects. But on the inside I felt very lost: I questioned everything I was doin and constantly compared my choices to everyone around me. I was obsessed with whether or not I was doing ‘the right thing’ in life, which left no time to enjoy it.

It was an exhausting and disempowering way to be.

Meeting Uri - the man at the bus stop - and eventually training with him to be an Alexander Technique teacher was transformative.

The practice with him enabled me to quiet and control my paralysing overthinking. It allowed me to return to a wonderfully embodied state of being through the release of built up muscular tension, better breathing and ease of movement.

Very early on in my training I discovered that I could access what I call my ‘physical intelligence’. This ability to re-balance, heal and re-energise was facilitated by the hands on ‘work’ or touch of a teacher. Over time, it gradually opened me up to myself and the incredible physical and intuitive senses that exist within me (and every human being). My experience of simple moments such as walking down the street or sipping a cup of tea were no longer mindless but colourful sensory experiences. I became wonderfully curious and observant of the different sensations within myself.

This ‘physical intelligence’ also taught me to become acutely aware of my physical boundaries, which in turn led me to practice creating emotional boundaries in my life.

Doing so has been essential for maintaining balance and vitality and allows me to be far more efficient, intentional and alive.

Community

A balance of being alone and being with people is absolutely essential for my well-being and vitality. Having time on my own to tune inwards, reflect and relax is restorative. But communing with friends and family is energising and life-affirming.

Practice contemplation

For me, contemplation is a way of listening with my heart instead of relying entirely on my head. It is a state of being in which I can trust my intuition and have faith that taking action from a place of alignment rather than force leads me in the right direction.

The different bodywork and creative practices I have collected over the last decade are crucial tools for my ability to be contemplative. They allow me to be here, now.

Instead of living in the regrets and nostalgia of the past or the hopes and fears for the future, relaxing and letting go allow me to enjoy and be open to my life as it is in this moment.

Sit in the dark

Estelle Frankel, a psychotherapist and rabbi, explains in her book ‘Sacred Therapy’ that:

All life moves in cycles from darkness into light, from contraction into expansion, brokenness into wholeness.

As a young adult I was terrified of my darkness. I felt embarrassed and ashamed of the parts that felt messy and unresolved. I wanted to escape my confusion and avoid the challenges that could expose my vulnerability. As a mother I recognise a tendency I have to protect my daughter from difficult experiences - imagining her suffering causes me overwhelming pain. But I want to find a way to teach her that in order to understand the light, we must also understand darkness. We cannot have one without the other.

There is no greater light, quotes Frankel from The Zohar, a mystical Jewish text, than that light which emerges out of the greatest darkness.

I hope you have enjoyed this Pocket Pause!

A continued thanks to all the paid subscribers. I am incredibly grateful: your support helps me create the time and space to think, write, edit and share this Pocket Pause. Thank you 🙏🏼.

Chiselled into the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi were the words ‘Know Thyself’. This deceptively simple maxim has inspired much thought and debate. For centuries thinkers, artists and poets have been asking themselves HOW does one really come to know and understand themselves.

One such artist is the legendary Minimalist painter, Agnes Martin. Despite difficult beginnings in Saskatchemwan, Canada, Martin went on to be be one of the most pioneering and beloved artists of the 20th century. She spent much of her life in a self-imposed solitary existence in the remote countryside of Taos, New Mexico.

Untitled #5 is composed of horizontal bands of pale colour that are stacked above each other across the canvas. There is no figure, no narrative, no focal point.

Instead Martin directs attention to perception itself. The viewer becomes aware of the act of looking.

How does your eye move, pause and return?

Nothing demands attention and so attention itself becomes heightened. The longer you look at the painting the more it rewards patience.

Its subject is not colour or geometry alone but a state of mind.

Stillness and a quiet form of joy.

Do not disturb your mind with ideas of achieving. To do so is to destroy your concentration and your work.

Much of Martin's writing suggests that creativity comes not from striving but from cultivating receptivity, quietness, and awareness.

She believed that the ultimate purpose of a person’s life was to serve happiness.

Knowing oneself is crucial for recognising that happiness is continuously available at all times for everyone: the confusion is due to our lack of awareness of real happiness.

Happiness is unattached. Always the same. It does not appear and disappear. It is not sometimes more and sometimes less. It is our awareness of happiness that goes up and down.

Becoming aware of beauty and happiness in life is not always easy or straightforward but requires faith and effort. Martin urges us all to believe in life and believe that you can know the truth about life.

Maintaining a positive outlook is key: I believe in living above the line…Above the line is happiness and love…Below the line is all sadness and destruction and unhappiness. And I don’t go down below the line for anything.

One of Martin’s greatest spiritual inspirations was Lao Tzu’s teachings on Taoism.

This is a poem by the poet Su Dongpo (1037-1101) who draws on the wisdom of the Tao.

Truest words

Cannot be spoken.

Truest sound

Cannot be heard.

The tides of the Ocean

Reach beyond the Mountains,

The subtlest echoes

Are deep in the clouds.

Thank you for reading this pocket pause!

