21 DAYS
OF WONDER
A daily winter practice with Katie Sollohub and guests
15 minutes a day · 1–24 December
21 Days of Wonder is a free daily practice, something I’ve wanted to offer for a long time. It’s built around one simple idea: the wonder of the world, and the wonder of how we see and experience it.
I’m inspired here by Mary Oliver’s instructions for living: pay attention, be astonished, tell about it. That’s really all we’re doing: opening our eyes and our senses to the wonder that’s already there.
HOW IT WORKS
The series runs for 21 days over Advent, from 1 to 24 December, with Sundays off, which brings it down from the traditional 24 to 21. You can join anytime; you don’t have to start on day one. From whichever day you begin, you’ll receive a short video by email each morning.
Each session is just 15 minutes, manageable enough to do at the breakfast table or while you’re washing up. You’ll listen to a poem chosen by that day’s guide, be led through a simple mindful meditation or practical exercise, and be given a creative prompt.
Sometimes that’s something we do together within the 15 minutes; sometimes it’s an invitation to carry into the rest of your day. There’s no homework. Just show up, listen, and be present for those 15 minutes, and see how it colours the rest of your day.
WHO IT’S FOR
You don’t need to be an artist, or have any artistic background, meditation experience or special materials. All you need is openness and willingness. A pencil and paper can help, but even just your eyes (or your phone camera, which is really just another pair of eyes) is enough.
WHY A DAILY PRACTICE
This comes out of my own experience of daily practice over many years: practices that have come and gone, some staying with me a long time. What a daily practice gives me is a commitment to myself: to my creative life as an artist, but really to my own presence, moment by moment, day by day. They say it takes 21 days to build a habit, so let’s start this one together.
YOUR GUIDES
Every session is led by one of a small group of people I’ve worked with and trust:
• Vajradarshini: short Dharma teachings, with a playful, curious creative sensibility + website link
• Nadia Gativa: visual art, working through the body and through dreams + link
• Marina Tsartsara: somatic arts practice, working very much through the body + link
• Emily Ball: painting, with a particular focus on colour + link
• Katrina Pike: a poet, working with words + link
• Nina Perry: sound, listening and recording + link
• Katie Sollohub: drawing as a way of looking at the world, and of connecting to a sense of wonder
WHAT YOU MIGHT TAKE FROM IT
My hope is that this deepens your connection to the world around you: not only the natural world, but the everyday, the mug in your hand, the jumper you’re wearing, a broken twig with a leaf chewed by a caterpillar. It’s a kind of slowing down, a noticing, finding the special in the everyday rather than treating wonder as something separate from ordinary life. The 15 minutes might feel like a meditation in itself; it might support a yoga or meditation practice you already have, or simply become a small daily habit of its own.
Whatever you find in these 15 minutes, my hope is that you carry it forward, into your everyday life and into the year ahead.
Katie