The 'Spring' Gremlin
Spring Cleaning, But for the Soul
Spring is here, and everything feels like it’s waking up at once. Buds cracking open overnight, light stretching later into the evenings, plans forming faster than I can catch up. There’s momentum now— opportunities arriving and I want to meet them all.
But then there’s honesty. The honesty of expansion. The knowing that growth isn’t just about taking stock—it’s about making space.
This week, I moved studios and house, gathering every piece of my material life into a single heap. Books stacked against canvas, postcards and souvenirs pressing into clothes worn thin with time. The weight of it all was daunting— the memories buried inside objects, black holes of subconscious energy I hadn’t touched in years. It felt heavy. So heavy that for a moment, I wanted to burn it all.
And yet, when it came time to move the mound of my life, it wasn’t that hard. It wasn’t that big. It wasn’t that heavy. Everything that had felt massive in my body, in my mind, on my shoulders—fit into the corner of a van, not even a quarter of the space I had imagined. And just like that, the energy was released. The weight dissolved the moment I let go.
That night, I was asked to read a poem I wrote for Holi—a festival I didn’t grow up celebrating, with no childhood memories to call from I didn’t know where to start. So, I drew from the present and spoke of transformation. Standing there, I felt the resonance. The theme of light over darkness, of spring’s celebration, of fighting for colour—it felt profoundly familiar. A reminder that beauty is always worth making space for.
Spring is expansion, yes—but expansion doesn’t always mean adding more. Sometimes it means shedding, cutting away what’s outgrown, creating space for what’s arriving. And when the season shifts, the most honest thing we can do is let go— to step forward unburdened, open, and ready for what’s next. Because growth doesn’t have to be frantic. We move at our own pace, even when the world around us is sprinting.
From The Factory >
Holi – A Celebration of Colour & Words
A few moments from an intimate Holi dinner where I was invited to share my work—displaying my paintings, performing a poem I wrote, and bringing colour to life.
Holi is a Portal
By Karimah
What if joy wasn’t fleeting but something you claimed?
What if the colour wasn’t painted but something you became?
What if today wasn’t just laughter and light—
But a doorway, wide open, to a world burning bright?Holi is a portal, not just a day. A threshold of colour that won’t wash away. It’s a permission slip to let go, to play, To throw your worries to the wind and not look away.
The air hums with music, the sky is alive, Voices like rivers, feet catching fire. Gulal on our hands, the sun in our hair— For a moment, we are; we do not compare.
No past to outrun, no fear to obey, No lines between us, just colour and clay. And when the night falls, when the pigments fade, What will remain of the joy we have made?
Because Holi is not just powder in flight— It is a rebellion, a dance, a fight. Against the grey weight of yesterday’s chains, Against the belief that we must stay the same.
Joy is sacred; it is love, untamed, So let the past fall like ash in the flames. We are the ones who decide what remains— So what will you carry beyond this day?
Will you wake up and choose to see the light in their eyes? To chase your own becoming like spring chases the sky? Will you move through the world like the festival stays? Or leave it behind with the echoes of today?
Holi is a portal, wide open and bright. Step through it with wonder. Step through it with light.
Prompts >
PRACTICE:
Take a small object from your space that you no longer need but have held onto. Write a short reflection on why you’ve kept it. Then, let it go—through donation, repurposing, or simply setting it free.
ASK SOMEONE:
What’s something you once thought you couldn’t part with but later realised you didn’t need?
REFLECT:
Where in your life are you making space for something new? Is there anything you need to release before expansion can happen?
Musings >
“Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.”
- Rumi“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
- Joseph Campbell“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul.”
- Simone Weil“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”
- Pablo Picasso