day 21 - inspiration

Nonviolence isn't just a strategy or a moral stance. It's a practice, and like any practice, it needs fuel.

Inspiration:

• reorients my heart when I'm tired, cynical, or discouraged
• reminds me what I'm aiming toward, not just what I'm resisting
• keeps me choosing not to harden
• keeps my imagination supple and active, even under pressure
• prevents nonviolence from becoming dry, dutiful, or purely performative
• lets me believe in responses that don't yet exist, but could
• holds complexity in harmony

Without inspiration, nonviolence can shrink into:

• rule-following without soul
• restraint without vision
• or worse, a kind of grim endurance that eventually snaps

With inspiration, nonviolence is creative, spacious, and alive. Structured but not rigid.

This small origami form began with an ordinary square. Fueled by inspiration, cut to a pentagon and folded with care it became extraordinary! 

Today I'm practicing inspiration by asking: 

What else is possible here? 

What more beautiful response could exist?

Sakura by Taniguchishoyudo on YouTube

day 20 - self-forgiveness

"Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn't know before you learned it." 

- Maya Angelou

Self-forgiveness is often hard to find.

This bookmark is folded from a dictionary page. It is crowded with self- words, many of them harsh, heavy and morally loaded.

The absence of self-forgiveness feels telling. It shows how exhaustively we've named our inner punishments; how much less our inner kindness. 

Nonviolence isn't only about not harming others. It's also about noticing how fluent I am in self-judgement, and how unfamiliar gentleness can feel.

Today I'm practicing something experimental: naming a mistake calmly, letting the discomfort be there, and adding self-forgiveness to the list - making space for a different story.

day 19 - acceptance

"Open your heart to who you are right now,/Not who you would like to be." 

- John Welwood

Acceptance doesn't mean being a doormat, liking everything that happens, or tolerating the intolerable. 

It's simply acknowledging what is. 

This little book is handmade, hand-stitched and heartfelt. 

It fits in my pocket and has just enough pages to jot down snippets of poems, lyrics, observations and reflections for a week or so - tidbits that may not mean much to anyone else but are important to me. 

When I look back, I see that they reflect my truth in those moments. Each little book becomes a sort of mirror - a way of learning to accept what I see reflected back to me.

Today I'm practicing acceptance through a wabi-sabi lens, nurturing the understanding that nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. 

day 18 - freedom

"You have more freedom than you realize." 

- Rob Brezsny

Freedom doesn't always mean having endless options. Sometimes it comes from awareness and working well within a few clear boundaries. 

Today, I'm practicing freedom by taking this advice, also from Rob Brezsny: "See if you can become aware of an interesting freedom that has not previously been on your radar screen." 

Dolphin by you_and_me_25 on YouTube

day 17 - integrity

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will."  

- Charlotte Bronte

Integrity asks for alignment between what I intend and what I actually do. 

On paper, each fold shows immediately whether I was paying attention or not. 

Today I'm practicing integrity by matching my care to my intention.

Bird card by Jeremy Shafer

day 16 - gratitude

"Gratitude turns what we have into enough." 

- Melody Beattie

Gratitude isn't something I summon to put myself in a better mood - it arrives spontaneously when I see what's supporting me - the chair, the roof over my head, my family, the luxury of time and good health. 

I thank my lucky stars for so much in life. 

Even on a "bad" day, tea with a friend or a cuddle with the cat, or a strip of paper twisted around my fingers and tucked into shape can evoke that feeling and transform my perception. 

Today I'm practicing gratitude by noticing and naming what's holding me up.

Lucky Stars, Traditional, Strip Folding

day 15 - reverence

" Awe produces a state of reverence, a feeling of respect and gratitude for the things that are given."

       - Dacher Keltner

Reverence doesn't necessarily require ceremony in the traditional sense.

It's about seeing the sacred, yes - and also about recognizing the sacred in the ordinary.

This eight-piece modular form feels to me like part flower, part compass, part mandala. I am awed by the beauty of geometry, folded and fit together in such a pretty - but modest - medium. 

Today I'm practicing reverence by noticing symmetry, layers, and the depth of detail I only truly appreciate when I pause.