This month’s Mindful Morning aims to reduce stress and unlock creativity with a multisensory journey of taste, touch, and spontaneous expression, deeply rooted in the principles of biophilia—our innate connection to nature.
We’ll begin in the Markel Center’s Thinking Field with a mindful eating ritual, attuning our senses not just to the food, but also to the rhythms and textures of the living world around us. This practice will serve as a bridge, connecting internal sensation with the external environment.

From there, we’ll transition to neurographic linework. Inspired by the organic, self-organizing patterns found in nature (like the veins on a leaf or the growth rings of a tree), this exercise will transform inner experience into contemporary abstraction. You’ll trace your mind’s impulses and emotions into a visual release, creating art that reflects both your internal landscape and the natural one that surrounds you.

Mindful Mornings at the ICA at VCU’s Markel Center is a monthly weekend program rooted in mindfulness practices with the goal of fostering well-being and a deeper connection to the natural world by actively engaging participants with the ICA’s environmentally conscious architecture and the landscape, flora, and fauna that surround it.

No RSVP needed. Program starts in the ICA’s Abby Moore Cafe at 10 a.m.