Collecting & Collaging
A Creative Rhythm to Help Mark the Seasons
Today marks the first day of autumn, otherwise known as the autumnal equinox. When I woke this morning, rain fell steadily against the window and has just continued to do so throughout the day, sinking into sunscorched grass desperate for summer’s heat to relent. There have been moments in these first few weeks of September when I’ve sensed whispers of autumn. When I walk around our neighborhood pond, I notice a handful of leaves on the ground that have already fallen from the trees overhead. When I look up at their long, gangly branches, so much green can still be seen amidst small patches of brown and orange. But as the morning air grows cooler, I know that will soon change.
I breathe in deeply, a sigh of relief coming from somewhere deep as the reality of summer’s end slowly fills me, and I find myself more than ready to let go of a few things, both inwardly and outwardly.
This time of year, especially, I’m reminded that things are always changing.
There’s beauty in that truth, but also a layer of grief, too, among a million other things, and I’m learning how to pay attention to all of it. Well, most of it, anyway. I must admit that this practice of paying attention to both the season of my soul and the outward seasons has proven more difficult than I anticipated. Most days, I find myself forgetting to pause and take notice of what’s emerging, dying, forming, or even re-forming.
As a human being with a full life, I suppose that’s normal. At least, it is for me anyway, as a working mom of a 14-month-old. I think I hold much more than I even realize on any given day, and I often find lately that when I fall into bed at night, I’ve forgotten to pause and behold God with me. I’ve been so immersed in my day, which carries its own sacredness, I know, that I’ve forgotten how to pay attention to anything outside of how I’m going to convince my toddler to sit still enough to get through three meals in a day.
Trust me, it’s harder than it sounds.
So when I awoke this morning, on the first day of my favorite season of the year, I contemplated what it might look like for me to incorporate a gentle, simple rhythm that can act as an anchor for my life amidst the changing seasons. Something that would help me practice beholding that doesn’t feel like an added burden. As I prayed about this, Holy Spirit reminded me of a trip my husband and I took to Maine this past August.
A few weeks before our trip to my favorite place on planet earth (granted, I haven’t been everywhere, but among the places I have been, the coast of Maine still wins out), my mom gifted me a travel journal. It’s a small, black book that consists of reflection questions, invitations to pay attention to and record the sounds, tastes, and images of your trip, pages to make wishlists of things to do or restaurants to check out, among other things, and lots of blank space to glue or tape pictures, receipts, plane tickets, stickers, and virtually anything else that you would want to collect and remember from your trip.
Among all of the different sections of this incredibly reflective travel journal, the blank pages were my favorite.
I filled each page with items I collected, representing what Max and I did each day of our trip. The first day, we landed at the Boston Logan Airport, where we picked up our rental car and took our sweet time traveling to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We stopped there for lunch and a coffee before continuing to a few other coastal towns in Maine. At each stop, I pulled out my Polaroid camera, taking pictures of lighthouses, the meals we ate, and anything else I wanted to remember, as well as collecting receipts, stickers, and maps of the places we visited. When we finally made it to our final destination of Portland, Maine, I had already gathered a nice-sized pile of memorabilia to add to day one of my travel journal.
Our trip lasted about a week, and every night after we would come back to our Airbnb after a day of adventuring in Maine, I would change into my pajamas, make a cup of tea, and get to work on cutting out images of maps I had collected throughout the day, stacking business cards I had grabbed from a few of the little shops I had loved, and gathering my polaroid pictures to organize into a collage.
It was such a fun, carefree, and creative way to mark the day, and now that my little travel journal is complete, I have already enjoyed going back and revisiting those pages, reliving some of my favorite moments from our trip. Each page tells a story—holds memories and fun little snippets of days I don’t want to forget.
That travel journal ended up being a deeper invitation for me to lean into each day, noticing what was grabbing my attention as I practiced being present to each moment as it came. Then, by the time evening rolled around, when I was ready to assemble all that I had collected and glue or tape it to the blank pages of my journal, it turned into a reflective practice as I was able to visually relive my favorite moments. I often found myself filled with joy as I sat back and assessed my work, praising God for the day, but also for the creative way I was able to mark it.
If you’d like to check out the travel journal, you can do so here: The Inspired Travel Journal
When Holy Spirit brought this to mind this morning, I immediately went upstairs and retrieved the travel journal from my bookshelf, thumbing through it and smiling faintly as an idea came to me.
