authenticsheshe

Burning Woman

| Sheree

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This year I attempted to make a concerted effort to read more books. I felt that I was missing out on rich and varied worlds and ideas by not reading enough. I started off well but I think things went off the boil mid-year, when things in my family life got a bit hectic and harrowing.

I’m trying to pick things up now moving into 2018. To choose just one book as the best for the year is something I cannot do. Also you usually just remember the last few books you’ve read as they are the most recent. To think back over the year, if you haven’t been keeping track is difficult to do anyway. Note to self: keep a record of what I read next year!!!

So I choose Burning Woman by Lucy H. Pearce on the premise that this is one of the books I have kept returning to over the year as it is so packed with juicy truths that resonate with me deeply. This is kind of like a handbook for claiming our power as women internally and externally. I definitely claim the title of a burning woman. #decemberreflections2017

best day of 2017

| Sheree

Day 3 of December Reflections and the prompt is : best day of 2017.

This year has been long and short, amazing and disconcerting, a breeze and a challenge. But I started with an intention – this year was one of the ‘voice’. My voice.

In January I attended a writers’ retreat for finding our voices to talk about the issues we care about.

Visiting #Iceland twice, strengthened my relationship with the land, my vision as well as my voice talking about my body in the world.

And now into the final month of the year, my time with @Idlewomen #shiftingloyalties is coming to an end and the signs I have been receiving are that I am on the right path. Sometimes that path might be lonely, I might be the only loud voice quaking ( we have ducks here) about an issue but support and encouragement is not to too away.

Last night I shared my poetry for the first time since I lost my voice in 2015. I’m emboldened. I heard my voice. My voice is strong and true and she is me.

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.

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.

New Practice : Ten@Tuesday

| Sheree

I’m planning to share my new practice with you, just on a Tuesday, even though I’m completing this task everyday. This practice came to me first via Alisha Sommer and her beautiful writing and photography. And this practice came to Alisha via Marie Howe being interviewed on On Being.

Within this podcast, Marie Howe talks about the power of poetry and the sacredness of the every day. Sacred space is there always just waiting for us to stop and pay attention. To stop and hold space for the now.

I love the thought of this. I love the idea of gifting ourselves the beauty and grace of our present moments. All we have to do is slow down and listen. Slow down and observe.

Marie recommends to her students to write down 10 observations of the actual world each day. No metaphors, no comparisons, just detail the world as it actually is. Simple. Engage the senses and be up close with the world around us. Be present.

After embarking on this practice for a few weeks now, I have to say it hurts, sometimes, to be so present as the tendency is to look away. To want to distract myself and move on. Get moving, get producing. But at the same time as the pain and is the simple joy of being present. There’s pain but also happiness to be found in being present. And this is amazing. Try is yourself and see.

Marie Howe calls this ‘a gift of holding sacred space.’ And you’re doing this for yourself, no one else, just yourself. I claim this as self-care to the max.

Each Tuesday, I’ll share my 10 observations. Feel free to share yours too, here with me.