Author: Sheree

thirst

| Sheree

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A taster from a new podcast coming your way – Poetry From The Heart. Starting soon the Poetry From The Heart podcast will be a time for you to relax and listen as I read to you a selection of my poetry.

thirst
when the rains come there will be sweetness
when the rains come i will be ready

i am the creature who must survive
without water

my coat and ears and kidneys adapt
to the lack

while blood vessels close to my skin
remain sensitive to sound

during the scorching heat of day
i am underground bent double with grief

every cell of my body calls
out for that healing salve – water

my creamy coat dims
as fur upon my soles cushion

sharp sand pains coursing
through my heart

at night when i should emerge
to hunt i burrow deeper

using my bushy tail to keep hidden
sweeping and protecting my solitude

i wait out the waters keeping cool

slowing my heart beat
some might say i am dead

but i will pad again under the full moon
bark at the moon sing to the moon

once again
once my cracked skin heals
once my parched soul refreshes

as the rains enters and fills my empty pores
with the welcomed sweetness of being enough

Time Away

| Sheree


After this website went live last week, I retreated from the public realm. Being seem, being out there became too uncomfortable.
I was training in Scotland to become a Woodland Leader and that was intense. But I also felt exposed and vulnerable after crowing about a website in the making and then delivering the goods. I had built up expectations. And even though it wasn’t all that the site will be, it still took a lot of courage to create it and set it free. There’s energy that is expended in the task of creation as well as in the worrying around it.
I know I posted on Instagram about these mixed feelings this week. Hopeful expectations as well as fears and doubts. Hoping that what I created was good enough. Not sure how to handle it if it is good.

Feedback so far on the site has been positive. Thank you.
At the moment, I’m just settling in. It’s like I’ve set out my stall. Showing you all what I’ve done and can do, but not offering any opportunities to buy anything yet.
I’m working on my offerings as I have big dreams for Living Wild Studios. Yes I’ve got to develop them, coordinate things a bit first. However, my fears have created further resistance again. My inner critic is turned up to the max, questioning who am I to think anyone would want to work with me? What could I offer that’s different to what someone ekse is offering?
My inner critic feeds on fear. I recognise her and accept her. For now I know, if she’s screaming loudly, it means I’m on the right path. It means I’m pushing myself out of my comfortable zone, listening to my heart and allowing my soul to shine. Yes it’s scary but it’s authentic.
As Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, “Fear is always triggered by creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome. This is nothing to be ashamed of. It is, however, something to be dealt with.”
I’m dealing with it by politely saying thank you to my inner critic for having my back. And then go ahead and create anyway. Watch this space.

a marrying of sites

| Sheree

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
― Margaret Atwood,

Since May 2015, I have lived a nomadic life on the internet. I have created two different websites, in addition to Living Wild Studios, since then.
August 1st 2015, saw Wild Soul Woman being born.
my new home
I created Wild Soul Woman as a safe place to heal. A safe place to heal after a very harrowing and very public shaming. Wild Soul Woman was a space from which to RISE.

A year on from then, and I felt the need for more space, more room to grow into the wild soul woman I was becoming. Bit by bit, day by day, I have been becoming a better version of myself. I have been becoming my authentic self.

Hence, Authentic SheShe was born as a blog where I shared my practice, lessons learnt, opportunities and love affair with creativity. Running parallel with this site was my site dedicated to ,my photography, presented under the title of Sheree Angela Matthews. I used this place as a showcase for my projects in progress as well as a portfolio.

Living Wild Studios is now my creative home, where I am finally sharing multi-coloured strands of my creativity all under one roof. Finally coming home to all of me. To the whole of me. Living wild, living true.

Please consider signing up for Studio Notes. You’ll find out what’s happening in the studios before anyone else!

Blog

lichen

| Sheree

The symbiosis of a fungus and a green alga, lichen is the first plant to colonise a hardened lava field. Versatile and hardy, it thrives to survive under harsh, volatile conditions. She marvels at its tenacity, wishing she was as hardy. Wishing she was as robust. Clinging to rocks, tree trunks and wire, lichen grows and glows, sexually producing spores in sacs. Branching and shrubby, once upon a time she would have been too afraid to look so closely, to distinguish life amongst the dark holes of decay. Now she does not look away. Now she sees the beauty.

Coppery red flat tops
curl in towards
soft shiny centres

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April – A Poem A Day

beacon of light

| Sheree

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at night lit up
like a beacon
of salvation

A nation divided. At the point of civil war.
A heathen Priest, who everyone trusted and respected who was called upon to decide. After hours of meditation, he proclaimed that we should believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And we should to keep our pagan sacrifices and the eating of horseflesh private. It was agreed. People were baptised and the Priest throw his statues of the Norse gods into the waterfall, now know as Godafoss.

April – A Poem A Day

the last accordion men

| Sheree

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Closed to air plane traffic, cracks in the asphalt house dandelions and buttercups. Radio silence. Zero fumes. Thingeyri airport ceases to welcome travellers.
And yet drop by on a Tuesday night, and you will hear music. The last accordion men in the hanger play as if the traditional dances of Iceland are in full swing still. Grey haired, stooping, hoarse men of age put their arms and fingers and memories through their paces. Their beautiful youth moves through each moaning note. No music is written down. Unless a boy is amongst them this merry-go-round music will die with the last accordion man.

Over the roar of the engines
and the thumbing of the wheels
the wheezing heart of old switches

 

April – A Poem A Day

take me to the huts

| Sheree

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Two columns of huts.
Fish lynched on nails.
Thick flesh dries deep.

Perhaps he brings home a big catch. Much bigger than they could ever eat in a week, this family of five. Perhaps, he hangs up the surplus in his shed. Sliced in two lengthwise, nailed by the tail, or maybe where the head should be, flesh juicy to the sun, while he thinks what to do with so many fish and so few mouths.
Perhaps, in time he forgets about this problem. Only catching a whiff of fish sometimes when the wind blows in from the west. Remembering he needs to sort them out some way or another.
Perhaps, it is his firstborn who ventures in drawn by the smell as well as the cracking like ice sound. Now the fish is dry and hard as rock. Fallen from the nails they crack into many pieces like candy.
Perhaps, this child tastes a piece and falls in love in this moment with dried fish forever. There’s a sweetness and saltiness as it melts in his mouth. He’s dreaming of butter and garlic and smoky paprika and the sea.

 

April – A Poem A Day

Fishing

| Sheree

The worship of fish, for subsistence and profit, declines in response to the fishing quota system. Villages hugging the shoreline struggle with time and the departure of the young. At Thingeyri, out there in the fjords are three massive green nets holding artificially reared super fish. Trout. Not native to the area along with the multinational< company owning them.
One day, a hole is found in one net. How many fish escape, no one knows. How the fish survive in open water, if any, no one knows. If the escapees mate with the other fish, no one knows. It’s not the companies problem. It’s not an issue worth investigation. The hole is mended. The trout continue to be farmed to yield their optimum value. White white flesh to satisfy the foreign customer’s tastes.

red headscarf tied tight
bent and slow
she walks to harbour

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April – A Poem A Day

connection

| Sheree

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the snow is pristine
the water is cold
the silence is rippling

she does not come here to talk. she does not come here to appease. she is here to connect. to the Earth. to the Sea. to Herself. so she does not take kindly to the wide vacant stares that question her presence. she uses the solid rock of the mountains and the copper grasses peaking through the cracks as a special welcome just for her.

 

April – A Poem A Day