A continued thanks to all the paid subscribers. I am incredibly grateful: your support helps me create the time and space to think, write, edit and share this Pocket Pause. Thank you 🙏🏼.

My daughter has been learning about Western artists this term.

Each week she returns home with the name of another 20th century dude: Vincent Van Gogh…Wassily Kandinsky…Pablo Picasso….Claude Monet…

I am delighted that she is being introduced to these legends. But as the weeks pass I find myself wondering if she will be introduced to any great women creators. Because there are many.

The stories that have shaped our understanding of Western Art History as an unfolding of masculine genius have been challenged and rewritten in recent times. The forgotten women who so often invented and inspired their celebrated male counterparts are being revived and remembered.

Here are four of my favourite 20th century artists - all creators I would like my daughter (and son) to know about.

Yvonne Rainer (b. 1934)

Rainer was one of the founding members of the influential Judson Dance Theatre, a collective of artists and dancers whose work challenged the theatricality and emotionalism of modern dance.

She was a ‘late starter’ in the world of dance - taking her first dance lesson at the age of 25.

In her autobiography ‘Feelings are Facts’ she explains: I had a sense of my potential. That I was going to make something out of this recalcitrant, undancerly body, and I was going to carve my own way.

In 1966 she choreographed “Trio A” the first section of a longer piece called ‘The Mind is a Muscle’.

‘Trio A’ has come to be recognised as one of Rainer’s defining contributions to 20th century dance.

It combines everyday gestures like walking, kneeling, and toe tapping with invented ones. It is difficult to distinguish between the seamless flow of movement because each one is given equal attention. In her own words: no one movement is more important than any other, which requires a certain kind of distribution of energy. Very simple things and very difficult things are given the same weight and unmodulated dynamic.

Ruth Asawa (1926-2013)

The photo above, taken by Imogen Cunningham in 1957, is titled ‘Ruth Asawa at Work with Children.’ It shows the American sculptor, Ruth Asawa in her San Francisco studio, semi-hidden behind one of her hanging wire sculptures. She is accompanied by four of her six children.

It offers an example that invites us into the world of an artist that did not sacrifice fundamental parts of her life. For Asawa, family, motherhood, work and community were enriching elements that contributed to a dynamic and purposeful life.

In 1968 she cofounded the Alvarado School Arts Workshop, in San Francisco, where professional artists would work with parents to advocate public arts education. Art can only be taught by artists, she said. If a nonartist teaches a subject called art, it is nonart. She also helped establish San Francisco’s high school for the arts, where the students made mosaics, murals and a garden that Asawa herself tended until her final years. Art is doing, wrote Asawa. Art deals directly with life.

Lucie Rie (1902-1995)

Born Lucie Gomperz in Vienna in 1902, Rie was the youngest of three children in a prosperous Jewish family. As a student at the prestigious Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule, she learnt how to throw pots and also developed a sound understanding of ceramic chemistry. After graduating, Rie steadily built a reputation as a potter. She exhibited internationally at the Paris International Exhibition, where she won a silver medal for her work.

In 1938, following the Anschluss, Austria’s union with Nazi Germany, Lucie left her home in Vienna for England. She set up her home and studio in a small mews house in Bayswater, re-erecting the cupboards and shelves she had shipped from the interior of her Vienna apartment. Lucie lived and worked here for the rest of her life, regularly hosting friends and collectors for tea upstairs, which was neatly served with meticulously prepared sandwiches and cakes in a Viennese style.

During the war years, and immediately afterwards Rie ran a ceramic button-making business in her studio. Whilst many British button factories were requisitioned for the war effort, the government exempted buttons from rationing, believing such ‘fripperies to be socially necessary’ for the morale of women. Rie saw a gap in the market and started to make handmade buttons for stores including Harrods and Libertys. At its height, the ‘Button Factory’, as her studio became known, employed 18 refugees and was producing 6000 buttons per month.

Lotte Rieniger (1899-1981)

Lotte Reiniger was a German film director and the foremost pioneer of silhouette animation.

In her first animation, ‘The Ornament of the Lovestruck Heart’ (made in 1919 at the age of 19) Lotte Reiniger attempted to depict the hidden sensations and emotions that escort two individuals as they fall in love.

Reiniger wanted a subject to test out the silhouette animation technique she was developing with her collaborator and future husband, art historian Carl Koch.

She cut the limbs of both figures and surrounding ornament from black cardboard and thin lead before joining them together with wire hinges. These were then laid flat on a glass table, underlit by a strong light to throw the cutouts into a stronger black relief against the yellow background. Using a camera, which hung above the table, Reiniger took hundreds of photographs, meticulously moving the cutouts into their next position and then photographing the scene again.

On seeing her work the French film director, Jean Renoir, recalled that Reiniger had ‘fairy hands.’

I hope you have enjoyed this pocket pause!

I am excited to share an interview I did with astrologer Helios Cosmos. Thank you Cécilia for inviting me to explore the Taurus archetype with you!

And a continued thanks to all the paid subscribers. I am incredibly grateful: your support helps me create the time and space to think, write, edit and share this Pocket Pause. Thank you 🙏🏼.

