poetry

Dreaming of Iceland

| Sheree

I’ve started a portfolio for Iceland. It seems an age since I was last there, but I am making plans to return. Bubbling under the surface of everything else that is happening in my life, is the body memory of how I felt while I was there. How I felt I opened up like blossom  to who I really was inside. That I thrived on the silence and solitude and the beauty of the landscape. Some how the serenity and honesty of the landscape, reflected something inside me. I recognised myself there, and I want to capture that feeling again as well as replicate it here, in my every day life.

How is the question?
I need to return to find out.

Dancing the Dream 

| Sheree

Dancing the Dream – the seven sacred paths of human transformation, by Jamie Sams

This is the new book I’m reading at the the moment. And I’m trying to take my time, to savour it and let the lessons sink in. But it’s not going that way. Every page that I’m reading, I’m nodding my head in recognition of the wisdom, of the truths that are being mentioned in terms of the energy that connects us all together. Our thoughts, feelings, judgements, our internal landscapes create our outside worlds. If these are full of negativity, this is the energy we are putting out into the world. And what goes around comes around. We are all connected. We are all one.

I made a promise to myself while reading this book to not write any notes. To just absorb the initiations. I intend to go back and reread the book after this first reading and actively work with the lessons. So this post is me marking this promise and making sure I follow through on it. Thank you.

Sundays 

| Sheree

wildsoulwoman says: Some Sunday’s are made for just chillin’ with the peeps. Can’t believe the summer holidays are almost over and then back to work. Trying to stay in each moment and squeeze out every last ounce of pleasure and joy. Back in the sea with Miss Ella yesterday and she said how grateful she was for her family. She’s 6 and has so much to teach me. I’m paying attention 🙂

Night Marriage, Lowlands Estate, 1791.

| Sheree

‘Let’s feel what the Massa sees in you,’
he whispers,
like a snake’s belly on hard sand.
He takes me in.
His rough stubble tears at my thighs,
as greedy palms, with raised moons,
kneed my belly. His smell is
stale sweat mingled with
the heavy wet perfume of dirt
turned over with my hoe.
His high shiny leather riding
boots are still on.

from: The White of the Moon (2007-8)

Poetry

From the WSW vault: Trust

| Sheree

October 2015:

“Fuck. It was bound to come up. Trust. I have issues with trust. Ever since I found out my dad was dying only when he was actually dead, I’ve had trouble with trust. My mum and dad thought it best not to tell us kids that our dad was dying. To protect us. So when I found out it was already too late. He was dead and I felt betrayed.

I do not give my trust lightly. You betray my trust and you’re gone out of my life. Simple as that. But it isn’t that simple. Trust is about feeling safe and putting yourself out there with someone else. It’s about being vulnerable, wanting to protect oneself at the same time as taking a risk, moving out of oneself. It’s leaning in and out at the same time.

I’ve always been able to say I can trust myself. Until now. Now I’m not too sure about myself. If my actions are carried out for the right reasons, with the right intentions?

I’m at the edge of an abyss. At the edge of my existence as I have known it. And I now I have to take the leap into the new but can I trust myself in the fall?

I know it’s about love. Love of myself. There has to be the space to allow myself to fall. To know in the fall that I can still breathe, still live and will find my footing again. It’s about accepting that I am not in control and probably never was or will be. It is about trusting in the unknown. Trusting that I will be alright, that everything will be all right. I just have to trust the process. I just have to trust in me.”

Breathe ( and make time for yourself)

| Sheree

I picked up this new magazine by chance. Not sure what I was looking for. Maybe I was looking to ‘breathe’, to gain some space in my day, in my life.

I’ve sworn off all those glossy women’s magazines, those that carry the images of perfection; white skinny beautiful women. The money I must have spent on them, trying to fit the ideal, and knowing fine well that I’d never would. But that didn’t stop me buying into the construction.

It didn’t seem to bother me that I never saw women in there that looked like me. Or did it?
As I also went through a phase of buying Pride Magazine, Oprah, Ebony to see black women in magazines.
But they still didn’t look like me, as they were still skinny, well styled and looked like they had their lives all together, nice and sweet.

