The Art of Relaxation: November 6-20, 2025
Take time to relax this week, even if it’s only for a few minutes. Create art of any type you like, somehow born out of your relaxation - inspired by it, related to it, about it, caused by it, whatever.
The Submissions:
by Heart of Darkness
by Anonymous Frau Redux
My relaxation time usually includes “making knots” in some type of fiber. Currently knitting fingerless mittens on double pointed needles. The color of the pair is Black Walnut and they’ll be a gift for my nephew.
by Captain Quillard
Have you ever heard roosters crowing at dawn,
deep in the woods among the foggy silence and the
dark visage of a gray landscape not yet comforted
by morning’s glow? It is not, as the children’s books
would have you believe, the folksy trumpeting of
a welcome to begin a glorious new day full
of promise and possibility. It is, instead, a foreboding
banshee’s shriek - a warning to all within earshot in the
wooded bowl below that the horrors left to last night’s slumber
have not been eradicated by the cleansing reset of rest, but
remain, rejuvenated even, ready to visit upon you
another axial rotation of worry.
How many times, now, have you done this? Retreated
from life and into the woods, certain that it would be just
what you needed - time to relax - to unclench your jaw and
unfurrow your brow and feel the trouble wash off you, if only
for a little while, ferried away by sylvan stream or boiled off
in a hot tub or soothing bath - only to find yourself incapable
of decompression - unable to succumb to the calm - unwilling
to let go of that which grips you in a constant state of disquiet
and tension - so much a part of you that its release, even for
a brief moment, might carry you with it and obliterate your
entire sense of self. And then what would you do? Then.
What would you do.
Today, perhaps, you should cut yourself a break. Kept up
all night by a dog with nearly as many anxieties as you, you are
exhausted - not at the full strength required to battle the gloom -
easily and overly annoyed by the many idiosyncrasies of your
friend and traveling companion, and more easily and overly by
the idiosyncrasies that are all your own. You try to remind yourself
that you are in a beautiful place with no responsibilities for the
next few days. You walk the dog along the gravel drive, littered
with thousands of acorns, and bend to pick a few up and hold
them in your hands, thumbing over their smooth surfaces and studying
their coloration, shape, and striation of pattern. There are more of
these scattered on the ground than one could possibly count. It’s
almost overwhelming to think of - how nature could generate so many
of these tough, nearly impenetrable little puzzles, in a shotgun strategy
that bets on at least a small percentage succeeding in becoming
oaks - perpetuating the cycle and growing from tiny kernel to
something enormous and imposing - too large and complex to be overcome.
When enough of these acorns manifest their mission near each other,
the canopy created can be enough to block out the light and keep the forest
mired in darkness.
As you stare up at the trees, one of the acorns in your hand
pokes your forefinger with its pointed tip, drawing blood.
You put the handful of worries into your pocket so you can
raise your finger to your mouth and ease the pain. The taste of
iron and earth focuses your mind for a moment, and the first thought it
lands on is a song you’ve heard a million times
Another thing you should’ve known from the start:
The problems in hand are lighter than at heart
Be like the squirrel, girl. Be like the squirrel.
Give it a whirl, girl. Be like the squirrel.
The dog barks and breaks your morning trance. It’s chilly,
but warmer than when you set out. The sun is peeking
through the oak trees over the ridge and its rays are illuminating
beads of forest dew like the string lights that hang from the
cabin’s deck to the fire pit. The acorns jostle in your pocket,
making you aware that they’re still there, but they are not
your focus now. You’ve stopped bleeding. And the roosters
have stopped making sounds.
by Journal Kurtz
Apparently our cats are allergic to their food (an expensive combo of kibble). Now we are tasked with either wasting the money already spent or sorting the cat food to see which is the culprit. This is my life. I’m calling it meditation. I’m calling it art.
Next Week’s Assignment:
Since the next submission day would fall on a holiday, we’ll extend this assignment to be due the week after. People tend to romanticize the holidays. For this assignment, draw or otherwise create a picture that more accurately depicts how your Thanksgiving goes.