Marginalia 1: “We are humming in tune with the entire universe”
A peek into what I’m reading/watching/listening to, working on, and working through
Welcome to a feature I’ve decided to call “Marginalia.” It’s a term that refers to marks that one makes in the margins of a book — sometimes notes, other times drawings. Famous examples of marginalia are in illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period, often depicting personified animals doing weird human things, snails with the heads of humans, and occasionally more grotesque images. Personally, my favorites are all the adorable-yet-violent rabbits seeking their revenge on mankind.
In the context of this Substack post, however, my version of Marginalia involves the things I don’t normally write about. It’s a kind of behind-the-scenes look at what I’ve been consuming and creating — or “working on and working through.”
This edition:
Art for sale
What’s on my reading list
A mid-year check-in
Weird antique store finds
Scientific discoveries on the mysteries of the universe (and other things to watch and listen to)
Art for sale
This year, I submitted two paintings (here and here) to 6x6, the Rochester Contemporary Art Center’s exhibit of small art. This year’s exhibit has over 6,000 6”-by-6” artworks from all over the world. All works are on sale for $20 each, with proceeds benefiting the gallery.
You can order 6x6 artworks from anywhere in the world or buy any of the available submissions in the gallery if you’re local. I recommend stopping by so you can check out the art vending machine, too.
What I’ve been reading lately
Recently read:
Walking In This World by Julia Cameron
One of her books in The Artist’s Way series. Admittedly, I like The Artist’s Way a lot more; this book took me much longer to get through and felt like it rehashed many of the same points. Still, it has some additional wisdom for your inner artist.
“What if creativity itself is, as our creative ancestors teach us, actually a spiritual experience, a way to touch the divine and allow it to touch us? What if we reclaim the making of art as our birthright? Not some frippery on the edge of our serious business of making money. What if we remember and insist that art is central and dignified and important to the human experience?”
Julia Cameron, Walking In This World
The High 5 Habit by Mel Robbins
The premise of this is simple — stand in front of a mirror every morning and high-five yourself. But then the book goes deeper into the psychology of positive thinking and flipping the script on our negative beliefs. (I’ve been enjoying Mel’s podcast lately, too.)
“There is no perfect time, perfect plan, or perfect moment. There is only right now, and you're right on time. But time is ticking. As you drive around and think about the life you want, that dream gets shoved further and further into the back of your mind. It's not leaving you, but it is starting to haunt you.
“Your dreams are your responsibility. No one is coming…
“If you want a new future, act like it. No matter how scared you are, just start. Wake up every day and high five the person you see in the mirror. Then, set a deadline and get started.”
Mel Robbins, The High 5 Habit
Witchbody by Sabrina Scott
A graphic essay of sorts, or as the author says “a rambling and poetic autoethnography of western occult magic as a pathway for environmental learning and advocacy.” Beautiful artwork that offers a fresh perspective on the witch’s view of nature — and how none of us have to go as far as we might think to find it.
Almost done:
The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts
A philosophical work on our interconnectedness. Kind of goes along with Witchbody above in that thinking of ourselves as disconnected from everything else in the world does us a disservice, especially those of us who believe in magic.
“I repeat that the difficulty of understanding the organism/environment polarity is psychological. The history and the geographical distribution of the myth are uncertain, but for several thousand years we have been obsessed with a false humility—on the one hand, putting ourselves down as mere ‘creatures’ who came into this world by the whim of God or the fluke of blind forces, and on the other, conceiving ourselves as separate personal egos fighting to control the physical world. We have lacked the real humility of recognizing that we are members of the biosphere, the ‘harmony of contained conflicts’ in which we cannot exist at all without the cooperation of plants, insects, fish, cattle, and bacteria. In the same measure, we have lacked the proper self-respect of recognizing that I, the individual organism, am a structure of such fabulous ingenuity that it calls the whole universe into being. In the act of putting everything at a distance so as to describe and control it, we have orphaned ourselves both from the surrounding world and from our own bodies—leaving ‘I’ as a discontented and alienated spook, anxious, guilty, unrelated, and alone.”
Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
Just started:
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
How to Know Higher Worlds by Rudoplf Steiner
Initiated: Memoir of a Witch by Amanda Yates Garcia
My mid-year check-in
We’ve reached the second half of 2023. I find this to be a helpful time to check-in on my daily habits and review my progress on the plans I made for the year. I track habits in my planner for things like journaling, doing yoga, reading, and creating. I took an honest look at the numbers, celebrating where I’ve been consistent and recommitting to routines that I know work for me.
If you want to check in with yourself, ask questions like:
What have I accomplished so far this year? (This doesn’t have to be something tangible, by the way. Even a shift in thinking can yield major results.)
What were my priorities so far this year?
What was I most grateful for?
Then onto the planning. Ask yourself:
What do I want to keep doing, stop doing, and transform?
Are there any new goals I want to set?
What are my priorities going forward? Are they the same or different from the ones I had during the first half of the year, and if different, what changed?
What am I looking forward to through the next six months?
The latter question, in particular, excites me. From travel (Salem, MA, and New Orleans are on my list) to writing and art projects I’m focusing on, the second half of the year is shaping up to be even better than the first half.
Need more introspection? Check out The Half Year Reset from Struthless on YouTube.
Weird antique store finds
I’m working on a project right now that I can’t reveal yet, as it will be a gift that I don’t want to spoil. But it involves something I found at an antique store.
I love to find odd paper goods in antique stores, especially things like old postcards and advertisements. They’re good for collaging or just pasting into notebooks in my own sort of marginalia. Here are a few that I picked up on a recent trip:
Things to watch and listen to
A video to do magic to: The Summer Solstice Sunrise at Stonehenge
A song to dance around a bonfire to: “Burn Your Village” by Kiki Rockwell
A mystery of the universe to ponder: The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (a.k.a. NANOGrav), an international consortium of research collaborations, “revealed compelling evidence for the existence of a low-pitch hum of gravitational waves reverberating across the universe,” says The New York Times.
If you’re a science-y person, you can watch the whole NANOGrav presentation. Or, as an article from The Atlantic explains: “The whole universe is humming. Actually, the whole universe is Mongolian throat singing. Every star, every planet, every continent, every building, every person is vibrating along to the slow cosmic beat… All of a sudden, we know that we are humming in tune with the entire universe, that each of us contains the signature of everything that has ever been.”
I’ve been reading a lot about the interconnectedness of all things, and working, in such polarizing times, to feel more connection and less division. It’s kind of a beautiful image to consider: all of us aligned with the universe, no matter where we are in the world, what we believe, or how we define ourselves. More of that energy, please.
And, okay, maybe a little bit of this, too — as a treat: