Like any landscape we're traversing, anything we’re making, like anything we are collaborating with or relating to in life, writing can be a way of befriending ourselves, becoming our own companions, and noticing the depth and the horizons of our stories and celebrating what makes us human. Sometimes, it's helpful to write to the root: where did this story come from? What is it saying? Following the pathway of a thought process.

Today's letter centers in on writing as a practice of investigating the origins of our stories, going to the root of a thing through shapes on a page, through the inner landscape of writing.

For the full experience, visit Odette Press on Substack, and equip your creative practice with blank journals and marbled cards for writing, connecting, and sharing in our online shop.

Mentioned in today's letter:

Think of the last time you deep belly laughed. Or a moment that rocked you with grief that you felt it in your stomach. Go to that place for a minute — can you feel it?

In today's letter, I'm sharing some reflections on creative practice from an embodied place, examining the role of the core within us physically and metaphorically, and sharing some prompts for your own reflective practice.

For the full experience, subscribe on Substack, shop at our online store, and follow along on Instagram @OdettePress.

What stabilizes and centers you?

A riff on trees, walking, writing, finding center and expanding out. What happens when we emerge out of our circles of comfort?

For the full experience, visit Odette Press on Substack, on Instagram, or shop journals and cards online.

What are you rooted into? What people, places, tastes, songs are you anchoring into? What are you rooting for or aiming towards? What roots are nourishing you? Today, a reflection on seeds, metaphors of plants, and the conversation between inward seasons and expanding out into the world.

For the full experience (links for classes, etc) head to odettepress.substack.com | shop journals and cards here (odettepress.us) and follow along on IG: @OdettePress.

I want to tell you about the delight I feel discovering a fig tree (and other reflections on walking, writing, and mapping through life). In this note, I talk about figs, tracking, growing, and prompts for now and then, as we tune into the past, present, and the future.

For the full calendar of experiences, click here. Subscribe on Substack (free or paid options) and shop journals and cards for your life and meaning making over at the shop.

Imagine this: there is a spotlight on a piece of cord. Cord, like the soft rope used to hang clothing from the line, cord like the line used on boats and sails. Soft, beige. It hangs in the air, frayed on either edge — vignette of shadow surrounds the center of the cord, revealing individual fibers, radial threads fanned out like rays of the sun. Up close, gathered together, they are stronger, woven, held tightly and intertwined, strong in the gathering together.

Today's letter is a riff on strength, togetherness, resilience. It touches on writing, music, and walking.

What holds you? What moves you?

For more, visit the class calendar for writing, bookbinding, and other creative classes, sign up on Substack for the full experience, and shop journals and cards for your creative life over at www.odettepress.us

A reflection on this moment, this season, senses, and scent.

For more, visit www.odettepress.substack.com and shop journals and cards at www.odettepress.us

As humans in the creative process of life, we are looking often for balance, feeling into the places where imbalances and asymmetries are blatant. Where the salt goes, the sweet comes in, the fat and the acid, when cooking; how the breath like the sunlight rises and falls in our bodies and the seasons; where the paint goes, or how to place the graphite on the page, or how and where to erase a line away. In practice, we are looking for the center, often, tasting or sensing when something is off, and adjusting, like in meditation, adjusting our posture. In today's letter, I share some thoughts on simple pleasures to counterweigh grief in the everyday, and share some practices for being and embodying feelings on and off the page.

Mentioned in today's letter:

Taste & Write: Meditating on the Senses irl
Embodying the Artist online
Pop Up at Earth & Me irl
Pleasure Portal: Writing for Aliveness + Feeling Good online
Build Your Journaling Practice irl

also: this article on negativity bias and Buddha's Brain

Visit odettepress.substack.com for the full experience | shop at www.odettepress.us for journals and cards

Pleasure arrives with a glimpse of October — or rather, last week, with the sun. This week's letter is a love note to the sun, to autumn runs, and finding pleasure as a practice for returning to life.

For the full experience, subscribe on Substack at odettepress.substack.com | equip your practice with tools for creative exploration at www.odettepress.us and follow along on Instagram @OdettePress

And other thoughts on weathering the nature of life.

For the full experience, head over to www.odettepress.substack.com. Paid subscribers enjoy seasonal sessions to celebrate transitional times, prompts for practice, and the ability to comment. Follow along on Instagram @OdettePress, and of course, shop journals and cards to celebrate your creative life and the art of the everyday over at www.odettepress.us