“My brain is in my hands.”

This quote is attributed to F. Matthias Alexander - the man who discovered and taught what is now known as The Alexander Technique.

As someone who grew up in a very ‘hands’ oriented home (two of my siblings are musicians and the other one is a sculptor) it was normal to explore ‘thinking’ with my hands.

My elder brother and sister spent hours practicing scales and arpeggios, using their fingers and gestures to translate thousands of dotted notes into sound while my younger sister was never without a lump of clay, pen or paintbrush, fashioning weird and wonderful creatures with her hands.

For all four of us there was an understanding that doing and making was what counted. Don’t get me wrong, we love to sit around the table discussing and exploring ideas. But there was always a deep recognition that it was the making, the doing that counted.

This yielded a very creative household abundant with music, theatre, filmmaking and endless play.

My sister was so obsessed with Jane Austen novels that she transformed her bedroom into an 18th century parlour: no electricity only candle light, no contemporary clothing only old fashioned smock type dresses in imitation of Elizabeth Bennett. She sat on her bed pressing flowers, handwriting letters and sealing them with hand pressed wax seals.

As an art history student I was drawn again and again to images of human hands. Their gestures and compositions intrigued me.

In Latin the word for hand is manus. This originates from a Sanskrit word meaning thinker. The English word man derives from the same root.

Written at some point in December 1819 as he was dying of tuberculosis, Keats scribbled this poetic fragment in the margin of another poem he was working on:

Its vivid immediacy conjures an emotional and poetic bridge between life and death. See here it is - I hold it towards you serves as an urgent plea for connection.

Before becoming a poet, Keats trained as an apothecary-surgeon in London. He studied anatomy, assisted in operations, dressed wounds and worked in hospitals before anaesthetic was available to patients. His hands were trained to touch bodies directly: to feel a pulse, soothe pain and measure fever.

This medical training deeply shaped his writing. Keats developed a unique sensitivity to physical sensation, which gives his poetry an intense bodily presence.

In This Living Hand the hand is not abstract or symbolic. It feels startlingly real. Keats understood the hand as an instrument of contact and care, mortality and knowledge.

We are active beings, alive in every moment to reach out, touch and transform.

Pick up your pen, your paintbrush, your scalpel or just reach out your hand - this living hand - to seize, make and move through your one very tender life.

I hope you have enjoyed this pocket pause!

Thank you so much to all the readers who have upgraded to a paid subscription. I am incredibly grateful: your support helps me create the time and space to think, write, edit and share this Pocket Pause. Thank you 🙏🏼.

I’m reading Siri Hustvedt’s Ghost Stories. It is a meditation on grief, memory and enduring love, written in the aftermath of the death of her husband, writer, poet and filmmaker Paul Auster.

‘Paul’s touch, his talk, his ideas, his books, and his humour are part of me now, not merely as conscious memories but as modes of my being in the world. He lives in my perceptions, my gestures, my gait, and my jokes.’

I have read many of Siri’s books: she is a prolific and accomplished writer who has written novels, poetry, essays on topics ranging from art history to neuroscience. She has a voice and a knife sharp intellect.

I met her once after queuing up to get my copy of Memories of the Future and Blindfold signed at the Hay festival. Siri is very beautiful even more so in real life. It was finally my turn to present the books for signature. She barely looked up, just signed and then onto the next.

Why did I feel so surprised, so hurt by this indifference, this coldness? Had I expected that she would linger and chat to me despite the hundred of readers queuing ahead and behind me?

In that moment I realised that by reading her work I had in some weird way developed an intimacy with Siri. Her written words and my imagination had conjoined to create realities that felt alive and personal. For me. It was jarring to meet her and realise that - of course - she doesn’t know me at all.

There are writers whose work becomes a part of your biography. You remember who you were and where you were when you read certain books or essays. Their form and ideas shaped you, re-oriented you in some way.

Siri’s husband, Paul Auster, was one of these writers for me. In particular his The Red Notebook.

It is a very small, short book. He shares 13 anecdotes detailing extraordinary coincidences that happened to him or were told to him. For example, this is the anecdote number 5:

Twelve years ago, my wife’s sister went off to live in Taiwan. Her intention was to study Chinese (which she now speaks with breathtaking fluency) and to support herself by giving English lessons to native Chinese speakers in Taipei. That was approximately one year before I met my wife, who was then a graduate student at Columbia University.

One day, my future sister-in-law was talking to an American friend, a young woman who had also gone to Taipei to study Chinese. The conversation came around to the subject of their families back home, which in turn led to the following exchange:

‘I have a sister who lives in New York,’ my future sister-in-law said.

‘So do I,’ her friend answered.

‘My sister lives on the Upper West Side.’

‘So does mine.’

‘My sister lives on West 109th Street.’

‘Believe it or not, so does mine.’

‘My sister lives at 309 West 109th Street.’

‘So does mine!’

‘My sister lives on the second floor of 309 West 109th Street.’

The friend took a deep breath and said, ‘I know this sounds crazy, but so does mine.’

