My time of hibernation is coming to an end and there is a whole heap of resistance. It’s not as if I’ve got loads of work lined up. It’s the thought that my time will not be mine alone, to do with what I want come April and beyond.
I took a major risk taking/ making the time away to rest and dream. But for me there was no other choice. I think I was a bit burnt out around the edges and I needed to pull back and heal. And I have done that but there is no end point for healing. No rubber stamping a certificate.
I continue with my morning routine and hope to continue beyond the hibernation period. And this will be where the true test lies. To continue to love on myself daily before I have to meet the world will make the difference between continuing on the healing journey or coming to a full stop. As there can be no healing and growth and self-love if I don’t protect the time to {BE}.
Nearly 15 years ago, I put on my trainers and went on my first run. I started the Couch to 5K podcast the January after the birth of Miss Ella. I needed to lose the pregnancy weight as well as claim some time for myself, to decompress and forget the commitments and chores. I completed the 9 week training course and went on to complete 5k, 10k, half marathon and then a number of marathons. My last marathon was 2022 at Loch Ness. And last year, I attempted an Ultramarathon along the Pembrokeshire Coast but I didn’t complete it. I ran out of time.
I didn’t really train for the ultramarathon because my running practice was a bit hit and miss in 2024. I wasn’t feeling it. Wasn’t enjoying it. I wasn’t taking my medicine.
After the school run this morning, I felt the urge to get my trainers on and run. Knowing it’s been months since I have run, as well as considering my recent fall on black ice right onto the base of my spine and mostly my right buttock, I didn’t go running out the door at break neck speed. In fact, I’ve never ran at break neck speed. SLOW is my practice in running also.
I re-started the Couch to 5K podcast again. Week 1 involves a 5 minute warm up, and then alternating between 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking, eight times and then a 5 minute cool down. So around the park I walked, ran, walked. My back was sore, I won’t lie. And maybe I shouldn’t be running after my fall. But this is me knowing my body, caring for my body, healing my body, my way. Back was sore when I ran, so this forced me to engage my core. To shorten my stride, to land my softer, even slow down. Yes it still hit but nothing major. But changing my running style also impacted my walking, as it meant I was engaging my core more while walking too. It meant I’m supporting my back more, all the time, not just when running.
The run went well. I wasn’t really out of breath. It was an easy start to the journey ahead. But I didn’t stop there. This fall has been a blessing, this is how I’m looking at it. As it’s making me more aware of my body and what I can do to keep my body healthy, moving and feeling loved. So I came home, completed a short set of strength training and then finished everything off with some yoga focusing on supporting my back.
In the past, I wouldn’t have bothered to actively support my recovery after a run. But this fall is forcing me to take better care of my body as it’s the only one I have and I want to keep her for a fair few more years to come. The fall made me face how fragile my body can be. How things can shift and change in an instant. I’ve been reluctant to walk out on ice and frost since. I’ve been hesitate but I also don’t want to be holding myself back or moving in fear. I’ve being fearful but I’m learning to breath through the fear and pain. I’d rather have the pain because I’m doing something to strength and support my back, my body rather than the pain through doing nothing.
Anyway, here ends my gratitude for today. I’m grateful to my body for all that she allows me to be/ do x
As you know, I had the honour of being part of a group exhibition at the BALTIC this winter, Hinterlands, with my creative archivetitled, A Country Journal of a Blackwoman( Northumberland).
I’ve enjoyed revisiting the exhibition throughout it’s installation, alone and with others. What has been so rewarding has been the responses I’ve received from individual directly, as well as through the BALTIC in relation to the exhibition and my contribution.
Once such response or experience really made me laugh out loud with joy and surprise and involved the statue of Blessed Martin, pictured above.
I argue that creating alternative labels for each item within my archive as a must, as a means of extending the conversation, bringing in a chorus of diverse voices into the white cube space as well as pushing back against the standard, expected practice and pushing back to decolonising the space.
The label assigned to this artefact of Blessed Martin reads:
“Blessed Martin ~ Patron Saint of Racial Harmony
“Take Blessed Martin with you. In your pocket in you bag, whatever. Whenever you go outside, traveling or just walking. Take Blessed Martin with you. He will protect your journey. Keeping you safe with the ancestors as you journey through this world as a Black woman; present and absent.” Advice from Mother given to her sojourning Daughter.”
On one visit to the exhibition, I was told the story around one woman who took the time to really read this label and then proceeded to take the statue down from display, place him in their bad and walk out with him. Luckily, they were spotted doing this and were stopped before they could leave the building.
