There are moments in life when something inside us quietly says: it is time to return to yourself.
For me, this next phase is such a time.
I now have eighteen months to prepare for the opening of my Sand & Clay Centre — a space where sandplay, clay, symbolic work, inner healing, and creative process can come together. It is not only a professional project. It is also a deeply personal journey of becoming.
Eighteen months feels right. It gives the work time to move through winter. It allows the quiet, hidden, underground preparation to happen before the doors open. It gives the fire time to become steady.
In the language of Baba Yaga, this is the season of tending the fire.
Baba Yaga does not always give comfort in the way we expect. She does not rescue. She does not make the path easy. She asks us to enter the forest, to face the tasks, to sort what belongs from what does not, and to find the small flame that still burns inside us.
Recently I found myself asking: where have I placed my fire? Who have I expected to keep it alive for me? Where have I waited outside someone else’s door, hoping to be chosen, seen, or warmed?
The answer came gently but clearly:
I release others from being the keeper of my fire.
I take back the task of tending it myself.
This is the work of the next eighteen months.
To tend the fire means returning to the small daily acts that keep the soul alive. It means returning to clay. Returning to sand. Returning to research. Returning to the children and families I serve. Returning to the quiet discipline of building something meaningful, one vessel, one session, one page, one room at a time.
The Sand & Clay Centre will be a place for this kind of return.
It will be a place where children can speak through play before they have words.
Where adults can listen to the symbolic language of the psyche.
Where clay can hold what the heart cannot yet explain.
Where the body, imagination, and soul can slowly find regulation, meaning, and form.
Over the next eighteen months, I will be preparing this centre step by step. I will be shaping the work, refining the programmes, creating vessels, developing workshops, writing, researching, and listening carefully to what wants to emerge.
This is not a rushed building project. It is a process of inner and outer preparation.
A centre is not only made with walls, furniture, and schedules. It is made with intention. With fire. With patience. With the courage to stay close to the work that calls you.
So this is where I begin:
I return to the fire.
I return to the clay.
I return to the sand.
I return to the task.
And slowly, through the passing of winter and into a new season, the centre will take shape.
There are moments in life when something inside us quietly says: it is time to return to yourself.
For me, this next year is such a time.
I have twelve months to prepare for the opening of my Sand & Clay Centre — a space where sandplay, clay, symbolic work, inner healing, and creative process can come together. It is not only a professional project. It is also a deeply personal journey of becoming.
In the language of Baba Yaga, this is the year of tending the fire.
Baba Yaga does not always give comfort in the way we expect. She does not rescue. She does not make the path easy. She asks us to enter the forest, to face the tasks, to sort what belongs from what does not, and to find the small flame that still burns inside us.
Recently I found myself asking: where have I placed my fire? Who have I expected to keep it alive for me? Where have I waited outside someone else’s door, hoping to be chosen, seen, or warmed?
The answer came gently but clearly:
I release others from being the keeper of my fire.
I take back the task of tending it myself.
This is the work of the next twelve months.
To tend the fire means returning to the small daily acts that keep the soul alive. It means returning to clay. Returning to sand. Returning to research. Returning to the children and families I serve. Returning to the quiet discipline of building something meaningful, one vessel, one session, one page, one room at a time.
The Sand & Clay Centre will be a place for this kind of return.
It will be a place where children can speak through play before they have words.
Where adults can listen to the symbolic language of the psyche.
Where clay can hold what the heart cannot yet explain.
Where the body, imagination, and soul can slowly find regulation, meaning, and form.
Over the next year, I will be preparing this centre step by step. I will be shaping the work, refining the programmes, creating vessels, developing workshops, writing, researching, and listening carefully to what wants to emerge.
This is not a rushed building project. It is a process of inner and outer preparation.
A centre is not only made with walls, furniture, and schedules. It is made with intention. With fire. With patience. With the courage to stay close to the work that calls you.
So this is where I begin:
I return to the fire.
I return to the clay.
I return to the sand.
I return to the task.
And slowly, over the next twelve months, the centre will take shape.
Rina