This week has been a bit hit and miss around being here. I was tired after my return from Cornwall.
If you want to find out more about how that residency went please consider jumping over to my Patreon page and checking out my posts there. I shared my reflections daily while I was away. It was a good practice to keep up as I went through the experience.
Okay so today I’m going to spend time planning out the month so I can move forward with the Mixmoir. As I mentioned this week, I’m continue with this challenge of showing up daily for the Mixmoir but going to focus on the joy of nature connection.
I’ll pop back here later today with the updated plan. This is me making myself/ keeping myself accountable as God know’s I could let things slide just from tiredness. But I will rest this month but this is going to be radical joyful rest.
I’ve been missing in action. I’ve been going through the motions of getting up each day and doing what needs to be done. But I’ve been tired. Put it down to the 9 hour drive home Saturday/ Sunday from Cornwall.
So maybe because of this lack of energy, then my skin is thinner. My patience is none existent. Or I’ve just plain sensitive.
But some ways people are behaving and treating me is unacceptable and maddening and upsetting. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not accepting this treatment lying down. I’m pushing back and letting them know what they’re doing or not doing and how this is coming across for me/ affecting me. But that doesn’t lessen the sting. Doesn’t lessen the questioning that seems almost like a ritual I do through afterwards.
Why are they doing that? Why did they say that or not? Why did they not acknowledging my contributions? Why did they not thank me? Are they treating everyone else like that? Did they just do it to me? Are they doing this because I’m Black?
Yes. You might say, it’s not all/always about race. And I agree with you. But if we live in a white supremacy culture where we are indoctrinated into believing, thinking and behaving as if white people are superior to Black people then it’s second nature to dismiss, ignore, overrule, disregard what the Black person is saying or doing in the room. We are not seen as of value, of worth or even present. We don’t register on your radar.
So I won’t ask for forgiveness or apologise for bringing it up because for me these are daily microaggressions which depending on my current state of mind body and soul, cut deep or can be rolled off my back like water.
But this week. Today. Now. No way. I’m not accepting them. I’m not going to remain silent about them. As I’m here and I matter and I deserve to be recognised. Not because I’ve done or said something amazing or impression. Because, I am a human being, and I have a right to be here.
Here ends today’s rant and getting things off my chest as basically I was getting tired carrying them all ant
“How can the antagonist’s flaw(s) / strength(s) best affect the story arc as a whole? (Draw a card for each.) ”
I pulled the Spirit Weaver card for the flaw aspect of this prompt. Wha does this mean in terms of the mixmoir?
This is indicating how what I’m trying to create, the story is affected by magic. Or more so the lack of magic as I’m not truly or fully drawing upon my magic and dreams in order to complete the project.
This card is showing its to me to communicate how I’m not utilising my full power in order to manifest this dream, this book because I’m looking at it the wrong way/ handling it the wrong way.
I’m floundering in low vibrational energies, negative thinking about this book, its content. The stuff I actually put in the book, what I’ve been writing about had been forcing on the negativity instead of focusing on the good.
Okay writing about racism and white supremacy culture isn’t good for the soul, my mental well-being for sure. And reading about it again and again isn’t good either. I know that higher vibrational energy would come through the joy of wanting to create/ write it.
The making out with my lover kind of feeling, which I have experienced with this project in the past has been missing of late. As well as within the content; the sharing the joy and pleasures of being in nature.
Maybe I could make a commitment for July when continuing with sharing about the mixmoir daily that I could focus on the good stories, the good experiences.
Maybe, I could be looking for the good news to share in the book. The good interchanges and interactions. No doubt this would help raise my vibrations and in turn flow into the book but also how I’m living my life in the present now.
Maybe I could every time I’m with nature , I could capture the experience, in words and image, and share them here and build my mixmoir around these moment. Being with her and cherishing her.
June is coming to an end. My challenge for this month, through posting each day, was to share content from my mixmoir as well as sharing about the process. I know I haven’t posted here everyday, or touched my mixmoir everyday either. But I know I’ve been much more engaged in the project this month than any other month this year because of this challenge.
To give myself a fair chance in getting to grips with the mixmoir, and because we are easing into Summer, with the school holidays imminent, I intend to continue to turn up for this practice in July.
I’m factoring in energy levels, commitments and time in the forthcoming month, and rather than change track now when I feel as I’m just getting into the swing of things, I’d like to go deeper into the mixmoir, especially around my current thinking about healing. I’m satisfied with my decision. And this has only inspired me to continue. #onwards
The last week has been a bit of a patchy presence here. It’s been a bit hit and miss. And I could beat myself up and think I’m falling behind or I could just look at it as going at my own pace.
I’m of the mind that with this challenge, connecting and sharing about my mixmoir each day, isn’t the kind that lends itself well to playing catch up. I think these words and images of catch-up would be hollow and lack much development for the whole book. They would be just filling up space and hitting that target of posting on the blog each day. Which in the scheme of things doesn’t really help/move forward the mixmoir.