This individual believed that if they literally took this saint and carried him with them that they would be safe and protected. My response to hearing this tail, after a full belly laugh, was that they must have needed him, at this time. And I felt humbled that they wanted to be part, gain something from this archive also.
The exhibition ends April 30 and to mark it there will be a closing event at the BALTIC.
Saturday 29 April 11am, Donation & free tickets available. This is going to be a whole day event where you’ll get to hear from the artist who have been part of the exhibition. Some will be performing, reading work and sharing natural rituals.
I think I’ll be sharing around building an archive for ourselves so we start taking back the power around who gets to decide what is collected and preserved for future generations. Who’s histories and stories are worthy of being part of an archive?
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.
This is what I wrote in my application, really not knowing what I was going to write when I came to the page:
Activity Description (long version): “The Creative Way is a process of gathering the bones and then breathing life into them”.
Taken from the text, Creatrix: she who makes by Lucy H Pearce, The Creatrix in Residence of Hadrian’s Wall aims to explore two vital components within this project.
The first is to be like a Palaeontologist, digging down into the different social, cultural, political and physical strata of Hadrian’s Wall to unearth the hidden bones of stories yet to be told a round creative women and people of colour. The second it to getting down to the bones of the creative process itself; documenting the magic that happens when an individual decides to accept the invitation to embark on the journey of creativity, into the labyrinth of the bodymind.
“For women poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. […] Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.” Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider
Running parallel will be a shifting through the bones; the bones of lives from the past, lived lived along Hadrian’s Wall along with the bones of creativity so a more solid and understandable shape will emerge around the process of owning the power to create and transform.
From April, for a year, the Creatrix in Residence of Hadrian’s Wall will claim space and time at different places, sites and events for a minimum of two Wednesdays per month. In addition to these visitations, public walks, workshops and creative events will take place to share stories, practice and the Creative Way.
Activity Description (short version): Creatrix in Residence of Hadrian’s Wall is a experimental, experiential creative project exploring the strata of life, shifting through the bones in connection to the Wall as well as The Creative Way itself.
Other events offered as an alternative to the Future Landscape Programme that will run at the same tine at COP26 in Glasgow, will provide diverse voices to the environmental and conservation movement and makes those all important links between the local and global in terms of the climate crisis.
I’ll be hosting a conversation with Sarah Hussain and Serayna Solanki
Through their projects and research, both Sarah Hussain and Serayna Solanki are providing spaces for marginalised communities and people of colour to engage with nature as a means of changing the narrative around who has a say in the Climate Change Movement. They are working within education and research, community and organisational partnerships, to create and highlight dialogue around climate justice through personal and community storytelling.
Join me , as host again, with Jo Clement and Zakiya McKenzie for a reading and discussion of literature which explores place, environment, belonging and identity as both writers read from and talk about their recent collections.
Grace Hull created Green Grace Soul to share her journey to living sustainably in a holistic way. Grace attempts to balance the food she eats, the products she uses and the things she buys with the most beneficial outcomes for her health, the health of the planet, and the others living on it.
Sustainable living and Climate Change activism have many faces, and by centring holistic sustainability Grace engages with intersectionality and the social and historical context of climate change through the reflections of her journey that she shares on her website, podcast and DIY projects.
This will be a keynote lecture followed by a Q and A.
Many moons ago, I went to Washington State to visit a new friend, Sarah Spaeth, who I met while picking grapes on Monteleone in Lazio, Italy. That was over 10 years Aga now and we’ve been friends ever since. We’ve had some adventures in the States, over here in Scotland and also Iceland.
While I was in residence with the Jefferson Land Trust, where Sarah was the Executive Director at the time, I fell in love with Fort Walden which was just down the road from where I was staying. It’s a national park with the sea, beach and trees and a creative centre, called Centrum.
I remember Sarah talking about this centre while in Italy and how much I would love it there and to come and see. She was right, I felt right at home there. And when I took my family over there, we spent plenty of hours hanging out there. It was my dream to sometime return and do a writing retreat there, or attend their summer writing program.
The summer writing program is just like going back to college for a week. Writing workshops in the morning and afternoon and then evening readings. To be immersed in writing for a whole week, with other writers, bliss. Obviously this year, it’s had to be cancelled. So instead they’re offering a Summer Writing Intensive but virtually. The next best thing. And something I could so attend.
So I am, starting tomorrow, I’m going to writing college and going to spend the week in poetry and fiction workshops. Go to some readings in the evening, but totally live the writer’s life and I do so from the comfort of my own home. And what’s even neater is that I’ve been given a scholarship to take part for which I am so grateful.
So apologies not is you don’t see me here next week, as I’ll be soaking up the writing atmosphere and vibes from across the pond.
Living Wild Studios 