Ritual and Personal Space Installation - "Morning Search"

I chose to do my ritual at my desk. My desk is a place where a lot of rituals take place. I eat meals, get ready in the morning, do homework, and chat with my friends all in the same place. Most often however, I get ready and start my day at my desk. One thing that I have been trying to implement recently is being mindful during my morning routine. With this project, I was able to alter my routine by the addition of a word searches. This is a practice I used to do a lot when I lived at home, but with the business of school it's hard to make time for. I remember one winter break, I was hoem from school for two weeks and all I did for entertainment was word searches or reading while listening to jazz music. I like doing word searches because you can let your brain relax while also doing something productive.

Over the course of the five day ritual, I found that this practice primed my brain for more creative endeavors during the rest of my day. I was pretty slow at finishing the search on the Wednesday that I started, but by Sunday, I found that I was much faster at finishing a search. It was like the more frequent I did a word search, the more my skills at it grew.

To add this to my morning routine, I did the search after my breakfast while drinking my morning tea and listening jazz. It was a nice calming experience before the craziness of my day. It was also a challenge in focusing as I tried to zero in on my search amid the chaos of my roommates getting ready behind me.

I decided to highlight the searches in a different color to differentiate each day. I found the images, shapes, and colors that emerged from each search are fascinating and piece within themselves. I documented each morning scene with photos, but plan on bringing my word search book to class as another form of documentation. These five days stand out from the rest of the book as the other searches are done in plain pen or pencil.