Think yoghurt and blackcurrant with almond chunky caramel and you’ll be well on your way to tasting this icecream tub.
Tuesday’s Child
travel
On my travels
Today is my travel day for the first trip of 2025. While knee deep in shit in 2024, with the feeling of drowning in it, I made a commitment to myself to hibernate for the first 3 months of 2025 ( as I am {being}). But I also promised to focus on the experience(s) rather than the material in 2025.
So instead of buying more stuff ( low buy year), that is just going to sit around collecting dust or do I really need another duvet set?, I made an intention to use this money I would waste on ‘goods’ on experiences instead that would make me feel something, hopefully joy but also curiosity, wonder and awe.
Today I fly out to Barcelona to begin this year of experience(s). A year of me saying ‘yes’ to my desires. Instead of talking myself out of things or worrying about costs ( all travel is on a budget and carbon off set) I’m just going to {BE}/ do it. I’m going to fill my pot again and again with goodness and ease and abundance because God(dess) knows no one is gonna.
So come along for the ride with me as I revisit Barcelona after many years of absence. At one time back there, I used to visit Barcelona every year around autumn with the family and seek out the golden light.
Not sure what the light will be like this January but I’m ready to find out.
Travelling light in so many ways, I’m walking into my next experience promising to stay in the moment.
Present for this present. Come with me!
The End of 2024
I’m choosing to end 2024 with gratitude. I’m choosing to give thanks for 2024 and to recognise the abundance.
Checking through my visual journals of the year and there is evidence of joy and creativity and love but there is also difficulty, scarcity and rage.
But here on the precipice of 2025, I’m choosing to focus on the present and the gifts that 2024 has given me.
In this moment, on New Year’s Eve, I am grateful to have returned to one of my favourite places in the world to bring in the New Year; Glencoe, the Scottish Highlands.
Anyone following my blog from last year will know this is where I spent the New Year last/ this year, 2023 into 2024. My friend of old and I were booked into The Kinghouse Hotel here for their New Year’s celebration package. It was a luxurious affair and reminded me of a holiday camp as we were bombarded with activities, food and drink and entertainment for 4 days. And it snowed.
This year there is no such luxury but that doesn’t take away from my joy and gratitude for being here now. I’m in Glencoe, for the first time, with Kiwi my campervan. This trip up in the wind and rain and dark is fulfilling a dream of mine. To park up for many nights in the shadow of my favourite mountain Etive.
I’ve just been sitting in my van, watching the clouds roll over the peaks. I’ve totally slowed down and have finally started to appreciate the hibernation mode which started in November, with fits and starts as I kept getting disturbed.
I’m grateful that I have the privilege of being able to hibernate, to escape from the world of work and commitments to rest and dream. I’m tightening my belt, living frugally in certain ways, so I can have the next few months off work. Off the clock, off the colonial clock. Because I think, no I know, that 2024 burnt me out. Not just from the amount of work but also from the kind of work of was. I spent hours and energy supporting other people’s dreams in a system which doesn’t recognise our humanity never-mind our dreams. Daily I was going to battle, constantly having to repeat myself as well as explain and justify our existence and right to life/ work/ dreams/ success. It was tiring and demoralising and traumatic. It is only now that I can allow the sheer weight of it to fall away as I’ve been carrying it for a long time. And I’m tired.
So to be in the Highlands, on my own terms, in my own space, not having to see or talk or be with anyone else, is my happy place. And I’m grateful for it.
There is a severe weather warning up here. Edinburgh has cancelled its New Year celebrations because of this weather. High winds, rain, a lot of rain and maybe snow. For the last few nights, I’ve felt the wind and rain lash against Kiwi, we’ve been rocking and rolling but we’re safe and warm and I’m grateful for that.
I’m like in a little cocoon. I have everything I need to wait out the storm, two duvets and thermal clothing, water and food all help for which I am truly grateful. Because I’m living off grid as well as learning to live with less. And with that does come a lot of gratitude.
I recognise it in the food I prepare and eat here. Little plates of goodness which are simple but nourishing and enough.
So as I plan to wave goodbye to 2024 and welcome in 2025, I’m cocooned within a circle of gratitude for what is now in the present moment. I’m warm and safe and have a feast for my eyes and tastes and soul to keep me satisfied. I’m very grateful to be able to continue to live out my dreams on my own terms. Thank you x
December
I’m happy to see this month come around even though I can’t believe that we’re hurtling towards Christmas and the New Year . Where has this year gone?
I’m glad to see the back of November after far too many visits and hours spent in hospitals and doctor’s surgeries.
We might be moving toward the shortest day of the year, but I’m feeling the light in more ways than one.
New moon on Tuesday and my intentions are already set. To shift my energy, my outlook, my state of mind through going deeper into my practice.
I’ve been in my retreat cave for a few months now, withdrawn from IG and Facebook for months. But it’s only now as we turn towards the dark further, do I feel more unhinged and released from the public realm and demands.