It is scarcely possible for two cities to be farther apart than Taipei and New York. They are at opposite ends of the earth, separated by a distance of more than ten thousand miles, and when it is day in one it is night in the other. As the two young women in Taipei marvelled over the astounding connection they had just uncovered, they realized that their two sisters were probably asleep at that moment. On the same floor of the same building in northern Manhattan, each one was sleeping in her own apartment, unaware of the conversation that was taking place about them on the other side of the world

Although they were neighbours, the two sisters in New York did not know each other. When they finally met (two years later), neither one was living in that building any more.

Siri and I were married then. One evening, on our way to an appointment somewhere, we happened to stop in at a bookstore on Broadway to browse for a few minutes. We must have wandered into different aisles, and because Siri wanted to show me something, or because I wanted to show her something (I can’t remember), one of us spoke the other’s name out loud. A second later, a woman came rushing up to us. ‘You’re Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Yes,’ we said, ‘that’s exactly who we are. How did you know that?’ The woman then explained that her sister and Siri’s sister had been students together in Taiwan.

The circle had been closed at last. Since that evening in the bookstore ten years ago, this woman has been one of our best and most loyal friends.

I discovered this book in a bookshop/cafe on the west side of Rabin Square in Tel Aviv when I was 24. There was a small English section with an eclectic selection of books including translations of Israeli writers. I discovered lesser known works of some of my favourite authors: Nicole Krauss, Etkar Keret, David Grossman, including this little paperback, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. I liked the texture of its cover and that I could probably read it in one sitting with a coffee. So I bought it and did just that.

There is something incredibly life-affirming when you read thirteen recorded accounts of unbelievable coincidences. So precise they couldn’t be made up. A reminder of the miracles that exist and happen for us if we are open enough, slow enough to catch them and marvel in astonishment at this extraordinary life.

Since reading it I have often wondered about and looked out for moments when time, chance and place can align.

As many of you know I am an Alexander Technique teacher. The technique is a psychosomatic practice that has many benefits. For me the most profound one is a deep, beyond words realisation that I am free. I am free to be and decide how to respond to my life, I am free to choose where I want to direct my energy, I am free to say yes. I am free to say no. We all are.

A lesson is a masterclass in recognising how uncomfortable it is to step into our natural alignment. Remembering our innate and easeful coordination requires gentleness, slowness and patience.

It took years for me to finally leap and commit to my training in Tel Aviv. I remember people asking me: what is the Alexander Technique? Who is Alexander? I mumbled all sorts of answers - the truth being that I was still in a process of discovering the answers to these questions.

I finally had the courage to follow my heart and claim my soul’s work. I leapt and moved to Israel.

When I did this, in 2019, some really weird stuff started to happen. Those big coincidental moments that I’d read about in Auster’s The Red Notebook started happening TO ME.

I found a tiny studio flat on Weisel street. It took a bit of time to figure this out but it was perfect: very close to Uri’s studio, about ten minutes from Rabin square and it overlooked my absolute favourite street in Tel Aviv: Shlomo Hamelech.

I looked out of my window to the newly built apartment block opposite and decided that I would one day live there: I could see into the flats, which looked clean and spacious. What a dream I thought to myself: that will be my home one day.

My Alexander practice deepened, I started teaching yoga classes and taking private clients. My boss at the yoga studio, Brielle asked me to teach collage workshops, something that turned out to be a popular way to spend an evening. My interests and pursuits that had felt so disparate back in the UK were, like a collage, making sense together: I felt alive and excited by my adventurous life. This place made sense to me and I made sense in it.

Within this unfolding, a person who I had met a few times previously (at a dinner party in London, at a weekend staying with a mutual friend) re-appeared. I was baffled to learn that he was living and working in Tel Aviv for a while. It was as if he had been dropped into my life at this precise moment in time.

He started showing up at my yoga classes. I invited him to Uri’s studio. We would get cups of coffee together afterwards, sitting in the balmy boulevards under the shade of big jurassic trees.

I was enjoying my life on my own. The freedom, the joy, the growth. I was not looking for anyone to distract me from myself!

But there was something about this person…He walked into the yoga studio and pulled out a mat. Brielle looked at me from behind the check-in desk with a knowing look only Brielle could give, nodding slightly in his direction, and said: ‘oh Sophie!’

And I knew she was right. OH SOPHIE!

As we became better friends I discovered that the apartment I daydreamed about living in, the one I could look into from my bedroom window, was at that very moment, his home!

Time, chance and place had somehow conspired to ensure our proximity.

This was just one of many coincidences - they became so obvious it was almost embarrassing to ignore them. Which eventually we stopped doing.

He is now my husband and we are family. We don’t live in that apartment block on Shlomo Hamelech. But the person that he is and the way that he loves: that is my home.

Thank you for reading this pocket pause!

This week I turned 38 (or as my sister likes to remind me: I have entered my 39th year). It feels odd that being 18, a viscerally alive age for me, was 20 years ago.

I am baffled by time, how it passes slowly and quickly. I feel grateful to be in this body in this life.

