Tending the Inner Flame: A Conversation with Georgia Wall
A conversation with artist, mother, and ceremonialist Georgia Wall on the power of ritual, the role of art in transformation, and the importance of doing things purely for joy.
“These gestures—ritual, art, poetry—are often seen as having no utilitarian purpose. But that’s the magic of them. They remind us who we are.”
— Georgia Wall
When I asked Georgia Wall what it means to make art, her answer was both tender and quietly revolutionary:
"I was drawn to art because it was a space that didn’t have rules. It didn’t have prescribed ways of thinking or expressing. It was the only place where the subtle, the overlooked, the childlike awe I remembered from my own childhood, could remain alive."
We were preparing for her upcoming guest session (July 28th, 8PM EST) inside the Clarity Journey, a poetic pause designed for those navigating identity transitions, creativity, and reinvention. The theme? Honoring what remains (the raw part of ourselves left standing after a personal tower has fallen) through ritual.
This preparatory conversation with her felt like a valuable session in itself. She read some poetry, and we spoke of the act of creating—why making space for art, altars, and beauty matters.
Spoiler: it’s about cultivating the quiet spaces we carve out for ourselves, especially when the noise of success fades.
Tending to the Quiet Parts of You
"You're the quiet parts of you,” Georgia said.
“All of that needs tending. But we’re so externally oriented that we think we have to tend to it in a certain way. The magic of these gestures—ritual, art, poetry—is that they don’t have a utilitarian purpose. And that’s exactly the point.”
Georgia’s words struck a deep chord in me. I’ve come to believe that true self-validation often comes from doing things that aren’t utilitarian.
When I was laid off during my second trimester from a fast-scaling startup where I held a top executive role, I didn’t rush into the next title. Instead, I felt an urge to listen. I slowed down. I got quiet. One evening, I sat at my manual typewriter (talk about pleasure over convenience) and wrote to my baby-in-the-making, just 14 weeks along. As I meditated through poetry, I heard her ask: Can you make space for beauty? Can you create art for its own sake?
That’s where Nest & North began. Its signature journey is about a lot of things: storytelling, personal branding, transformation, community building, and reclaiming.
But if I had to distill its essence, I’d say it’s about learning to make space for yourself.
That’s both the path and the destination: cultivating quiet spaces from which our true selves—and creative power—can emerge.
And yet, here’s the thing. We rarely give ourselves that permission.
We don’t think of our lives, our inner worlds, as something worthy of time, and even less of an altar. The same way we hesitate to write a memoir. It feels self-indulgent, grand, maybe even pretentious. Yet, as Maureen Murdock puts it, “When you write your memoir, you will understand, perhaps for the first time, the significance of your life through the language, images, and emotions you craft from memory.”
Making time for something is the first step in giving it value.
As Antoine de Saint-Exupery wisely said in The Little Prince, “It's the time you spent on your rose that makes your rose so important.”
This session with Georgia is about exactly that: making space to reclaim and honor the parts of us that have long waited to be tended.
Why Ritual: Make Space to Remember Yourself
As Georgia and I talked through the arc of the Clarity Journey (our descent into the belly of the whale, our shedding of titles, roles, and armor) we landed on the profound relevance of ritual.
“Altar creation,” Georgia shared, “is an externalization of something inside of you. It gives poetic form to something ephemeral and internal. The magic is it doesn't have an utilitarian purpose.”
We talked about inviting participants to build an altar to their "inner flame"—the part of them that never stopped burning, that which still flickers beneath the ruins of past versions of themselves.
These gestures may seem small, even strange. But they’re powerful.
They anchor you. You light a candle, you change the water, you whisper a blessing. . And in doing so, you remember yourself.
Ritual is a portal to meaning-making. It's a bridge between inner and outer worlds, a way of tending to the sacred without needing permission.
“Rituals are anchors,” Georgia said.“They’re reflections of your particular flame. They’re how the body remembers what the mind forgets.”
In this light, the parallel between ritual and art becomes clear.
Art & Ritual: Creating Space for Transformation:
As Georgia reflected, “I think children really guide us in this. Now, as a mother, I see it daily in my children and remember it from my own childhood. That kind of curiosity and awe, that flame, is something we should never lose.”
Art, much like ritual, becomes a space where that inner flame is preserved, kept alive.
There are no prescribed ways to express or create in these sacred spaces.
Both art and ceremony invite freedom—freedom to explore the unseen, the unknown, the subtle, the overlooked.
Georgia shares, "I always say my training as a ceremonialist is as an artist. It's about imagination and play, and the importance of aesthetics and beauty.”
“Just as a painting elicits an emotional response, a ritual or altar can also become a vessel for transformation. In the same way poetry speaks to something deep inside us, ritual can externalize the internal and transform it. That transformation happens through seeing, through experiencing. We can create that same effect with altars, gestures, and intentional space,” Georgia continues, illustrating how both art and ritual create openings for profound change, connection, and healing.
How Ceremony Found Her
I asked Georgia how she came to ceremony.
She told me it wasn’t a single moment: it was a weaving.
“I was doing artist residencies, applying for shows, operating within this specific world of art and audience” she said. “But alongside that, I was on a spiritual path."
She adds: “There was this other part of me that was drawn to places of reverence, contemplation, devotion. So over time, ceremony started to weave its way into how I was making art. Then in 2019, I began really orienting toward making ceremony for others. And that definitely changed the way I practice art.”
