event

red

| Sheree

For me, at the moment, red signifies anger. There’s a fire burning in my belly, it’s been stoked by my time away at Shifting Loyalties this last week.

My forthcoming e-book with Culture Matters is an exploration of this anger. My anger at how black Woman are treated in society. How we end up at the bottom of the pile in terms of being treated with decency, respect and love.

This piece is part of this collection.

‘Death by persons unknown’

Pain provides the common language of humanity; it extends humanity to the dispossessed and, in turn, remedies the indifference of the callous.
– Saidiya V. Hartman

(Picture the scene).
It’s a Sunday afternoon
& the bees are busy hovering
around blousy peonies,
at a church picnic.
The crowd moves in closer as the fire’s lit.
(Look at them gathering, working up a sweat, working up a frenzy as the barbecue takes hold).
They linger in the smell of flesh,
in the smell of blood.
The only shade is thrown by the kill;
the swinging charred remains of a black body.
(Try to shift your gaze).
From the hanging meat to the sea of red-faced, smiling white people hungry for violence fed on a diet of hate for generations.
There’ll be a photograph produced of this social ritual. You might receive a postcard making
the past very present.
& if you’re feeling it,
it could burn a hole in your heart.

December Reflections

| Sheree

This year is drawing to a close. The time is coming to go within. This is the time for taking stock and reflecting on what has gone and thinking about what is to come.

Susannah Conway offers for a free a December Reflections prompt for each day of this month. I dipped in and out last year but this year, I’m feeling the need to bring in some more reflection and ritual. I feel the need to have something to hang all my thoughts and feelings about 2017 upon. This free offering is an ideal vehicle for just that. Hopefully, I’ll come back here each day to share my insights as the month progresses. Happy December.

Today’s prompt is : early.

ten:two

| Sheree

1. Up at 5.30am.
2. The whole centre to myself. Silence.
3. The mist rising off the reservoir into grey.
4. The warm glow of women gathering.
5. Smearing colour across white spaces claiming voice.
6. Hummus, falafel, kebabs and naan.
7. Hot boiling black tea with a hint of cardamom.
8. Walking out back amongst the pines.
9. Larch cones clinging to dark branches.
10. Joy.

Shifting Loyalties

| Sheree

I’m getting ready for the off again. Remember my time in residence on a canal boat with idlewomen? I facilitated a visual journaling workshop for women while there which was really inspiring. Well off the back of that, I’ve been invited back as a guest speaker/ presenter at their informal conference for women in Lancashire next week.

Shifting Loyalties is a gathering of women. Establishing in 2016 in collaboration with Silvia Federici in 2016,
for a week we’ll be living together near Pendle, a place known for its persecution of women as witches in the 1600s, utilising the space to have critical conversations and self-organising against society’s treatment and representation of women. This is an opportunity to share stories and experiences at the same time as becoming empowered as a sisterhood to make change, internally and externally.

All week I’ll be sharing my visual journaling practices through workshops and a drop-in room hopefully inspiring and encouraging other women to explore and adopt this creative practice for self-care and self-awareness.

I’m pulling together my resources and materials, gathering journal prompts that I feel will be accessible as well as beneficial for us to dive deep within safely and effectively when I realise that I could be a witch.

Witch. I really haven’t considered it before but I’ve got witchy tendencies. I believe in the Divine Goddess. I worship the natural world; Great Mother Earth. I observe and honour the Wheel of the Year, sensitive to the seasons and rituals as we cycle through the year. This year, during Samhain, I spent time at my altar conversing with my dead ancestors.  I look upon this path I’m on as magical, empowering me to grow, change and heal.

I call myself a Wild Soul Woman who listens to the wisdom within; my intuition and instincts. This is where my power lies. Maybe this isn’t the mainstream way of thinking and believing. But this is my truth.

The Witch was feared because she ( and sometimes he) lived “outside” the natural order. They represented a different way of living that challenged the status quo. Self-contained and self-possessed, they were a threat that could not be explained  and had to be eliminated.

Unfortunately, witch hunts still happen today in such places as Africa and India where old women are killed on the mere accusation of being a witch.  It saddens me that women who know their own power and worth and self-determine their lives, are persecuted and destroyed.

