Heliotropic #16
Dumpling meditations and flower remedies
Morning, happy Sunday!
This week features my experience with flower remedies, a podcast on creativity, plus a dumpling recipe I make on repeat every Autumn/Winter season.
Quick note: Heliotropic Lists will be posted fortnightly for a little while to make way for other potential, less structured musings.
Alexis Smart Flower Remedies - I forgot about these remedies until someone brought it up recently. I took Ganesh (for creativity) back in late 2022 and after this person mentioned, I realised shortly after I randomly picked up a crochet hook and went mad crocheting like 20 things the rest of the year — even free-handing tops. So there you go!
Speaking of, I made this cute crochet phone sling this week (took me about an hour), because my case for my new/refurbished iPhone hadn’t arrived in the mail yet. Video here if you want to make it. I added a button from an old jacket on mine. This is a great beginner project, less surface area to mess up.
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The Artist Way - I’d known about it for years but never read it, mainly because I thought it would be another self-help-y type read (which I have slim tolerance for). But if you’re looking to reform your creativity, there’s more to it than just the morning pages.
This Podcast - with Julia Cameron and Elizabeth Gilbert (who credits Eat Pray Love to the 12 week program in the Artists Way) is a SUCH a great listen. They’re both such funny and insightful women.
A playlist - I’m not sure if I’ve burnt out of listening to regular music temporarily, but my lounge music era is still going strong. It’s all I listen to (lol), maybe because it makes me feel like I’m at a day spa, or a fancy hotel lobby, who knows. It just transports me to a serene place and that’s what I’m here for!
Dumplings! - it’s finally dumpling weather in Australia and I’ve been making this dumpling soup recipe for three winters now. Just pick up wonton wrappers from the supermarket, then either do prawn/chive (chopped) or mushroom/tofu/walnut/chive (blended) inside and wrap them up. This doubles as a very relaxing form of meditation. The broth is just garlic fried in oil, then add water, soy, stock, salt, ginger, chives, chilli, bring the the boil then add dumplings and baby bok choy (they cook at the same rate). It’s so easy and delicious. Also, the receipt makes plenty of leftover dumplings you can freeze. I usually have this two nights in a row when I make it.
A quick quote/thought - “A rule is a way of structuring awareness.” This is from Rick Reuben’s book and ties into an exercise a friend gave me this week when I mentioned I hadn’t picked a creative practice yet was feeling overwhelmed with what to choose. She suggested after writing the morning pages, to finish it off with 25 creative words. It could be anything, a miniature poem, a line from a novel that doesn’t exist, anything that comes to mind. There’s no rules, other than the structure of 25 words which has given me something to do and an achievable purpose, removing the overwhelm. It’s that start small approach and it’s working for me.
