Daily Rituals for Creativity
Whether you’ve settled into a fruitful groove with your daily health and writing routines, or you’re looking for help in establishing a routine or a change of pace, Ayurveda offers an abundance of daily rituals, collectively called dinacharya, that can help you help your agni help you. Dinacharya classically includes a series of sense-care rituals that on the surface are all about hygiene—the cleansing and oiling of the orifices in the face and the skin through which we take in all of our “food” (edible and otherwise) throughout the day. More broadly, though, you can think of dinacharya as a practice of mindfulness—where you check in with your body to see how it’s feeling today, what it’s been able to digest or not from the day(s) before, and how you can set the conditions for today to support digestion as best as possible.
Relight that spark and feel the flow of creativity once again
Physically, we might notice signs of sluggishness, congestion, fatigue, or an otherwise icky feeling to let us know if we’re not digesting well. We feel that in our minds, too—when we sit down to write, do other creative work, or simply go about our daily activities without a sense of presence, clarity, or intention behind what we do. The flame of agni, in these cases, has been diminished somehow or another, and doing some simple practices to clear out, or put up barriers to, the stressors that impede agni can help us relight that spark and feel the flow of creativity once again.
These three practices are great places to start evaluating the state of your agni on a daily basis, so that you can take steps to ensure it is sufficiently fed and maintained by your food and lifestyle choices. Keep in mind that we are all different, including our agnis, so there’s no one “right” way to feed or free your creative flame. Depending on where you are in your process and your life, you may be more attracted to certain of these approaches more than others; don’t fight it, follow your instincts, and feel free to personalize your rituals as you want or need.
Check back next week for a continuation of Jennifer’s series exploring Ayurvedic rituals for creativity.