Read on for 38 afterthoughts on finding my way and finding myself over the years:

1. At this point, you are a collection of experiences. You have read a lot (but not enough), watched a lot (probably more than enough), looked, listened, played many different roles. You have attempted to organise these moments and choices into a sensical mosaic. Stop trying to do this! Your story can be told in all sorts of different ways. Focus on the now. Make the best out of what you have.

2. Use your nostalgia. Channel it to create beauty. Let it teach you how precious each stage of your life is: your teenage antics with best friends, first loves, new cities. Alchemise the longing and ache for how things were into your unique wisdom. This is your treasure.

3. Embrace ritual. Celebrate your birthday. Recognise the changing seasons. Life is cyclical: everything that is born must grow, bloom and eventually fade away. Don’t fight the spiral.

4. You are an artist. The beauty in your life is very simple. Tender moments can break you with their sweetness. This is not a weakness. Your sensitivity to life is one of your superpowers. Don’t harden. When life challenges you and you put on your armour remember you are safe to take it off.

5. Another gift is your ability to read emotional and energetic currents: there is often a subtext to what people say. Don’t doubt yourself. Be direct.

6. DON’T DOUBT YOURSELF! Your instincts, your decisions, your desires, your needs: you know what these are and it is no-one else’s right to convince you otherwise.

7. You are not too much.

8. You have a voice and it is your right to use it. Others will try to silence you. Never ever silence yourself.

9. Your body is an instrument. Take care of it. You will learn that everything in life is vibration - frequency - a wave. Your frequency starts with your physical body: it’s up to you how you attune it.

   

10. Protect your peace. No-one else will do this for you.

11. Cherish the teachers in your life. Tell them how they’ve impacted your life. Say thank you.

12. Leading is letting the people in your class, home, life truly be themselves. Let them be themselves.

13. Create the conditions in your life to keep growing, always. Like a plant you need: darkness and solitude, plenty of space, fresh air/water/light, strong roots.

14. Keep choosing the light. There is darkness and shadow everywhere and in everything. That is how nature works. Keep up the practice of choosing light in yourself and in others.

15. People will disappoint you. You will experience pain. It is all perfect and all chosen by your soul to teach you what you are made of and who you are in this life.

16. Luckily for you you are truly blessed with the most beloved relationships! Your family and friendships are the heartbeat of your life.

    

17. You will have quite a few soulmates! Your children, your husband, your best friends, your siblings, your mum and dad. Embrace the challenges that these relationships present in your life: they teach you to be YOU.

18. Your mind is useful for very simple decisions. Crack open your heart and listen to the wisdom of your body when making the big ones.

19. There will be times when your fear overcomes you. Fear of what people will think, fear of making mistakes, fear of changing your mind. You will learn that fear is limiting and contracting. When you allow yourself to trust that you are safe and that everything is meant to be as it is you can soften into a more loving and kind frequency.

20. It is okay to regret your mistakes. But don’t fall into the trap of believing that missed opportunities = doors are closed forever. Life is generous and wants to give to you. Prepare your vessel to receive and have courage that you are worth it. Because YOU ARE WORTH IT.

21. Everyday is a new opportunity to begin again. (Thanks dad).

22. Take care of yourself first.

23. Say no.

24. Say yes.

25. Time spent with the people you love: your children, your grandparents is the most precious. Make space for super mundane moments together and embrace all the difficult, tired moments. That is the whole point.

26. There is no destination.

27. You are very powerful. When you are yourself your presence is HUGE and MIGHTY. Do not abandon yourself or make yourself small

    just because you are uncomfortable with people not liking you.

28. You can break or build with your words, your actions, your energy. Be kind and respectful always.

29. Live the questions: Who am I? Where am I going? Life is an experiment: revel in making the most beautiful mess. You always find your way. Getting lost is not a waste of time: it’s taking the scenic route.

30. Be the weirdo that you are. Dance in the basement. Get on the stage. Learn Alexander Technique. People will tell you you’re ‘making mistakes’, ‘aren’t you embarrassed?!’ ‘You can’t commit to anything’, ‘you keep changing your mind’. When this confuses or demoralises you remember: you are just a creative and multi-faceted human being!

    

31. Maintain your somatic practices as if your life depends on them: breath = life. Keep up your yoga, Alexander work. Softening into your body is strength.

32. Dance. With your children. With your mum. With your sister at the end of the class. With your best friends. Dance everyday.

33. Sometimes in life you have to be brutal and you must put yourself and your feelings first.

34. My friend Lavinia once explained to me that my life is comparable to a beautiful garden: it is alive with all sorts of different plants and flowers. I tend to some now and others in later seasons of life. Some grow. Some don’t. There is no rush in this garden. Nothing is growing to prove a point to anyone or for anything. This metaphor was so powerful for me - I felt so seen by my friend.

35. Boundaries don’t mean cutting people off. But your life, your space, your psyche is YOURS. It is up to you who is invited in and who is not.

36. Honour your heritage. Your ancestral line is full of unbelievable wisdom. You can access it through your intuition, your dreams, through visiting the places your ancestors lived.