I mixed colours today; went through a 40+ box of acrylic paints, mixing them with white gesso to create new, more muted tones. And I’ll not lie, I was singing to the little paint pots I created. This simple act fed my soul. I was so grateful for colour. I could have stayed there all day just mixing and enjoying the colours that came to fruition.
I can’t wait to make some swatches of them as well as start painting with them. Using them each day this month is my plan as a means of deepening into my practice and retreating further into my cave.
Have you set any intentions for the coming circle of the moon? For the last few days of 2019? Please share if you have.
The Healing Properties of the Sea
My task today is to write a love letter to the body of water that has sustained me, healed me, and nurtured me.
This has to be the North Sea as it has been on my doorstep for decades, even if, I’ve just come to appreciate it more in last 10 years.
A couple of years ago, I came up with the title, ‘The Healing Properties of the Seas‘ for a project involving water. It was basically 10 second videos of bodies of water. On a website for everyone to enjoy. Accompanying this would be a symposium, interviews with me talking to other people about their connection to water etc. There would be an open submission for people around the world to share their 10 second clips of bodies of water.
I have hundreds of 10 second clicks of the North Sea and other waters and I feel I don’t appreciate water enough. The planet’s water enough. I’m fixing to change this and hopefully get, ‘The Healing Properties of Seas‘, off the ground. Are you with me?
Day 2 – 100 Days of The Goddess and Love
Posted Instagram today : 2/100 – Private Farm, Brattleby, Lincolnshire
I wrote in my morning pages today: I want to be debt free in so many meanings of the word. I want to be able to eat and eat healthily. I want to be able to love my body now. Love how my body serves me now so I no longer abuse her and I’m not waiting for the weight to drop off before I love her. #100daysofthegoddessandlove #100daysproject #the100dayproject #blackwomenmatter #blackwomensbodies #selfcare #selflove #healthyatanysize #creativepractice #blackbodiesinnature #brownbodiesinnature #womenscreativity #womensempowerment #instax90 #instaxmini90neoclassic #photography #bodylove #goldengoddess #darkgoddess #mothernature #earthgoddess #goddess
Loosening The Bounds
I missed submitting for the special challenge with Nine Muses Poetry this month. The challenge is to respond or be inspired by a different photograph posted at the beginning of each month. For April the image was fittingly Viewing Cherry Blossoms at Ueno, by Katsukawa Shunzan. I completed this poem this morning in response.
Loosening the Bounds
I wish I could say,
the orchard is a rare find.
That I never think of blossom.
That the pure smell doesn’t
undulate to the sea.
But that would be lying.
At this time of year,
there’s no escaping the stain,
the crowds. No escaping him.
His neck is red. Pain in his head.
That must be why he seldom smiles.
I know I put them on a pedestal.
I want what they had.
How they kept the blossom from dying.
Perhaps, the sea is history
and the lop-sided pagoda clinging
to the shoreline, made me think
we were going somewhere.
Same images played over and
over again. The trickster,
just using my face. My skin. My voice.
Give me the cherry blossom every time,
time with my sisters,
lost in the crowds, easing off
our sandals, loosening our bounds
like blossom caught on the bsea breeze.
Where I work
I wish I could display a wide open space with large tables, easels, storage for paintings and tools. With natural light streaming through so many windows that the space is forever bright. But I can’t.
I can’t afford a studio. If I’m organised, I can use the spare room which is my son’s room when he returns for visits from Uni. But recently, it’s become a dumping ground for when I’ve come in from an event or job and I’m too tired to sort out my bags. The room soon becomes unable to get into and the clutter enters my mind.
I’m much better being a mobile artist. Packing a bag and going to a hotel room to work is my ideal working space. And recently with having to travel for union work and family gatherings, I’ve managed to monopolise clean and white hotel rooms to create colourful, vibrate paintings be that my abstracts or my portraits of black women. And it has been welcomed and liberating.
So yes I don’t have a regular space to create at home but I don’t allow that to stop me from continuing to explore my visual language.
Remembering last year
A year ago, March, I was on an artist residency in the #westfjordsiceland – remember? I created this time and space alone for me from scratch because I wanted to return and experience Iceland again after my island tour.
Wow want a difference a year makes. I got lost a bit out there, in the dark and desolate place. But I also found out stuff about myself; that I love solitude, exploring new places, and sharing my joy on my own terms. I’m planning on doing just that in June, when we have a #summersolstice creative retreat happening in #Iceland. This is going to be an intimate affair. Only space for 5 women, including me. It’s half filled already. Writing, art, yoga, nature, Wild swimming, good food, good company, laughter and no doubt tears.
If you’ve been itching to visit Iceland, this is your opportunity. Time away from your everyday,experiencing the sublime within a supportive sisterhood as well as space and time for solitude. As I said, I like my solitude and breathing space. Just to be. Check out the details in my profile. DM if you have any questions. #practice #visualjournal #selfportraitureasmedicine #seeingmyself #wildawimming #outdoors #womenscreativity #walkingwriting #walkingwomen #creativeretreaticeland #icelandcreativeretreat
Living Wild Studios 