How do you make something sacred?

You draw a circle around it, and say everything inside this circle is sacred.

I’m about to go on holiday. Regular readers of this letter will know that I’m not the best at holidays. They make me anxious. I feel like I don’t deserve them. I get terrible paralysis about what is good value and then I don’t go. But I am about to go away to Sicily for a few days with a small group for a dear friend’s birthday. And I’m excited!

I feel lucky to be able to go away for a few days. I’m planning to completely leave work and especially emails behind for the full time. To invest in resting, and playing, and fully switching off. To make it, in it’s way, sacred.

As a recovering workaholic - even though I haven’t quite extended this recovery to holidays yet, as you can see - one of my biggest battles with myself has been defending, protecting my free time. I hope it’s not too grand to say that I make it sacred. I love a little ritual. I’ve written before here about my morning routine.

Basically, drinking a coffee in bed, reading a book and moving my body every day, was something I never would have allowed myself in my 20s. I would have felt that this was lazy, unambitious, obstructive. Now, I draw a circle around it in my mind, and every morning that I can, I make time for it. It’s a kind of ritual. It is, in its way, sacred.

For me, it’s just as important to draw a circle around work to make it sacred too. Of course, this doesn’t happen all the time - I’m writing this letter to you from bed because it’s cold and grey and dank and I wanted to be warm for a bit longer. But mostly, I try to do my morning pages before starting to write. A little ritual. A little chalk circle.

In rehearsal, this is even more important for me. When I’m working with others I prioritise a check in which is highly ritualised. It has a wonderful multivalency - both serving as a chalk circle in itself, as everything shared within the check in is respected and sacred, and creating a circle around the rehearsal day as a whole. A ritual to support safe, collective vulnerability as well as a marker of the beginning and end of the work. It’s an incredibly powerful tool, something which I will always do.

And perhaps my most quotidian chalk circle is with my phone. For years now, my phone has been sleeping in a different room. I hate to have it next to me in bed and almost never do it, unless I am away with no access to the time. If it has to be in my room for some reason, it’ll be on the other side, but generally it’ll be in the kitchen or elsewhere.

I cannot tell you how much this has improved my relationship with sleep, with stress, with urgency. If there’s one thing you allow to be sacred, let it be your time without your phone overnight. It’s so worth it. I try to put my phone to bed around 9am, and then not retrieve it until 8am the next morning. It’s honestly magic.

Are there any spaces that are sacred for you? What do you like to draw a circle around and declare it sacred? I’d love to hear in the comments.

Thanks for reading. You make this space what it is. I’ll see you next week - on the other side of my holiday!

You’re brilliant,

J x