37. Balance vulnerability and privacy. Use your discernment with who you share your intimate world with.

38. Life, your life is always a miraculous gift. Don’t ever feel like you cannot start again or say goodbye to parts of you that no longer feel like you. Your courage and compassion will steer you. Live from the inside out: you are the captain and you are the ship. Set the direction and enjoy every moment big and small.

Thank you for reading this Pocket Pause!

Pocket Pause is a new offering from The Intuition School. In it you will find inspirations that have reoriented me towards joy, wonder and contemplation.

Thank you so much to all the readers who have upgraded to a paid subscription. I am incredibly grateful: your support helps me create the time and space to think, write, edit and share this Pocket Pause. Thank you 🙏🏼.

There are those of us who live a little bit on the outside. Never fixed but always exploring.

Seeing in a way that holds multiple perspectives at once.

Rooting for the truth.

The truth out there and the truth in here.

A desire to see, be seen and make a meaningful impact.

To unravel and experience the chaos and chasms of life. Without judging. Without giving ourselves away.

Many of these people, myself included, are teachers.

Within the field of educating others we find a place to use our voice and enjoy the reciprocal nature of leading and learning.

Today I am sharing a few of my favourite artist teachers. Their work and their lives continue to inspire me. In those moments when I’ve felt boxed in (you must be ‘this’ or ‘that’) they teach me that it is possible (and natural) for our different expressions to coexist.

Joseph Beuys (1921-1986)

“To be a teacher is my greatest work of art.”

Joseph Beuys, arguably one of the most influential artists of the second half of the 20th century was professor of ‘monumental sculpture’ at the Kunstacademie Düsseldorf from 1961-73. He added to the statement above asserting that “everybody is an artist” and has the potential to be creative in the art of everyday life, especially in regards to the development of one’s actions within society.

For Beuys, posting a letter was just as artistic as painting a picture.

Controversially, Beuys abolished any entrance requirements to his courses and replaced the curriculum with self-directed study.

Nevertheless he maintained strict classroom punctuality rules and insisted that all students take draughtsmanship classes. Beuys believed that drawing enabled two points of discovery. Firstly, about the object in question: that “a thing is more than its outer surface leads us to believe.” And secondly, about a student’s own individual self and intuition: “You mustn’t look how the others draw, but must discover your own way of drawing.”

Anni Albers (1899-1994)

“Courage is an important factor in any creative effort.”

German born textile artist, printmaker and educator, Albers elevated textiles as a modern art form.

As a teacher Albers cultivated an educational space that encouraged imagination and invention.

Her experience as a student at the Bauhaus in 1922, which was ‘in a great muddle’ and was only ‘starting to find its way’, informed her subsequent teaching style: “you felt that you were completely on your own and that you had to find somehow your way of functioning…This vacuum is probably very important for every student to experience.”

When she took up her teaching position at Black Mountain College in the 1930s she developed a method that tried to put her students back to ‘point zero’. Their task was to imagine being on a beach at the dawn of time ‘before clothing and pottery’ and use this starting point as a way to discover what a textile could be: “I let them use anything, grasses and the skin of a fish cut into strips…gradually then we invented looms out of sticks…”

This experimental approach allowed students to understand and relate to their materials in a stripped back and essential way before encountering industrial looms in factories.

Luise Glück (1943-2023)

“The minute I started teaching - the minute I had obligations in the world - I started to write again.”

There is no doubt that Glück had an impressive career: In 2014, she was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate, and in 2020, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Alongside her writing, Glück held a deep and lasting commitment to teaching. She had positions at institutions such as Goddard College and Yale University.

Teaching was not just a parallel career but a vital part of her life.

This poem appeared in her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Wild Iris.

The Red Poppy

The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do. I speak
because I am shattered.

Thank you for reading this Pocket Pause!

Thank you so much to all the readers who have upgraded to a paid subscription. I am incredibly grateful: your support helps me create the time and space to think, write, edit and share this Pocket Pause. Thank you 🙏🏼.

I’m not getting on the plane. We are not getting on the plane.

A few years ago we decided to spend the Easter holidays in Greece. Our daughter was almost two and a half and I was still deeply lost in the transition of learning how to be a mother without sacrificing every other part of myself. She had not yet started nursery and every day was an improvised juggle of feeding, playing, napping and attempting to squeeze in moments of creative self-reflection.

I was exhausted. And I felt frustrated that I was unable to figure out the conundrum of unraveling into this new version of myself.

Before we boarded the flight my body tensed and I stopped still. We mustn’t get on the plane. My husband rolled his eyes - not this, again. Come on he insisted. Let’s go.

I mean it I repeated we must not get on the plane.

We got on the plane.

By the time we made it through the arrivals terminal in Athens and into a taxi it was dark outside and very much past my daughter’s bedtime.

The gruff driver barked an extortionate price when we gave the address and was deflated when we refused - although we were ignorant tourists we were not that ignorant.

