Over the past few years, the Japanese word totonoeru, to settle oneself, has come into everyday use.
It spread from the world of saunas. After going back and forth between heat and cold, the state in which your head feels clear and your body relaxes is called totonou.
Time spent looking at a painting has something close to that.
Looking at the same thing at the same time
Settling yourself does not mean doing anything special. It means repeating the same steps at the same time.
In a sauna, the order is heat, cold bath, rest. In the morning, it is waking up, drinking water, opening the window. Because the order is set, your body moves without your head having to think.
When you keep a painting where you can see it, you can add looking to that order. Even without deciding to look, it enters your view. That alone creates a moment of pause.
One breath in front of a painting in the morning
Mimi Ishio, who received a Personal Order Art piece by Mermaid nao, told me that she makes time each morning to pause for a breath in front of the work.
She put it this way: that alone clears her heart, and the flow of her day begins to move gently. Not asking for something, she said, but a time to return to the origin of her own wishes.
Her words are on the VOICES page. It is one example of how someone who received a painting lives with it.
Not aiming for an effect, yet a pause appears
I am not suggesting that looking at this every morning will make you feel better.
Still, when the day begins with a moment of looking at one thing outside yourself, what has been circling only in your head comes to a stop for a while.
It does not have to be a painting. The tree outside the window, the color of a teacup, either will do. Looking at the same thing at the same time. That is what settling yourself really is. A painting is one choice you can keep for that purpose.
[References]
Japan Sauna Spa Association (Japanese): How to take a sauna
Mermaid nao official site: VOICES ― words from Mimi Ishio
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