I’m hoping that my time at Shifting Loyalties will clarify my thoughts and feelings around this realisation at the same time as strengthening my voice in speaking out. ‘shifting loyalties is another beginning…’

 

how to find your voice as a writer

| Sheree

One of my enduring memories of living in London, from my early teaching days, is the icon red bus. Coming up Streatham Hill and terminating at Telford Avenue, where I was lodging, would be the 59 bus, my lifeline in and out of the city, in and out of school in Lambeth Walk.

Those were my bachelor days. I had fulfilled my childhood dream of becoming a teacher in an inner city London’s school where the kids were predominately black. I was giving something back to the system at the same time as changing kid’s attitudes about what they could become in life.

Today, I revisit London as a freelance writer and artist for a masterclass titled How to Find Your Voice, with Gary Younge, editor-at-large for the Guardian. I’ve been reading Gary’s articles for years, and have recently dived into his latest non-fiction book, Another Day in the Death of America. I’ve always admired Gary’s words because he doesn’t mince them. His writing is strong and bold. He has the courage to say what other people are not saying about a range of themes including race, America, killings, inequalities, South America, whistle-blowing etc.

I gave up teaching full-time, after coming back to the North-East, in 2003 to pursue a more creative life. In the short time I’d been teaching, the landscape changed so much that I wondered where the teaching had stopped and crowd control had begun. I fancied my chances in the creative wilderness so jumped without a net in sight. With nearly 15 years of hustling under my belt, I’m still questioning what the dynamics of my voice are. What is the purpose of my voice? Hence being drawn to this workshop with Gary Younge.

We do not have just one voice. We have a myriad of voices. Many voices for different contexts, shifting our register and tone depending on what we are trying to say; why we are saying it, when and to who.

Gary Younge recently interviewed Richard Spencer, leader of the emerging Alt Right in the USA for a Channel 4 documentary titled Angry, White and American. He received a lot of flak for giving this racist man airtime, people arguing that this interview was giving him a platform to spread his hate. Gary was of the mind that if you give this kind of man enough rope he’d hang himself. In his opinions, he thinks Richard brought the rope and gallows himself, exposing the absurdity of his thinking, forcing anyone thinking of joining his Nazi bandwagon to think again.

The workshop was illuminating. Things I knew already, but coming from Gary gave them added weight. We all have a unique voice and it’s our duty to bring it into the world. We should write what we want to write without thinking about what other people think we should write. We should get our voices out there and not even bother about checking back in with the reactions. Because we cannot control how anyone else is going to read our words, hear our voice. We can only control our voice; what we want to say and how we say it.

I had the opportunity to ask Gary what he thought was the purpose of his voice. His individual voice. His answer was simple and something I didn’t to hear. He said those words and they dropped right into my gut and got cosy and warm. As those words were welcomed home.

The purpose of his voice is trying to shift the lens. Simple. He’s in a position with a platform, which many people like him would not occupy. He uses his voice to shift the lens on the world to foster understanding and hopefully change.

Trust your voice. Trust your lens. I trusted myself when I left teaching and journeyed into the unknown. I’ve trusted my calling to becoming more creative everyday. Now, I’m getting out of my way to trust my voice.

Each day I am peeling away my former identity to live a more powerful, purposeful and authentic life. I’m a Goddess Queen holding a light, becoming self-aware and self-loving, becoming a wayshower for others.
The purpose of my voice is to shift the lens. It always has been since childhood when I questioned everything my father told me to do. I’ve known this but have been too scared to claim this. Thank you Gary for reminding me. It’s my voice and I own it.

“We younger negro artists who create, now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame,” writes Langston Hughes. “If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn’t matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If coloured people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn’t matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.”

ten:one

| Sheree

1. He goes into the bathroom and slams the door.
2. The candle flickers in the draft.
3. My shirt with black blobs of paint is creased.
4. The coffee beside me smells hot.
5. I curl my legs up under my bum and feel my muscles stretch.
6. A car drives past outside.
7. There is cloud. There is weak light.
8. A fine drizzle speckles the window.
9. The central heating rumbles into life.
10.The house groans in its spaces.

Inner Truth

| Sheree
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Click here to visit The Phoenix Soul.