About 15 minutes into the drive - we were in the middle of a wide motorway - I felt my daughter’s little body flop into mine. She was exhausted and had fallen asleep head in my lap. Ahh my instincts earlier in the day had been wrong - we had made it to Greece and my child was now sleeping: win!

A moment later she strained her head and spluttered a hoarse cough.

Weird I thought why is she coughing. Before I could contemplate this further she was doing her best to hold herself up, her sweet palms pressed against my thighs, as she projectile vomited into my lap and onto the taxi floor.

Apart from the cough my daughter somehow managed this episode without making any noise. It was as though she was aware of our context: nasty taxi driver - middle of the motorway- must stay in car. Almost as soon as the first episode had ended the second wave begun. Her tiny body wretched violently (but silently), my lap now under a sea of toddler vomit.

My husband’s hand was on her back, I was stroking her sticky curls out of her face. Maybe the driver won’t notice what’s happening in the back of his taxi I thought.

Of course I was wrong.

Hey he snarled what’s that smell. Turning back to investigate his pothole face erupted with fury. Get out he roared You get out now.

I’m not an intimidating person, people often think I’m this sweet gentle doormat when they first meet me. They couldn’t be more wrong because I am fierce and there are moments when my people pleasing tendencies/fear of making a scene/being seen as a nut job go completely out the window.

This was one of those moments.

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I have found the images of our Earth, taken from Artemis II, extremely moving and thought provoking.

Our beautiful planet hangs within the vast, infinite blackness.

The four crew members shared their poetic and reverent perspectives, inviting us to remember how special it is to be alive in this place and that finding joy together really is the ultimate purpose in being.

I’ve been busy with the colourful chaos of school holidays. We have just returned from one set of cousins and my daughter is now bursting with excitement at the prospect of seeing her other cousins this weekend.

Watching our children find endless joy and energy in just being together teaches me how simple true richness is. It really does come down to connection, vitality and saying YES to life.

Just before my first nephew was born I scribbled down some notes for him.

Life advice from someone who is by no means an expert in living!

I’ve returned to these principles over the years and as they have been on my mind over the last week or so I decided to share them for this 10th Pocket Pause!

I hope you enjoy.

Here are the 8 guiding points that I find important in living an authentic and miraculous life. Feel free to agree/disagree with them, consider them and challenge them:

1. You will learn how to read and how to write, in English and then other languages. Words are powerful tools. Master and enjoy their magic. But recognize and explore the potential of the other modes in which human beings can communicate and express themselves. Your smile, your touch, the way you move, the sounds you make, are all enchanting. Use these!

2. You will discover activities, interests and ideas that stimulate you. Treasure these. Regardless of whether other people enjoy them or not, these activities, interests and ideas are your personal jewels. Throughout your life you will collect and curate them.

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We are spending part of the school holidays at my brother’s family home in France. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, the trees are bursting with fragrant blossoms. It is a joy to watch our children squeal with excitement as they are reunited.

Creating the space to sit down and write this Pocket Pause has been a challenge!

Rather comically it has become a bit of a family effort: my sister-in-law entertains our youngsters so I can steal moments (on the stairs! In the bathroom! On my bed!) to gather my thoughts.

I gave up writing the Intuition School newsletter for over a year. Despite enjoying the regular Tuesday writing session of processing ideas and sending them out to you all, I stopped.

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Pocket Pause is a new offering from The Intuition School. In it you will find inspirations that have reoriented me towards joy, wonder and contemplation.

My four year old knows what’s what.

Her quick replies and sassy assertions regularly dumfound me and I’m left grappling with the embarrassing truth that I am not the captain of the ship aka our life…she is.

I’ve been remembering a small painting that I first looked at when I studied medieval Sienese art. It is signed and dated by Simone Martini in 1342 and depicts an unprecedented scene within the history of art: an emotionally charged family row playing out amongst none other than the venerated Holy Family.

On the bottom left, Mary is seated on a gold cushion with an open book in her lap. She gazes up to her son on the opposite side of the image. The boy crosses his arms and slouches his shoulders looking in every respect like a contemporary teenager (a pose all too familiar to me). Joseph stands between them, his left arm on Jesus’s shoulder.

The incident shows a moment described in St Luke: having fulfilled their passover feast in Jerusalem the family begin their journey back home only to find that after a day of travelling, Jesus (who is 12 at the time) is not with them. Mary and Joseph return to Jerusalem and it takes them three days to finally find him sitting amongst the elders in the temple, listening to them and asking mind-blowing questions.1

The thought of travelling a day without realising my son was with me and then not being able to find him for another three days is terrifying! The open book in Mary’s lap reads the words fili quid fecisti - son why have you done this? In St Luke she goes on to say: Look, your father and I have been searching for you anxiously.

Jesus’s explanation for his absence is his first recorded utterance in the bible. Is he apologetic? Is he remorseful? No! He replies to his mother’s frenzy by saying What made you search? Did you not know that I was bound to be in my Father’s house? The confusion and worry of Mary’s words are contrasted by his firm, assured and precocious reply (which also majorly undermines his loyal stepfather, Joseph).