I suppose when I buy magazines now, like this one, I am still trying to find myself, to better myself, but from the inside out.

I am working on my soul, my spirit, my true self when I pick up a magazine like Breathe because I am looking to take care of myself by taking the time to slow down, to try yoga ( again), to start back up with my gratitude journal etc. Magazines like this make me think, make me assess what I am doing in terms of self-care, self-love and how am I working within this world to make it a better place?

I would highly recommend this magazine if you are looking to make time for yourself, for your true self.

Love Yourself Friday 

| Sheree

love youseslf

Yes I know today isn’t Friday. But I want to share with you something that happened to me a few months ago which I am proud of.

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Phoenix Rising Collective, for their Love Yourself First Friday.
The aim of this special feature is to shed light on various ways we as women are practicing self-care, making it a priority in our lives.

After a couple of years of being in the doldrums and not being able to look myself in the eyes in the mirror, I feel I’ve come a long way to the point of actively practicing self-love. Maybe going through situations and experiences that others might recognise and gain insight from by sharing this way.

The question that struck home the most was; Is there an obstacle or challenge that you’ve overcome that lead you to a deeper love for who you are? In answer to this question, for the first time, I revealed my dirty secret. And it felt good to finally speak out about it.

Here is my answer and read the rest of the interview here.

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would spin open.” -Muriel Rukeyer

There comes a time in everybody’s life when the unspeakable happens. To say it hasn’t happened or won’t happen to you is a lie. You’re kidding yourself. Believe me.

In May 2015, the unspeakable happened to me. There was a public shaming. My whole world fell apart the day I was accused of being a plagiarist on Facebook by a ‘so-called’ friend and fellow poet. He wrote that he’d found whole scale “borrowings” from other writers’ words, phrases, and structures within my latest collection of poetry. He said that he was just doing his duty for the poetry community by bringing it to everyone’s attention. What followed was what I chose to call a public lynching of me as a writer, poet and person. This was the unspeakable that happened to me. But funny enough, I am speaking about it here, as well as writing a creative non-fiction book about this whole experience. Everything I knew, all I was, how I thought myself to be was taken from me in that public posting. I issued an apology regarding my unintentional mistakes and withdrew from the public realm. At one point, death looked a very promising course of action, but I had my family and some supportive friends who helped me.

Within the Chakra system there is a heart center called Anahata Chakra. In Sanskrit, Anahata means “Unstruck.” For me this speaks to the resilient nature of the human heart. I believe, wholeheartedly, that there is a place within my heart that is absolutely unbreakable. Thank you Chris Maddox for this wisdom.

This experience did break my heart, stopped me from loving, and shut me down and out. However, there was a minute part that kept pulsing, kept the light on for me. Maybe it was my belief in self, my self-love that got me through each day.

Each day has not been wasted. I have taken this experience as a wake-up call, a wake-up to explore and claim my authenticity. Afterwards, I had nothing. I couldn’t even look myself in the face at one point. But writing my book and starting to take photographs of myself have supported me in my climb up. I can’t say climb ‘back’, because who or what I am becoming, I do not know. I have never met this woman. I do know that love and self-love, first and foremost, are at the center of this journey.

