ALANA QUESTELL

Microscope Meditations is an informal, site-immersive workshop I’ve developed to invite others to find grace for smallness, inside and out, wherever we find ourselves.

Participants are encouraged to wander the immediate area, together or in solitude, and find resonance in materials around them. The questions in the workbook aim to reveal how one’s own bristles, scars, or thorns may actually be beautiful and worthy of acceptance.

After the search, we gather again to share what we’ve found. We read our own or other’s responses to the questions to approach these tender inner spaces respectfully. I display the textures of the materials gathered from a microscope connected to an overhead projector without context and ask what the group thinks the image might be of. Then, we marvel together at the mysteries of form, substance, and Self, connecting even deeper to the moment and place. What we see and what we “know” diverge to create an opening to let new light in.

The first Microscope Meditation was held under the nurturing and collective learning environment of Ellipsis Open School 2022 in Tavira, Portugal.