We are raw & real. Grit & grace. Truth-speakers. Heart-on-our-sleevers. Love-believers. You are. I am. We are The Phoenix Soul. – Amanda Fall

I chose the wrong month to be on a hiatus as I’m bubbling with excitement. There  are so many amazing things I want to share with you, what are happening right now, in this moment. And they fill me with joy. Big-wide-smiling-joy. You know the kind, you’ve seen my self-portraiture. You know it’s that smile.
It gives me great pleasure to share with you my Truth Tribe interview with the lovely Amanda Fall, creator and publisher of The Phoenix Soul magazine.

The Phoenix Soul has been on my radar for a few years now, ever since I read Beth Morey and followed Teresa Robinson, creator of Right Brain Planner.
What appealled to me about this magazine is the openess, the honest sharing and communication between a sisterhood of inspiring and creative women. I aspired to be part of this community as I worked through the trauma and grief of being alone, ostracised without such support and encouragement.

Over the past couple of years, through my work and practice of becoming my authentic self, I have enjoyed the privilege of sharing my words, images, thoughts and feelings via social media, which at one time was the death of me. Within this digital space, I have found my voice again. So it is really humbling and awe-inspiring when someone I admire, who is doing great work out there, reaches out to me and asks me to be involved in a beautiful project.

I jumped at the chance to be interviewed for The Phoenix Soul because I appreciate the truth-telling that this magazine shares. I gasp at and empathise with the women who share their stories within, expose their vulnerabilities with such strength and courage. I aspired to stand amongst these women. And now I do.

Selling for $6, each issue of The Phoenix Soul magazine is packed with oodles of  juiciness. Pages of hand-crafted mixed media backgrounds in full color with handwritten love notes from Amanda fill the reader with hope, healing and love. Soul-centred and truth-telling, words and imagery combine to provide a powerful, intimate read.

Have I mentioned  how honoured I am to be part of this tribe? Head on over and grab your copy today and I’d be mighty surprised if you aren’t inspired, affected and empowered by what you explore within The Phoenix Soul.
Click here to visit The Phoenix Soul.

The Creative Retreat Iceland Is Here

| Sheree


When I was at my lowest a couple of years ago, I channelled what little energy I had left into a pipe dream.
I didn’t have much money or direction. I was working on myself from the inside out but wasn’t sure of the path. But my soul whispered to trust; trust in myself.

I’m not sure when Iceland came onto my radar, but it has always captivated me. It always seemed to me to be a distance mythical land that would remain thriving within my imagination and never become a reality. Until I took action and made the decision to invest in myself.

I booked a flight to Iceland with a credit card without much time to reconsider or second guess myself. I didn’t have a plan, I just took one small step after another to create this trip away. Booked the flight, then thought about places to stay. I thought this would be my only chance to get to Iceland so I’d try to see as much as the country as possible. I booked a hire car, and started to plan my route around the whole island, stopping each night in a different place. Hotels, motels and hostels, whatever was available I made the bookings. My dream was becoming a reality because I was believing in myself. Believing that I could do this.

By the time I reached Iceland, May 2015, I had a map and a plan but I was still scared. I’d never visited the country before, I hadn’t driven there, and I certainly didn’t speak the language. But I’d been dreaming about this and now it was happening so I made a promise to myself to just enjoy it. Go with the flow and enjoy.

The sun was shining that first day I drove north out of the Reykjavik, onto the ring road, heading to the Western peninsula of Snæfellsnes. It was just me and Beyoncé’s Lemonade, in that car. This trip to Iceland changed my life. And that’s not hyperbole because by the end of my time there, I felt empowered, I felt free and back to me, the authentic me. I had done it all by myself for myself and I felt amazing. I also knew I had to return to Iceland, and keep returning to develop our relationship as we were speaking to each other on a deep level, on a soulful level.

I have returned to Iceland twice since then and I’m planning to return in 2018. And I’d like you to come with me. I didn’t have anyone with me to show me the way, so I found my way around one step at a time. I would love to be your guide, your safe and supportive passage into Iceland. I would love to share my love of Iceland with you. Go check out the Iceland – The Retreat page, to see what I have planned for our time together. Any questions, just get in touch.