day 25 - friendliness

"One who prevents you from meeting your destruction is your friend, mitra. Maitri is the spirit that compels your friend to be there for you; friendliness." 

- Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, 

Commentary on Patanjali's Yoga Sutra 1.33 

Friendliness doesn’t require a big extroverted personality.

Sometimes it begins with simple approachability - with how safely we are able to meet what and who is around us.

“Trauma-informed spaces” may sound sophisticated, but they often begin exactly here:
not fixing or advising, simply offering presence and goodwill.

This origami model delights me because it mirrors that idea. From one square of paper emerge three figures: a heart, and two friendly cats side by side.

Three forms, one uncut square - a moment of single sheet origami magic.

Relationship.
Reciprocity.
Connection held at the centre.

Nothing added. Nothing cut away.
Just one sheet, transformed.

A reminder that friendliness unfolds not so much between us as through us.

This practice brings me a great deal of joy. Thank you, friend, for being here to share it with me.

Today I’m practicing friendliness by reaching out with something whimsical.
If you feel inclined, I’d love to hear - what’s bringing you joy today?

Pocket Heart with Two Cats, Kamikey on YouTube

day 24 - harmony

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." 

- Mahatma Gandhi

Harmony happens here, in the way pattern, patience, and purpose meet.

Inhale. Exhale. Chrysanthemums slowly open, cranes glide across the sky, colors and folds settle into peaceful alignment. 

Each reminds me: balance is not aspirational - it is beneath my feet, in my hands, in tiny micro-calibrations, in the rhythm of now.

Today, I am practicing harmony through my breath—letting attention, intention, and action move together, as one living flow.

day 23 - prayer

"There is a way of beholding nature that is itself a form of prayer." 

- Diane Ackerman

Prayer, for me, isn't usually about asking for things. 

(Though sometimes it is.) 

More often, it feels like reverent attention - a pause in which I listen rather than speak. And somehow, that listening transforms things. 

Folding gives my hands something to do while my thoughts settle. Each crease accompanies a slow breath. Each turn of the paper gathers intention. 

This lotus-like bud feels like an offering - something I can cradle in my hands that stands in for longing, or gratitude, or emotions too nebulous for words. 

The open space on the tag above it becomes a place for whatever wishes to be spoken aloud... or only held in the heart - a small altar where fears and dreams can rest side by side.

Today I am practicing prayer through making - one small gesture within an ongoing exploration of how attention itself becomes devotion.

day 22 - mission

"My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature." 

- Jane Goodall

At the heart of non-violence is a mission. A practice of returning to what matters, again and again. 

In yogic philosophy, one's mission may be referred to as svadharma, the specific, unique duty of an individual based on their nature. It is one's personal "right way of living".

Today I'm clarifying my mission by asking myself, what core belief is at the heart of my practice of nonviolence?

Heart Pendant by Fumiaki Shingu

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.