What if I could take this practice of documenting my travels—of collecting small items that marked each day of my trip—and turn it into something seasonal?
What would it look like to collect items—pictures, receipts, maybe stickers or leaves, or other small things—to mark the season of autumn?
So, after my toddler finished her breakfast this morning, and I got a few emails answered and things put away around the house, Gracie and I took a trip to a local crafts store in search of a spiral-bound scrapbook.
I ended up coming home with a navy blue scrapbook (Gracie chose the color, which made it extra special), as well as a book of fall-themed stickers, and some extra scrapbooking tape. On the way home, I grabbed myself a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks and made a mental note to save the coffee sleeve as well as the sticker they put on the side of my drink, detailing what I ordered and when, to put into my seasonal scrapbook as a way to mark the first day of autumn.
When I got home and laid out all of my supplies onto the kitchen table—some of them leftover from my travel journal collages from Maine—I even snapped a Polaroid picture of my pile, already imagining where it would fit on that first blank page next to the evidence of my Starbucks drink.
I’m excited to see what will fill these pages as the months of autumn unfold. As human beings with full lives, I think we sometimes need reminders of what our days hold. Because our days, especially the mundane ones, make up our whole life. It’s the small moments, like running through the Starbucks drive-thru in the rain on the first day of autumn as I play Ms. Rachel through the car speakers and smile, watching my toddler do something akin to dancing in the backseat, that make a life full. And in an attempt to slow down time, even for just a smidgen of a second, I want to collect memories like these and transfer them onto blank pages so that days, months, or years from now, I can look back and remember what was forming me in that season.
I want to mark the season by marking the days and collecting what they hold, even if it’s something as trivial and seemingly silly as a Starbucks coffee sleeve or a leaf lying on the ground.
Because really, none of it is trivial or silly to God. All of it makes Him smile, and I believe all of it is a gift from God meant to make us smile, too. God delights in our delight, and perhaps keeping record of the seasons in this way can be a physical reminder of that truth.
I’ve never done this before, and I know I’m not the first to do it. And there will probably be days or weeks where those pages remain blank because, well, life just gets away from me sometimes. But I hope that it will serve as the anchor my soul is longing for, grounding me to the season of my soul as well as the season outside of my soul. I’m finding that oftentimes, they inform one another in small, almost imperceptible ways, and I want to try to be present to that.
I’m holding this new rhythm loosely, embarking on it gently and without any rules or expectations other than to collect what I notice and put it on the page. For me personally, the simpler the rhythm, the more apt I am to return to it, and maybe that’s true for you, too.
I’m hoping that as I lean in and pay closer attention to the season through this practice of collecting and collaging, my awareness of God grows, as well as my love for Him. I pray it will act as a tender compass of sorts, pointing me toward what’s forming my soul in this season of autumn. Perhaps it will help me discern what my soul needs, what it doesn’t, or just simply be an exercise of presence and creative joy.
Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing how it shapes me as I practice the art of paying attention. And I will, of course, update you in future letters on what I’m noticing as I enter more fully into this rhythm.
Sharing one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems with you seems like an appropriate way to end this month’s letter. Especially since it seems to perfectly describe what my intention is for this new rhythm of marking the seasons.
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Can faith and life really be that simple?
I think so. Maybe not everyday or in every season, but I think we can carve out pockets in time and spaces in our days when we allow ourselves the simple pleasure of just being human—flawed, a little rough around the edges, maybe a little (or a lot) messy, but still beautiful all the same in our pursuit of what makes us pause in wonder before the Creator.
May the start of this new rhythm be just that—a way back to being human with God.
With you on the journey,
Celia
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Life Lately
A Breath Prayer for Autumn
Inhale: Teach me, Holy Spirit, to pause.
Exhale: And see the sacred here.
*If you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, download this complete digital guide to practicing breath prayer.
An Invitation to Pause & Reflect
A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.
Take a few moments this week to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):
What’s one simple way you could mark the season of autumn this week?
Is there a practice or rhythm you feel invited to enter into that might help anchor you in the season of autumn?
The Beholding Co. on Etsy
If you’re looking for contemplative resources or gifts for loved ones, check out my Etsy shop, The Beholding Co., where I offer an array of breath prayer cards, a Lectio Divina bookmark, and digital guides to certain spiritual practices.
Thanks for sharing this idea. 💡