RED LADDER STUDIO NEWSLETTER

Dear Subscriber First Name,

Shhhh—don’t tell anyone I’m writing to you, as I’m actually on retreat. But I felt inspired to write about my New Year’s reflections and to see how yours were going.

We’ve taken a whole week off and are at home, each following our own small programme of activities. My main intention has been not to have one—an intention, that is. No schedule. No expectations. I’m good at all those things, but less good at sitting in the space and seeing what wants to come.

Today is actually the first full day of retreat mode, and I’ve been finishing off my review of 2025 and creating a vision for 2026. A few friends have been on meditation retreats over the New Year, some online, and it got me thinking about what my ideal New Year retreat would be: a combination of meditation and Dharma reflection, alongside time to look back over the past year and consider what I want the next chapter of my life to be about. That’s the week I’m trying to create for myself now.

For the Dharma input, I’ve just started following an online retreat exploring meditation instructions from Padmasambhava.

For my year review, I’ve gathered prompts from various places. I began with some that were shared in Warkitchen—mostly questions about how you want your days to look, and how you want your home to feel. I then added some questions about the creative process, using prompts from Aelfleda’s Instagram for inspiration. I also included a couple of questions from an interview with Chris Williamson.

Next year I’d like to be more prepared and create my own set of questions and prompts in advance, perhaps I’ll share them too, but for now these have been surprisingly good.

I’m at the stage now of looking across all my responses and seeing what threads I can discern. I know it’s no good going into a new year with a long list of intentions and resolutions—I’ll have forgotten them all by the end of February. So I’m seeing whether I can distil all these reflections into something succinct, more of a theme than a set of rules. It’s still a work in progress, but I wanted to share it with you.

One of Chris Williamson's questions was this “Imagine your life was a movie. The audience has been watching from the beginning. They can see your life more clearly than you can. What are they shouting at the screen?”

For me, I imagined them shouting 'take yourself seriously, for god's sake!'

This is the overall theme that’s emerging for 2026: to take myself more seriously.

It’s something that’s been hovering around for a long time, but is only now coming into focus. I first had a clear realisation about it on retreat with Nenagh Watson. She’s a puppeteer, and she had brought with her an almost life-size puppet of a woman—a work in progress. The head was made from a half-deflated football; the body and clothes from found items.

In an atmosphere that was half ritual, half theatre, she introduced the puppet to us. Each of us had the chance not only to meet her up close, but to try animating her—one hand inside the football head, the other working her delicate, leather-gloved hand. Many people were deeply touched. Some felt fear. Most were inexplicably moved to tears.

What does this have to do with taking myself seriously?

I imagined myself in Nenagh’s position, introducing that puppet. I imagined people laughing at the deflated football head. I imagined myself feeling embarrassed or self-conscious, afraid that people wouldn’t “get it.” And they probably wouldn’t have.

I could see that for the performance to work, Nenagh had to take it completely seriously. And let me tell you—she was deadly serious.

In that moment, I saw that whatever I most want to do in my life is like that. Everything depends on taking it seriously—on believing in myself, in my ideas, in my creations, and giving them the weight they deserve.

I can think of all kinds of reasons not to take myself seriously. It’s my insurance policy against being hurt, embarrassed, or misunderstood. But time is running out. This year I’ll be 59. How long am I going to wait?

One of Aelfleda’s questions I especially liked was: Who have you felt jealous of, and why? She added something I hadn’t really thought about before—that we tend to feel jealous of people who are just a little ahead of us, not those who are far ahead. I don’t feel jealous of Laurie Anderson, for example, but I do feel jealous of people I see doing things I know I could do, taking themselves seriously, when I am somehow holding myself back.

I'm now in the process of working out what it would mean, in concrete ways, to take myself more seriously. It's mostly around what I spend my time on, such as deeper, more creative work. Though I'm also reassessing my wardrobe!

Is there something in your life that you’d like to take more seriously? f you feel like it drop me a line and share your own new years reflections.

On my radar this month

TV – Pluribus In a nutshell, the series follows one of a small handful of humans who are immune to a virus that has infected everyone else. The virus has turned the rest of humanity into happy, contented people who are incapable of lying or being unkind. I say “people,” but their minds have merged, so they effectively act as one. In Triratna terms, you might say it’s the collective consciousness gone horribly wrong. I can’t say more without giving anything away. Written by Vince Gilligan (of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul), Pluribus stars Rhea Seehorn—previously Saul’s wife—as the main protagonist. I like that Gilligan has made something with a female lead this time.

Film – One Battle After Another
You can tell we’ve had the sons home—we ended up watching two films by Paul Thomas Anderson. The first, There Will Be Blood, was utterly brilliant, but I’m not sure I can recommend it; it was just so dark. One Battle After Another, on the other hand, was equally brilliant, but funny and hopeful too. The Guardian had it at number one in their top fifty films of 2025, and I can see why.

Food – Congee
In my search for a wintery, savoury breakfast, I recently tried making congee. It’s essentially a rice porridge, cooked slowly with ginger, spring onions, white pepper, and stock until it becomes soft and comforting. You can keep it simple with a splash of soy sauce and sesame oil, or add toppings like a fried egg, shrimp, kimchi, and more. According to Chinese medicine, it’s a remedy for almost everything. Make a big batch and keep it in the fridge.

Book – Travels with Epicurus A friend just sent me this book by Daniel Klein, subtitled Meditations from a Greek Island on the Pleasures of Old Age. I can see why she thought of me. I’ve been writing recently about “Buddhism for hedonists,” and Klein makes a similar point here: an Epicurean is so devoted to pleasure that they don’t actually want very much. A slice of good bread and butter can be divine. It’s a pleasure, in the darkest part of the year, to be reminded of past trips to Greek islands and of the beautifully generous people you find there.

Happenings:

The Guesthouse
Retreats in the Swedish countryside

Our small programme of retreats for next year is now on the website. We start in the spring and run through to the autumn. You’re warmly welcome to join us.
RETREATS 2026

Creative Monday Club
A weekly date with your creative self

Every Monday evening on Zoom
27th October 2025 - 23rd March 2026

FIND OUT MORE HERE

A quote I’m thinking about:

“It feels as if the whole world has been transformed into images of the world and has thus been drawn into the human realm, which now encompasses everything. There is no place, no thing, no person or phenomenon that I cannot obtain as image or information. One might think this adds substance to the world, since one knows more about it, not less, but the opposite is true: it empties the world, it becomes thinner. That’s because knowledge of the world and experience of the world are two fundamentally different things. While knowledge has no particular time or place and can be transmitted, experience is tied to a specific time and place and can never be repeated. For the same reason, it also can’t be predicted. Exactly those two dimensions – the unrepeatable and the unpredictable – are what technology abolishes. The feeling is one of loss of the world.”

- Karl Ove Knausgaard

Wishing you all a peaceful and loving year ahead,
Vajradarshini

P.S. Me setting a strong intention for 2026 😆

Hello, I’m Vajradarshini — a British Dharma teacher living in the south of Sweden with my Swedish wife, Dhammasiri. Our home, The Guesthouse (named after Rumi’s poem), is a place for creative, down-to-earth Dharma practice. From here, we run retreats and workshops, and I also teach internationally, both online and in person. I’m glad you’ve found your way here.

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