100 Happy Days

ritual practice to reprogram perception

These are traces of a gratitude journal I kept from December 2017 to March 2018. It forms part of a reflective practice as research method I employed to see if I could change my own perspective on life, through ritual conditioning. 

At the time I was deeply engaged in formal research on the role rituals and performance plays on human individual and social life. I saw an opportunity to apply these insights into my own life.

Inspired by a popular Instagram challenge, I kept a gratitude journal for 100 days. During this time I explored what neurological reprogramming through ritual repetition and storytelling felt like in my own body and mind. 

My one commitment? To share something I was truly grateful for online, every single day — even if I felt awful.

While my research indicated it was theoretically possible, the effects of ritual conditioning seemed limited. However, learning to live with gratitude despite subjective feelings of suffering seemed to offer only gains.

This gallery shares traces of my progress through that process. What I found by tumbling down that rabbit hole is a story for another time…

Day 1

Thank you for friendships and potluck dinners bathed in the same.

Day 2

Thank you for @anybodyzine and its ilk, holding space for PeopleLikeMe to unpack ArtsMovementPurrrrformingBodyPolitics.

Day 3

Thank you for creative expression that facilitates healing, with a pinch of humour.

Day 4

Thank you for ATOM.

Day 6

Thank you for my rich understanding of myth, ritual and symbolism, and the opportunity to create spaces woven through with it.

Day 9

Thank you for being born Here: in this place in this thyme, between this mountain and these oceans.

Day 11

Thank you for the teachings of salt, and the practice of puja.

Day 12

Thank you for the love and teamwork that working with ATOM has inspired these past 2 years.

Day 13

Thank you for my capacity to turn ‘house’ into Home… almost anywhere, and in any place.

Day 14

Thank you for Dharma.

Day 15

Thank you for that final scene in Nina Paley’s Sita Sings The Blues.

Day 16

Thank you for visual planning journals, in which you can think in colour and beyond straight lines.

Day 18

Thank you for the kinds of friendships that make cheesy coasters completely relevant.

Day 20

Thank you for guidance.

Day 22

Thank you for silent oceanside breathers with bestie.

Day 24

Thank you for napBranches in trees at alma maters.

Day 25

Thank you for her adventurous spirit.

Day 26

Thank you for the spaciousness found somewhere only we know.

Day 27

Thank you that I’ve finally found my way back to my dissertation.

Day 30

Thank you for today’s rain.

Day 31

Thank you for love, freedom, aloneness.

Day 32

Thank you for water, for home, and for today’s fall from grace.

Day 34

Thank you for Ocean, fresh purrrspectives on old spaces, and the love which once has flowered (t)here.

Day 35

Thank you for the doors into the wild Self.

Day 36

Thank you for the saying “No mud, no lotus…” and for the fishpond nearby in which the flowers bloom.

Day 37

Thank you for the mists of unexpected magic rising after a rather tough day’s adventure.

Day 38

Thank you for internal days and the deep sleep that followed.

Day 39

Thank you for private languages built between people who love, laugh and grow together.

Day 40

Thank you for my po(i)etic consciousness, for Barney Simon, and his ‘Marat/Sade’.

Day 41

Thank you for Roxy’s Late Night, for longstanding friendship, and for adventures that begin while contemplating trees.

Day 53

Thank you for the he(art) of Mantra Tattoos.

Day 68

Thank you for arts campuses, where even the cheapNasty graffiti is deep.

Day 69

Thank you for @amandapalmer and her fearlessness, honesty and fun.

Day 70

Thank you for atomSpace and spaceCurating… the places where it’s me, my knife & a (staple) gun facing infinite possibility.

Day 71

Thank you for Dalebrook at high tide and the relentless beat of the waves saying simply “carry on”.

Day 72

Thank you for water, and for sky.

Day 73

Thank you for trials by fire, and for a brain that’s wider than the sky and a heart that’s even vaster.

Day 74

Thank you for the gesture of a fish.

Day 76

Thank you for gemstones and the languages between dragons.

Day 78

Thank you for nightmares.

Day 79

Thank you for wild, impractical loves.

Day 80

Thank you for movie nights at the Labia.

Day 81

Thank goddess for this beautiful place… and for the womens’ circle.

Day 82

Thank you for rest at your best friend’s house.

Day 83

Thank you for the quiet beat of my breaking heart.

Day 84

Day 84: Thank you for Ophelia.

Day 87

Thank you for the love you leave behind.

Day 88

Thank you for my Vulcan logic.

Day 89

Thank you for my ceaseless determination to believe in the light that’s in everyone.

Day 90

Thank you for works in progress, and for sisters 3. Thank you for the teachings of water and lotus.

Day 91

Thank you for Ferdinando’s Pizza and the love that holds that place together. Thanks also, for the friends that take you there.

Day 92

Thank you for histories that look like this.

Day 96

Thank you for my friend, the tree, and the safety of her branches.

Day 99

Thanks for the comforts of the longSleep.

Day 100

Thank you for the page 18 recipe for an enquiry into subject-object relations.

Day 2: https://www.instagram.com/anybodyzine/ | Day 3: https://katarasedai.com/visual-diary/ | Day 11: https://katarasedai.com/puja/ | Day 12: https://katarasedai.com/atom-artist-collective/ | Day 15: https://www.sitasingstheblues.com/ | Day 91: https://ferdinandospizza.com/ | Day 100: https://anybodyzine.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ABZ-Vol.-1-_-Issue-6-_-Subject_Object.pdf