challenge

It’s been a while …

| Sheree

Hey hey hey.

What’s happening? I’ve been on a social media hiatus. I’ve been leaning into Summer. I’ve been going slow. And it continues at least until the end of August. And then I’ll reassess.

What I have decided is that September is going to be 30/30. Thirty poems in thirty days. Why? Because I’m always thinking I’m not writing enough. Because I’m excited to write when I’m inspired to write. Usually through reading other people’s poetry.

If I’m not reading. I’m not writing. And I’m a writer because I’m a reader. I want to generate new work and what better way to do that than to get in amongst language and play. Work out a few issues and have fun doing so.

So I hope to see you back here at the beginning of September to share in the creations.

What I’m trying to do right now …

| Sheree

“In my longing for depth I have been re-rooting in the earth, in myself and my creativity, in my community, in my spiritual practices, honing in on work that is not only meaningful but feels joyful, listening with less and less judgment to the ideas and efforts of others, having visions that are long term.” Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy

February Tarot Card – The Mirror

| Sheree

I find this card difficult to read. I think it is a warning towards becoming narcissistic as well as falling into the comparison tap. This month I returned to social media and I wonder if it was for the right reasons. I must say I’ve been happier without it.
We may look into a mirror and see ourselves, but we can also look at others and see ourselves reflected back and maybe not like what we see there. There’s being honest with ourselves as well as distorting the image. The mirror is all about self-perception and this can be a construct.
This image is a shard of a mirror, a portion which can become a trickster if allowed to gain purchase between me and my true self.

In the poem by Juan Jimenez, ‘I am not I’, the translation reads,

I am not I.
                   I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;

I attempt to remember myself, commune with myself, the one inside through my creativity. The words and images I work with each day are my practice of holding up the mirror as well as letting it fall, and not relying to heavily on what I see or others see, but on what I feel, and hear when I pay attention and listen within.

I appreciate this card’s appearance more now than before because we all need these checks and balance to stay on our own path.

SnowDay/ SlowDay

| Sheree

The snow is falling slow and silent. The light is reflected, brighter, bolder. The trickling melt underlines the heavy silence. Under the duvet on the couch, cocooned in creativity, I’m enjoying the process of slow writing. I’m enjoying touching the writing everyday. I’m enjoying how random feelings and thoughts, ideas and experiences take shape. I’m mindfully pulling things together, holding fragments up to the light, turning them this way and that, questioning; do you fit, do you sing? Not even losing most of the writing I’d already completed for the mixed-genre memoir, and I mean lost, gone, never to be seen again writing, is deterring me or derailing me or worrying me. It’s like I’ve seen the light, something has shifted into place and I’m just enjoying the ride, not bothered about the destination. And that feels so good.

January Tarot Card – The Pilgrim

| Sheree

The Pilgrim goes on a journey. An outward journey, usually on foot, which mirrors an internal journey at the same time.

January has started slowly, just the way I wanted and needed it to be. I’m listening to what I need and I need more time and space hibernating, or wintering as I call it. I’m taking a slow walking journey within for the next few months which means I might not be showing up here as often as I’d like or want. But this pilgrimage towards my soul is needed. It’s needed to replenish as well as heal me.

Theme of the Year – pt.1, The Crone

| Sheree

The Crone was the first card I pulled for the theme of my year, 2021. I thought this card was very apt as I’m moving towards my 50th birthday on October, as well as this card being the thirteenth in the Wild Unknown Archetype deck. This is my number. So I feel that The Crone has a wealth of wisdom to impart upon me this year and beyond.

The Crone is the third figure in the triple goddess path, and she has been around long enough to have seen it all. She has reached the point of rejecting dualities in life and accepts it all, the beauty with the suffering, black with white.

Often present with crows, a symbol of wisdom as well as death, the Crone gives and takes life, using all energies to reveal hidden knowledge. The Crone resides in us all but is often feared because of her power.

I accept whatever she will bring this year, and look forward to deepening my relationship with her rich and unapologetic magic.

I see The Crone’s appearance now as a reinforcement of the decisions that I’ve already made. I don’t have time for any superficial and petty discussions or relationships. I feel in order to heal myself, that I need to go deeper, deeper within even if this means I travel alone.

This going deeper will be supported by further study into such goddesses as Dhumavati, Hecate, Baba Yaga and Lilith.

Pulling the cards for 2021

| Sheree

Seeing in the end of the old year and into the new is a time I always take for reflection. Visioning and re-visioning my dreams and plans for the year to come is something I do to focus my energies for moving forward with purpose and grace.

As I mentioned in my last post, my guiding word for 2021 is SLOW. To support this process of living into my word with intention, I spend time working through Susannah Conway’s workbook Unravelling Your Year. This year, the pulling of a tarot card for each month of the year is missing from the workbook for some reason, but I’ve followed this ritual for so many years now, that I didn’t need anyone else’s guidance to do so except my own intuition.

So using Kim Krans’ The Wild Unknown Archetypes deck, I proceeded to pull a card for each month of 2021, and one final card as a guiding theme for the year. When I pulled the final card, there were two stuck together so I went with the two as my guiding principles. The Crone and The Hunter were the two cards that will become my over arching cards of 2021.

I intend to go into detail about what each of these cards signify and could mean for the year ahead in the following posts. I will also share about each card pulled for each month in a post within each month moving forward too. This is a good way to keep focused and coming back to the magic and potential that each card can offer as I journey through this coming year.

November Reading

| Sheree

This month was a bit sparse on the reading front but there were still books that got finished.

  1. The Festive House – Alison May
  2. Autumn Skies Over Ruby Falls – Holly Martin
  3. The Taxidermist – Shazea Quraishi

Update – NaNoWriMo 2020

| Sheree

The first two weeks of November have come and gone. Fast.

The first week was all about conversations with people around the globe. And all of them seemed urgent and necessary. So I gave them my all. So that going into the second week, I had to think about my boundaries and start to control the conversations. Work more to my schedule and energy levels and needs rather than others.

The second week of November was no less demanding, as I had to plan a number of differences workshops that were/ are coming up. So this week has definitely been a lot of work going on behind the scenes to keep the shop front neat, sort of thing.

So my energy levels and attention spans have been up and down already this month and this has affected the time and attention and care I could offer up to my memoir.

Two weeks in then to the NaNoWriMo challenge and nearly 20000 words down. And considering all that I’ve just shared about November so far, I’m pretty pleased with the word count. Ideally, it would be good to be at 25000 as it is the half-way mark, but it is what it is. And it’s 20000 more words than I would have created if I’d not taken up this challenge. Win win I say.

I might not clock up as many words in the second half of the month as I move into editing mode. But we’ll see. The aim is to complete the current essay around grief as well as complete another essay about slavery, DNA and my body. So plenty tochall be getting on with and hopefully I’ve got a better handle on my diary as we enter the second half of the month.