From the WSW vault: synchronicity

| Sheree

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September 2015

“I was never that keen on The Commodores’ song, Easy Like A Sunday Morning. It got on my nerves. But now knee deep in family life, I can really embrace the sentiment.
It’s Sunday morning and after being up for what seems like hours, I’ve finally managed to sit down to some ‘me time’ with coffee, breakfast and journal. And that pisses me off.
Apart from being woken from 5.30am onwards by the little one who wanted to come into mum and dad’s bed. Then spending the next few hours trying to get some sleep with a child clinging around my neck like a little marsupial. Then it’s the constant chorus, Can we get up now?
Then when I get up with a struggle (far too early for a Sunday morning) there’s breakfast to be done, dishes to be cleared, washing to put in, clothes to put away. A whole multitude of tasks to do before I can sit down and savour a moment with coffee and thoughts. And that pisses me off.
Call it what you like, I’m calling it synchronicity, the experience of two or more events popping up in my life that seem to be related. The concept of this experience of things popping up a few times having a meaningful coincidence was described by Carl Jung back in the 1920s ( again someone who keeps popping up in my life lately, coincidence?)
Anyway, over the last couple of days there’s been three instances that I can recall where having a morning routine or even ritual was important as a means of starting your day in the right fetal. And to be honest, I’ve just skimmed read the email, the blogpost, and the pdf. document, just thinking this is not for me. Yeah right if only I had the time. But now I’m hellbent on making this my thing. Making the time.
I don’t want to go through the rest of my day pissed off. I don’t want to carry this resentment around with me for the rest of the day. I love my family but sometimes they can just get in the way. There I’ve said it.
So I need to create a way for me to ease into my day with my good head on, Worzel Gummidge style. Ease into my day with grace. Ease into my day being the authentic me.
So this Sunday, I make a pledge to myself to trial out a morning ritual. I prefer to use the word ‘ritual’ instead of routine because it adds an element of the sacred to the proceedings. And a morning ritual should be placed at that level of sacred because then it is honoured and protected. It’s going to be my time to gather my thoughts and feelings, listen to myself and honour the person I am before I bring this person out into the world, ready.
That’s it, I wasn’t ready this morning to meet the world but if I took the time each morning to be alone in silence and at peace with myself, I’d be ready to meet the world, best face forward.
So yes I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks getting up early, hey why not 5.30am, it seems a popular time these days! And spending this time before anyone else is up in my house to experience some quality time in communication with myself. I’m getting excited about it already.
Tune in again and find out how things are going. I hope to present a less pissed off version of myself here very soon. “

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I’ve brought this posting out of the Wild Soul Woman’s vault because this need for a morning ritual has raised it’s head again. It’s the summer holidays, and my time is not my own. Before I know it the day is over, and I don’t feel as if I’ve given myself the time and space to breathe.
I’m also embarking on a more healthy and balanced lifestyle which needs commitment as well as the time and space to prepare and be organised for each day ahead. So what better time to do this if not before the day starts with it’s demands and responsibilities.

Ideally, I would like to use this quiet time to ease into the day. To continue my yoga practice. To start a mediation practice, undisturbed. To write and touch base with myself. To maybe get out into nature as the sun is rising. Have the sea all to myself. Also to have breakfast and plan the rest of the meals for me for the day. Spend the time looking after myself.
It sounds so selfish written here, but I know it is so very very needed and necessary, if I am going to succeed in this commitment to me and my health.
So yes, as I start this practice again tune in and see how I get on. Hopefully share more of my experiences and insights as they unfold.
Please wish me luck, thanks x

 

 

 

How to express gratitude

| Sheree

Gratitude is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.’
I’ve been trying to keep a gratitude journal for most of 2016, off and on. I usually have this little book by the side of my bed so I can capture three things that I am grateful for after each day. I know when I do this practice religiously, that I feel better about the day that has passed and I feel better about my life in general. But why do I find it so hard to keep up with this practice. Five minutes out of my day shouldn’t be such a big stretch. But I have found more times than not that I have missed days, weeks, months of expressing gratitude in this little book.
I don’t usually struggle in expressing my emotions, thoughts and feelings. I’m not usually reluctant to let those people around me know how much I care for them and appreciate them. I am thankful that they are in my life, just as much as I am thankful for this life I am living, creating. But there seems to be some kind of disconnect between the way I feel about my life and expressing gratitude for this life I’m living.
I know that showing gratitude naturally makes me more thankful and grateful for my life. It’s like a knock on affect, or a natural fertilizer. Sprinkling thanks upon my life, means that it grows even more brighter and satisfying. But there is something somewhere inside me resisting this practice.
Maybe there is some thought, some feeling inside me that believes I have nothing to be grateful for or that thinks I do not deserve to have the life I have. Really when I say thank you to someone, even to myself, do I really mean it?
I’m not sure I know the answers to these questions. I just know that I need to get back to my little book at the side of my bed and just start practicing. Maybe then all will be revealed.