So consider this going forward: if I don’t post here each day in June, I’m not going to play catch up in order to have 30 complete posts for the month. However, if on one day I feel the urge to post more than once, then so be it ( like today maybe?)
I just appreciate the flexibility I’m creating here for myself as well as offering myself patience and grace. This is a learning practice but I’m grateful that it is part of my practice now.
Nature has so much to teach us if we only allow ourselves to {BE} and listen. Within nature, energies come and go in cycles; with the seasons.
There’s a time for bursting as well as for waiting. There’s a time for gathering as well as for resting.
Darkness and solitude, within society, are portrayed as somethings to be afraid of and to be avoided. I see both darkness and solitude as vital and necessary protective qualities for my energies. Allowing them to wrap around me and hold me during times of low, depleted energies and passions means, I can retreat. Rest and repair and rejuvenate safely. And come back bursting with energies and ideas and love when I’m ready.
Within white supremacy culture, the aim of the game is to be always switched on, always available to go go go and produce produce produce. The more you produce the better and the quality of such is not so much of an issue.
We are taught to always be striving for perfection. Perfection does not exist as we are flawed human beings. We know this yet this doesn’t stop us from striving for it. It’s a vicious cycle of striving, missing the mark and burning out. And striving, missing the mark, burning out.
Today I rest. I allow the feelings of guilt to slip away. I replace the chastising, criticising voices which shout about being useless and a failure and a disgrace with words of compassion and grace and love.
I deserve to rest. I deserve to take care of myself. I deserve to seek solitude and darkness.
The rest of the world can wait until I have nourished my energies and rested enough to feel ready to be its warrior again.
I needed to see /feel/hear this card today. I’m stepping into the arena and I need a reminder of who I am, at the core.
This card is a reminder that the sun is light and light is the source of life. My sun, my light radiates from my heart.
My heart is my source and sometimes I forget this or when remembered feel this is a disadvantage rather than a power.
My light is my strength and my source and when I’m living my life from my source from my heart then I’m following my passions, speaking my truth and being my authentic self.
Of course I want to be this all ways and all days. But we do not live in an ideal world and there has to be a practice to maintain this status.
If I compare myself to others, or allow others to diminish me and steal my light, then there is a cloud over my heart and things are not right.
Today this card reminds me of who I am as I step into the arena and take up space on my own terms. I receive this message today with thanks and brandish it like a shield, like a force field around my light today.
I’ll let you know in a later post what is happening today to need this reminder.
As mentioned at the beginning of this month, when I declared that June was the month of the Mixmoir, going forward I plan to use Mariëlle S. Smith, Fleshing Out The Narrative: A 31-Day Tarot and Journal Challenge for Writers in conjunction with The Earthcraft Oracle Deck by Juliet Diaz and Lorriane Anderson and illustrated by Daniell Boodoo-Fortune in order to get the creative juices flowing.
Using these tools and prompts, not only allows me to create content for the mixmoir but also allow me write around the subject, explore the process and progress. This bit excites me and keeps me engaged. Working out what I’m trying to say at the same times as holding up to the light the rituals and practices I have around writing, is enlightening as well as encouraging. One way of working might work well one day but the next not.
I’ve been using the pomodoro technique with Abao in Tokyo on YouTube. Writing/ working/ practicing for 25 minutes at a time and then taking a 5 minute break, helps with the concentration and productivity. I’m really enjoying the process sandwiches into neat sections of time for a focused amount of time each day. It’s a simple practice which I look forward to and really get engrossed with during the allotted times for writing.
I found it interesting today that I pulled the Spirit of the South card when I was exploring the fire within yesterday and how I’d rather allow it to burn outwards and accept what ever backlash it may bring rather than living in fear of the fire outside consuming/ canceling/ destroying me.
This card came along today, I feel, to reinforce what I’ve been thinking of late, that is to not hold back and to stop finding/ making up excuses for not doing the work/ practice and to crack on and just do it. To follow my dreams, tell my story and to hell with it all.
And here ends the daily cheerleading chant for Sheree and the Mixmoir.
James Baldwin when interviewed after the SNCC Freedom Day demonstration in Selma, Alabama, October 1963 described what he saw there.
When was asked if he was afraid in the moment when the police were moving in on the African Americans waiting patiently to vote with guns and clubs and cattle prodders, Baldwin replied,
“ The thing is you get – you’re so scared – I was scared in the morning. Before it all began. And I was scared the first time I walked around there. But, later on, I wasn’t scared at all … Your fear is swallowed up by, you know … fury. What you really want to do is kill all those people.”*
* Quoted in Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America And It’s Urgent Lessons For Our Own, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
“The helmets were, you know, like a garden. So many colours.” James Baldwin *
