Yesterday, I organized a memorial event for my mother. It began with a mass, but the priest reframed it beautifully. Not just a memorial, but a moment of gratitude for her life. A celebration of who she was and what she gave. Afterward, we gathered : neighbours, former colleagues, her students, and friends. We shared memories. We told the stories we loved. We laughed, we cried, and held each other in it all. And something shifted. Grief, held together, felt different. One memory opened another. Laughter came more easily. The weight softened, just a little. It made me realize how much my mother valued community, how naturally she connected, listened, and made people feel seen. And how much of that lives on. A quiet reflection for this week: Who are the people or places that hold you? Where does something feel a little lighter, simply because you’re not carrying it alone? It doesn’t have to be a big gathering. Sometimes it's – a conversation – a walk with someone – a moment of being understood. If you feel like opening your journal: - The places or people that hold me are… - A moment of being together that stayed with me is… - When I'm not alone in something, I notice… We don’t always need to make things better. Sometimes, it’s enough to be there, together. Warmly, Beáta

There's a particular quality to Polish Sundays that I'm still learning to sink into. A slowness. A rhythm that doesn't apologize for taking its time. On Sunday, I walked to the Church of St. Mary in Kalwaria, just outside Kraków—a pilgrimage site where light filters through mosaic windows, scattering color across stone. Behind the main altar, a small prayer room held a different kind of silence, the kind that wraps around you like a blanket. It reminded me of something I’ve felt before. When I lived in Malaysia, I missed Catholic churches. Not just the buildings, but the quality they hold—that particular hush, the way light moves differently through stained glass, the warmth and connection to something larger than the weight I carry alone. In Chiang Mai, on an Easter Sunday, I was walking through what felt like nowhere when I stumbled upon a tiny Catholic chapel. So small I almost missed it. So unexpected it felt like a gift left just for me. These spaces carry something I can't quite name—a threshold between the everyday and the sacred. This week, a small invitation: Take a walk. Not to get somewhere. Just to move slowly enough to notice. Let your attention rest on: – something beautiful – something unexpected – something that feels like a small gift. Pause somewhere, even briefly. And notice what shifts. If you feel like opening your journal: The walk gave me… A place that feels quietly sacred to me is… When I slow down, I notice… Not every walk needs to become something more. But sometimes, without trying, it does. And that’s enough. I'd love to hear: Where are the sacred spaces in your life?

There are days when everything feels a little too much. Not overwhelming. Not breaking. Just… heavy in a quiet, persistent way. And on those days, we often try to fix it. Or move past it. Or wait for it to lift. But sometimes, it doesn’t. Lately, I’ve been learning something else. That even inside grief, inside tiredness, inside days that don’t quite open, there are still small moments that gently arrive. Light and shadow moving across a wall. Sun resting on a tree branch. The scent of something soft and familiar. A flower, quietly being itself. They don’t take the weight away. But they sit beside it. And somehow, that helps. Today’s Ritual Find a small pause in your day. Sit with a cup of tea, or simply with yourself. Take a breath—not deeper than usual, just noticed. And ask, gently: - What feels heavy in me today? - Can I let it be here, just for a moment? Then, softly shift your gaze: - What is one small thing, right now, that feels even slightly good? Not big joy.Not transformation. Just a pocket of light. A few lines for your journal - Today feels… - Something that held me, even briefly, was… - A small moment of quiet joy I noticed was… A small creative gesture Draw or paint a simple shape that holds that moment. A flicker of light. A soft colour. A gentle line. Let it be enough. Joy doesn’t always arrive loudly. Sometimes it appears so quietlyyou almost miss it. But it is there, in the smallest forms. If you feel like sharing: What was your small moment today?

This week, like most weeks, I've been walking. Not to arrive anywhere in particular. Just to move through the world slowly enough to actually see it. Sunlight on still-bare branches, turning them gold and amber for a moment before the clouds move on. The first small flowers pushing through — quietly insisting that spring is coming whether we're ready or not. Birds whose songs I can't name but whose voices warm something in my chest. And the reflections in the water. Always the reflections. There are trees along my path that look like they arrived from somewhere ancient. Standing in front of one of them last week, I was suddenly back in Malaysia — in the tropical rainforest, that entirely different kind of green and depth and age. The same sense of wonder, a different world. It reminded me that this quality of attention travels with us. It isn’t about the place. It’s about whether we allow ourselves to stop. Over 10,000 steps a day. My body tires, but my nervous system settles. Something unknots. And then I come home and paint. I don't try to paint what I saw. I try to paint what I felt — the mood the walk left in me, the colour of the light as an emotion rather than a fact. The atmosphere that was still alive somewhere in my body when I picked up the brush. That's what nature offers me as a painter. Not subjects. Not reference. Mood. Atmosphere. A feeling that wants to find its way into colour. 🍵 A journaling prompt for this week: Think of a walk you've taken recently — or a moment outdoors, however brief. Don't try to remember what it looked like. Instead ask: What did it feel like? What was the mood of that place, that light, that moment? If it were a colour, what would it be? If it were a texture — rough, soft, layered, transparent? You don't need to paint a landscape. Just let that feeling arrive on the page in whatever way it wants to. We don't paint what we see. We paint what moves us.

On Sunday we took a small trip to Lanckorona — an artisan village tucked into the hills of southern Poland. Wooden houses with carved details. Tiny galleries with handmade ceramics. Art cafes where time seems to agree to slow down. An old church standing quietly at the edge of it all. What struck me most wasn't any single beautiful thing. It was the feeling the whole place carried — that it had been made carefully, by hand, without hurry. That beauty here was not decoration. It was intention. There's something that happens when you're surrounded by that kind of slowness. Your own pace shifts without you deciding to shift it. You start to notice differently — textures, light, the grain of an old wooden door. 🍵 A quiet question for this week: Where in your day does time slow down for you — even just a little? It might be the first cup of tea. A walk. The moment before you open your sketchbook. Something so small you almost don't count it. Sit with that place for a moment. What do you notice there? If something wants to come through: a colour, a line, a few words, let it. Slow looking is its own kind of art.