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
It is with great delight that I share with you this forthcoming publication.
Late last year, I submitted a completed mixmoir essay to Eleanor Cheetham, at Creative Countryside. This was the end result of an application submitted on invitation by Eleanor last August.
Now, coming next month, through a successful Indigogo fund raising campaign, Intrinsic will be out in the world. And I’m overjoyed to see this project succeed. It’s been a while in the making, which isn’t a complaint as I am an advocate of ::SLOW:: but it was touch and go if this project was going to come to fruition due to finances. and that would have been a great shame and disservice if this beauty was lost to the world.
An anthology of 12 deep-rooted connections with the more-than-human world, this book is not like any other nature writing text out there. This anthology supports and uplifts the diverse voices which exist within this writing genre at the same time as expanding and redefining what nature writing can be.
I’m one of the twelve writers featured in this anthology. I took the time, and the much needed space, to explore something that I’ve been carrying around within my body and soul for a while; the link to the sea for my ancestors and me.
Seascape- Grief and Grievance and Healings is the title. It’s a narrative mixmoir piece rich in memories and hauntings, voices and references. I’m really proud of this baby and it was such a delightful process of creation throughout it all.
Please consider checking the anthology out, published by Creative Countryside and available to buy next month, July 2022.
When Petrified Trees Stand Up and March Into the Sea
I carve out solitude to wander wide open shores
sanddunes, pebbles and wooden limbs
Submerged a forest of trees so tall they flowed above the clouds
what we cannot control, we destroy and call it progress.
We advance like the tide to claim what we have no right to claim
concrete blocks, seaweed and dead seals, emerge from frothy waves and marram grass.
unseasonal storms uproot ancient trees while manmade concrete lines remain in tact in place in defence
here a legion of foreign bodies marched to expand an empire, build a wall then leave it to moss.
Bizzing dragonflies, shrubs of wax mirtle and the coconut vanilla scent of golden gorse
Some day soon all this will be gone,
gorse, grass, concrete wall,
washed away like blood as the sea returns to the source,
returns to where it belongs.
There’s a small hamlet, Low Hauxley nestled behind sand dunes along a long and quiet stretch of sandy beach on the Northumberland coast. Here along the high tide line stumps of an ancient forest are visible.
It is believed the stumps were preserved by peat and sand and are believed to date back to more than 7000 years and are the remains of Doggerland- an area of bogs, marches and forest that connected the British Isles to mainland Europe.
Archaeologists have also uncovered animal footprints and it is believed red deer, wild boar and brown bears would have roamed ancient Doggerland forest.
These petrified trees. This really blew my mind.
My name is Dr. Sheree Mack. I’m Creatrix : she who makes.
My practice manifests through poetry, storytelling, image and the unfolding histories of black people. I engage audiences around black women’s voices and bodies, black feminism, grief and healing, nature, identity and memory.
I advocate for black women’s voices, facilitating national and international creative workshops and retreats in the landscape, encouraging and supporting women on their journey of remembrance back to their bodies and authentic selves. This journey is supported and recognised by Mother Nature.
I’m the founder of Earth Sea Love, which is a social enterprise, offering opportunities to People of the Global Majority living in the north east of England to develop a deeper connection with/in nature.
The Earth Sea Love Podcast has developed out of these experiences and aims to change the narrative around who has a right to have a relationship with nature. I’ve recently been writer in residence for Northumberland National Park Authority. A black-led nature project I will add. At the moment I’m Creatrix in Residence for Hadrian’s Wall part of the 1900 years festival.
My Practice is a Healing Practice.
The Practice of ::SLOW:: is how I engage with my work and the world. Living within White Supremacy Culture, we are indoctrinated into certain principles and practices which benefit the few rather than the many.
Leaving aside racism and the systematic destruction of Black, brown and indigenous peoples, White Supremacy Culture, perpetuates the pursuit of perfectionism, product over process, and quantity over quality, to name but a few.
This means that the majority of us live our lives at speed, with a greater sense of urgency, with feelings of never being or doing enough, resulting in reduced contact to ourselves, our intuition and inner wisdom.
Slowing down supports me on my journey back to self and ultimately self-love and healing. Being and walking with/in nature teaches me how to slowdown and pay attention and just be.
Nature shows me that there is an abundance rather than a scarcity. It is through these practices that I fell in love with nature.
Nature and I are connected. We are one, therefore falling in love with nature, I fell in love with myself. This in turn means I turn up in life, in connection with others not only as a better version of myself but in a better place to offer love to other people.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect about this event or what I was going to share. But on reflection now, I’m so glad that I was invited to take part because I learned so much about peatlands within the UK, around the world and the special place they hold within the global climate crisis.
So much of my language around nature and the environment has been formed through white supremacy culture which has been biased on colonialism and imperialism and capitalist consumption. And of which I am at great pains now to unlearn and find a new language or it is just a re-memory of the language of my ancestors where there is no separation between us and nature.
Something that was raised last night by Khairani Barokka, which was totally new to my knowledge and way of thinking was that within indigenous communities gender was much more fluid and diverse. The binary system of male and female/ he and she which we take as a given now, as the norm, is a construction and part of the colonist program.
That the idea of “the coloniality of gender,” which might have seen the binary gender system in Europe but was not the case for indigenous populations around the world who were brutalised, moved off the lands and eliminated through genocide. This is going to require more reading on my part but it will be completed eagerly as it’s more evidence of how this system to live and breathe is a construct of power for a few white people over the rest of us all.
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 *
Living Wild Studios 