On showing up and slowing down 🌿

“Listen, I’ve been around too long. I’m getting wiser, working on talking less and learning to understand more — and that’s exciting.”-Denzel Washington

Feb 18, 2025

Dear reader,

I’m feeling grateful to be here today, sharing a personal truth that has been revealing itself since the year began. I’ve learnt that you just have to keep showing up, every day (or as frequently as you possibly can), actively making time for some form of release, some way of slowing down time. This medium of expression has been constantly changing for me: poems, zines, collages, photography, cyanotypes…But the creative act itself has remained.

I’ve been getting deeper into a daily practice of making cyanotypes…Coating the papers with measured magic potions, drawing the curtains to block out the afternoon sun, and in the coming days, the ritualistic joys of foraging, composing, exposing to the glorious sun and then watching the blue appear, always an unexpected shade.

*The Great Blue Sea*, a recent cyanotype experiment

The creative process has taught me a few things about myself:

Everything I write/make/daydream is a story unfolding. I need to discover and hone that voice.
The meandering matters more than the outcome. Something is brewing (blue-ing, heh) and slowly taking shape.
The list of ideas-to-manifest-in-the-future in my Notion will one day exist. It just needs the right time, headspace and collaborators to make it happen.

Manifesting the mountains through collage therapy

I’m currently in a phase of wrapping up projects and carving out time and (head)space for new challenges that feel more aligned to my personal goals. I want to pitch stories I’d like to tell, and take on more commissions, using my own voice and unique approach to world building. If you’d like to work together, please write in to thealiporepost@gmail.com :)

In the meantime, here’s a small curation of words and visuals that have been inspiring me lately. I hope it finds you at the right moment, and inspires you too.

Poetry Corner

This Morning by Jay Wright
This morning I threw the windows
of my room open, the light burst
in like crystal gauze and I hung
it on my wall to frame.
And here I am watching it take possession
of my room, watching the obscure love
match of light and shadow — of cold and warmth.
It is a matter of acceptance, I guess.
It is a matter of finding some room
with shadows to embrace, open. Now
the light has settled in, I don’t think
I shall ever close my windows again.
In Passing by Lisel Mueller
How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness
and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom:
as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious.
Prayer by Arundhathi Subramaniam
May things stay the way they are
in the simplest place you know.
May the shuttered windows
keep the air as cool as bottled jasmine.
May you never forget to listen
to the crumpled whisper of sheets
that mould themselves to your sleeping form.
May the pillows always be silvered
with cat-down and the muted percussion
of a lover’s breath.
May the murmur of the wall clock
continue to decree that your providence
run ten minutes slow.
May nothing be disturbed
in the simplest place you know
for it is here in the foetal hush
that blueprints dissolve
and poems begin,
and faith spreads like the hum of crickets,
faith in a time
when maps shall fade,
nostalgia cease
and the vigil end.
Picking Up Pinecones by Mary Ruefle
I light up a few candles, so
the moon is no longer alone.
My secret heart wakes
inside its draped cage
and cracks a song.
After a life of imagining,
I notice the ceiling.
It is painted blue
with a border of pinecones.
I’ve spent my life in a forest,
Picking up new things,
will it never end?