Georgia’s path shifted from seeking audience to creating spaces rooted in devotion. Ceremony wove itself into her creative process, replacing performance with presence, and turning her practice into one of reverence and offering.
Why Do Anything Non-Utilitarian “For Its Own Sake”?
This is the question that lives in my bones. It’s what my daughter-in-the-making asked me (through poetry on paper, delivered via typewriter, when I finally slowed down enough to listen): Can you make space for beauty and art?
I think many of us forget. As kids, we start with nothing in our hands but curiosity. We explore, aim higher, and make art for the sake of doing so—driven by a genuine instinct to learn, create, and grow. We make because it brings us joy, because we’re hungry to express, to help, to imagine.
We begin with curiosity. We create out of love. And then the world notices. You’re so talented, it says. You’re gifted. You’re going places. We get the A-pluses. The gold stars. The promotions. The invitation to the shiny side of success. And slowly—often without realizing—we trade the raw thread of creativity for polish. We trade devotion for audience. We forget the original spark.
It’s the same loss Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes about in the story of The Red Shoes in Women Who Run With the Wolves. A little girl, born into poverty, handcrafts her own red shoes—imperfect, stitched from scraps, but hers. They are wild and alive and full of soul. But when a wealthier woman sees her, she is plucked from the forest path and given shiny, proper shoes—fancier, more acceptable. Eventually, those shoes control her. They dance her to exhaustion. She loses herself.
We get praised, promoted, paid. They give us fancier shoes, a golden carriage. We forget our handmade red ones—the ones sewn from thread and hunger and wonder.
That tale lives in many of us.
We forget our handmade red shoes—the ones sewn from hunger and wonder and not knowing what the outcome would be. We begin living to maintain the tower we built.
The structure. The success. The version of ourselves that earns applause.
Georgia reminded me that even art isn’t exempt from external expectations.
At first, she thought becoming an artist meant she was opting out of rules—but eventually found that even in creative circles, the same hierarchies and pressures appeared. Visibility. Audience. The right kind of expression.
“Every world has its tower,” Georgia said.
“Even the art world. There’s always a certain language of success. A way you’re supposed to look, or speak, or show up. So the work becomes: finding the sacred in the quiet places no one else can touch. That’s what altars are for. ”
And that’s what we’re doing here, together, in this journey.
There’s nothing wrong with the accolades. But they were never the point.
The flame was.
And still is.
For the Logically-Minded: Why Ritual Works
For the logically-minded among us (myself included), who wonder why something as simple as lighting a candle could feel so meaningful—here’s what research across neuroscience, psychology, and trauma-informed practice tells us:
Sensorimotor Engagement & Embodied Cognition
Ritual gestures—like placing your palms together in Anjali Mudra or striking a match—activate the motor systems that connect physical action with emotion and memory. The brain-body loop, involving the somatosensory cortex and cerebellum, integrates movement with intention, anchoring emotion into form. (Gallese & Lakoff, 2005; Schmahmann, 2019)Ritual and Nervous System Regulation
Rituals activate the parasympathetic nervous system, calming the body through rhythm, repetition, and structure. This reduces stress hormones like cortisol and soothes anxiety—especially in moments of change or transition. (Brosschot et al., 2005; Hobson et al., 2018) In trauma recovery, rhythmic acts like rocking, chanting, or breathwork have been shown to regulate the nervous system. (van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, 2014)Symbolic Objects and Associative Learning
Objects we choose for ritual—stones, flowers, keepsakes—become symbols through association. Neuroscience calls this contextual healing: when we believe in the meaning of an object, it can produce real physiological effects. These objects activate the prefrontal cortex (symbolic thought) and the amygdala (emotional memory), anchoring our stories into the physical world. (Schultz, 2006; Kaptchuk et al., 2008)Meaning-Making and Narrative Coherence
Ritual is essentially a story enacted—with a beginning, middle, and transformation. Our brains crave narrative structure. Rituals activate the default mode network (DMN), the system responsible for self-reflection, identity, and autobiographical memory. (Bruner, 1991; Raichle, 2015) This makes ritual a potent tool for personal integration, especially during change.Bilateral Integration through Ritual Gestures
Postures like Anjali Mudra—bringing both hands together—stimulate interhemispheric communication, engaging both sides of the brain. This is similar to EMDR therapy, which uses bilateral stimulation to process and integrate emotions. Such gestures foster alignment and emotional clarity. (Shapiro, 2001; Gazzaniga, 2000)
So if lighting a candle feels like medicine, it’s because it is.
Next Steps: A Gentle Invitation
Georgia’s session sits in the heart of our journey. It is meant to feel spacious, intuitive, gently subversive. It won’t try to impress, but invite yout to pause—and in the pause, to remember.
Ritual as Portal: Altar & Word is a soft yet powerful space to explore how ritual can support you through thresholds — creative, emotional, or professional.
Together, we’ll shape intention through symbol and story, crafting a personal altar that holds meaning for the season you’re in. Whether you’re in the midst of a change or simply craving deeper connection to your inner voice, this evening offers grounding, poetic presence — and a reminder that meaning-making can begin with something as simple as a candle, a breath, or a word you’re ready to say.
Come as you are. Leave with something real to hold.
“These gestures are how we tend the quiet parts of ourselves,” she said. “And the miracle is, in doing so, we remember who we are.”
So go ahead: Light your candle. Pick a stone.
Write the words that don’t need to be shared.
Do it not to be seen—but to see yourself again.
Note: this event is free, but limited to 12 participants. Sign up here.