Simone has removed the specifics of a particular location, placing the figures against a nondescript gold background. The story becomes universal and forces the viewer to engage with the emotions expressed through the depicted gestures. Jesus glares down at his mother, his arms crossed. His indignation at being interrupted is not unfamiliar to any parent of a strong willed child.

Mary’s solemn gaze and open hand suggests a willingness to talk and listen. Joseph’s hand above hers direct us to the empty unanswered space between the mother and her son. How frustrating to be wrenched from his element, dazzling the church elders with his questions, only to submit to his boring, ignorant, earthbound parents!

It is mystifying that this human scene has been so underrepresented. There are many images of Christ sitting in the Temple with the elders and more of him submitting to his parents on their journey back to Nazareth. But this encounter, which bursts with the complex emotions that bind parents and children has, apart from this one, been avoided.

The art historian, Andrew Martindale, sums up the image as youthful obstinacy in a divine cause in the face of parental pressure!

I hope you have enjoyed this pocket pause!

Sophie

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. 43 And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. 44 But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. 45 And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. 46 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. 47 And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. 48 And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. 49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? 50 And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. 51 And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

Pocket Pause is a new offering from The Intuition School. In it you will find inspirations that have reoriented me towards joy, wonder and contemplation.

Lying back with my eyes closed and my body relaxed a therapist asks me: ‘is there a word, an image, a question?’

I’ve never done anything like this before but here I am reclined in this basement studio just outside Tel Aviv.

It belongs to Tsafy and Amos, a couple who work together to help people access their subconscious.

I’m 24 and obsessed with documentary storytelling and experimental filmmaking. But despite having what others referred to as ‘a really cool job’ I felt miserable and lost. I didn’t know why.

Amos gently repeats his questions.

There is so much chatter in my mind: ‘What am I doing here? Is there a word? Am I doing this right?’

My body softens into the room, my breath deepens.

I’m startled to find myself no longer in their studio, enveloped by the aromas of lemongrass and verbena, but absorbed by a vision: alone, wandering through an arid desert.

What was I doing here?!

I later learnt more about the image of the desert as a kind of psychological landscape. Carl Jung described it in his mystical Red Book, which he worked on privately from 1913 and never intended to be published. During his nightly meditations in which the Swiss psychologist attempted to explore the depths of his psyche, he too found himself in a desert: ‘My soul leads me into the desert, into the desert of my own self.’

It is a lonely, empty and harsh place. But as I explore this unconscious vision I find there is also an extraordinary beauty in it. Away from the relentless noise of my life I lie down on the dusty earth and stare up at the vast sky. I can see the stars so clearly.

A whisper rises: I am the stars and the stars are me.

Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once said that his BOSE noise cancelling headphones were ‘the most religious objects’ he’d ever come across. He explained: ‘I define faith by the ability to hear the music beneath the noise’.

If there is one thing I hope The Intuition School can help with, it is to encourage a practice of deep listening.

To dig past the babbling din of internal voices, external demands and irrelevant chatter to reach places of rich silence and stillness.

From that place we can find our buried treasure.

For Jung the desert was a symbol of being ‘in between’ identities: leaving the old self behind but not yet having found the new one. For most of us, who cling to our labels, this is an uncomfortable place to be. But it is crucial for any kind of genuine returning to oneself. He wrote:

‘If your creative force now turns to the place of the soul, you will see how your soul becomes green and how its field bears wonderful fruit. Nobody can spare themselves the waiting and most will be unable to bear this torment, but will throw themselves with greed back at men, things, and thoughts, whose slaves they will become from then on.’

The thing about intuition that I’ve found pretty irritating is that it usually asks for patience and nudges me to do the things I absolutely do not want to do. Things that feel scary or without any sure outcome, things that people around me might find ‘weird’ or ‘disruptive’ or ‘unnecessary’. I am pretty good at resisting this voice, putting it off and distracting myself.

But ultimately that knock knock knocking on the door of my heart is impossible to ignore.

The desert is a central symbol in biblical narratives: the Torah was revealed in the desert and Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the Judean desert to pray and prepare for his ministry. Jung reminds us that ‘to find their soul, the ancients went into the desert.’ It is not just a geographical place but also a metaphor for how we must be in order to receive wisdom and guidance: empty, silent and nonattached.

Over the years I have enjoyed exploring all sorts of ways to meet the silence in myself and practice real listening.

It is the most simple practices that stand out as the most effective:

• Breath: I remember attending a yoga class in Tel Aviv. Unlike my class which began with a guided movement meditation his class started with fifteen minutes of silence. Before turning on some music we all sat, eyes open or closed, in simple stillness together. It felt unbelievably nourishing and energising.

• Collage: In running my collage workshops I’ve been reminded of the power of communal silence: there is a kind of humming murmur that arises from a group of collage makers, diligently exploring with their hands and finding compositions and images that resonate.

• Alexander Technique: Lying on my back with my hands on my ribs, breathing slowly. My Alexander practice has taught me how to drop into myself and find a deep, indigo stillness.

How do you reach your stillness? I’d love to know.

I hope you have enjoyed this pocket pause!

Love,
Sophie