experience

Morning Routine: March

| Sheree
  1. I wake up ( that is if I got any sleep) and give thanks.
  2. Play Love Dimension by Beautiful Chorus a few times
  3. Water out/ water in
  4. Back to bed for Insight Timer medication or course
  5. Read in bed
  6. Make coffee and then journal in bed
  7. Get up.
  8. Strength training with free weights
  9. Move my body – yoga/ walk/run/ swim
  10. Greet the world with a smile.

What led you to this morning routine?*

Well I started on this find tuning of a morning routine at the beginning of January 2025, more or less. I was hibernating and I wanted to start a ritual that would anchor me into my life. Into the present moment at the same time as showing to myself that I am loved. I’ve done everything in my current morning routine at some point or other before but the putting them all together in some kind of coherent order is a first this year.

Did any ancient practices inspire you?

I’m not sure if a particular ancient practice inspired me. But maybe practices from my ancestral ancients might have subconsciously. If I remember living with my mum, back when I was in my 20s, she had a morning routine which I really didn’t notice then but can now. She’d get up early everyday, even though she wasn’t going to work, and go to the bathroom. Then make a cup of tea, open the windows and have a smoke. Maybe read at the same time but she’d claim the sitting room and the quiet. When she’d finish she’d make herself available for others.

For you, what is the importance of following a morning routine?

I hate routines usually. The predictability of them and the monotony gets on my nerves and I have to break out of them. But I think , in the past, this is because the routines and rituals have not been my own but have been imposed on me by external forces. I’ve mentioned when I was teaching before but also when I think of when I was studying creative writing. We were told if we wanted to be successful we should stick to one genre of writing and practice it in this way, using these techniques and following these rules. I found it all so restrictive. But here with this morning routine containing sacred rituals to myself, even if not carved in stone and open to change, I do not fight against the routine because I created. I feel that it is coming from a place of love for myself. This is my way of practicing self-love because I am giving myself the time and space each day so commune with myself and get my shit together ( or not!).

Questions taken from a similar interview found @ Academy Healing Nutrition

Pandemic Food Ways :: A Little Sweet Treat

| Sheree

This piece was originally published on Medium with Binderful back in 2020. I’m sharing this piece here because I was reminded that it existed over there when I made some crackers and jam this morning. It was good to revisit it. I share it with you now.

During these quarantined times with Covid-19, I’m trying to find way to support my well-being. I’m making sure I take the time and space to tune into my needs and wants, beside those of my family. I’m finding joy and memories in my day when I make solitude. This happens, usually in the morning, when I make my breakfast. It’s nothing fancy either. Its crackers and jam and black decaf coffee. The plain taste of the hard crackers against the sweet soft stickiness of raspberry jam (no seeds) is divine. This is a little sweet treat and takes me back to two moments in time.

The first is childhood. Crackers and jam was weekend breakfast when I was a kid. Dad would bring it to our bedroom, my sister and me, and we were allowed to eat them in bed. Crackers and jam is a poor man’s breakfast. But when I ate them as a child, I felt rich. I felt like a princess. I felt loved. Especially because my dad made it. A harsh Trinidadian man who ruled us with beats but who I idolised and always wanted to love me more. These Saturday mornings, tucked up in bed, I felt cosy and safe. As children most of our days were spent inside, with our imaginations and Enid Blyton. And this felt good. Now with my daughter, there isn’t any Enid Blyton more like David Walliams, but there‘s a generous amount of storytelling as we stay safe indoors. Learning from my childhood, when I received anger and beats for questioning why, our kids have been brought up wonder out loud and to receive a reason or answer rather than that feeling of saying or doing something wrong.

The second memory around crackers and jam takes me back to my first artist residency in Iceland. This would be my second time back to the island but the first time remaining in place, the remote Westfjords, for two weeks. Surrounded by white upon white. With the cold biting at all exposed flesh, I searched for any familiar signs, in the landscape, because I felt lost and adrift. I didn’t know why or what I was doing miles away from home, alone, in residence pretending to be an artist. I remember making crackers and jam and coffee one morning, knee deep in my unhinged being and remembering who I was. Memories came back about being a little girl craving love and safety and comfort. And how even though, I’d a harsh upbringing, in some respects, I know discipline and perseverance and self-preservation were forged then.

I suppose this mirrors how I feel and be now, in these uncertain times, and how making crackers and jam satisfies these urges and needs and fuels my desire to survive and thrive.

Go Back, Go Home

| Sheree

Go back and take care of yourself. Your body needs you, your feelings need you, your perceptions need you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it. Go home and be there for all these things.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Slammed by the Sea

| Sheree
King Edward’s Bay, Tynemouth

Sunday morning, I’m up at 6am to catch the sunrise in the sea.

The bay is quiet only a few people jumping waves and using the sauna tents.

I keep to my side of the bay where the waves are coming in smaller. I get in and feel good. The water is balmy compared to Loch Morlich last week.

I’m swimming just keep swimming. And before I know it I’m further out as well as further across into the centre left bay.

Before I release it, a big wave is coming in and I know it’s coming over my head. I stop swimming and try to make haste back to the shore knowing I’m wasting my energy.

The wave hits me hard, over my head, drenching my woollie bobbled hat and penetrates all breathing holes.

The main task is to keep standing and not to get pulled under. And to breathe of course.

I’m still trying to wade out of the sea and get to safety. But before I can make even a few more steps another wave slams me.

This time I’m down on my knees in the sea, gasping for breath. I pull off my hat, stand and I’m spluttering and stumbling to the shore.

Of course I have to turn back to the sea with a smile and say, okay you got me! I hear you. I feel you. I got a bit complacent there. Lesson learnt.

And this is a good reminder for me to always respect the sea and to not get too big for my boots. Taking it all leisurely basking in the temperature rise in comparison and forgetting where I am now.

Now in the present moment, I’m in the North Sea which is notorious for taking lives.

Don’t take you own life so lightly Sheree and pay attention.

Lesson learnt. Message heard . And thanks given.

Noticeboard – What’s happening today?

| Sheree

Morning routine done. Still completing my rituals before I greet the world.

Decided to add 2 more to the list so I can complete some stuff I want and don’t want to do this month.

One is to continue to add to my wall for my fugitivity essay. Two, tackle one task per day for completion of my counselling skills course.

Guess which task is the one I don’t want to do?

Completed reading the ebook, In the Cut by Susanna Moore. And I’m not going to spoil it for you but I just didn’t see the ending coming. I was reading this after reading an article with Susanna Moore speaking with Allison P. Davis and it was exploring writing about sex and murder. Somethings I’m considering writing about. So I thought I better read the novel. Let’s just say it’s an interesting read and I think I was expecting more sex! Call me greedy!

Went out for a walk and was remembering my drive home yesterday in the sunshine. Reminded of how being with Kiwi, and our on adventures is my happy place. More!

Returned home and forgot to post some stuff so had to go back out. And Tynemouth is heaving today because the sun is out and it’s the weekend and it’s station market day. I tend to avoid the crowds at the coast and head in the opposite direction but today I did not mind the people as I felt like I belonged.

Not belonged here. But belonged within my body.

There’s a difference.

Photowalk- Glenmore Forest

| Sheree

It’s been a while since I’ve taken you on a photowalk. With the nights getting lighter, and being away in Kiwi, I felt the urge to watch the sun go down over Loch Morlich.

When Kiwi and I were coming back from Glencoe in the New Year, we planned to stop off at Loch Morlich on route but it had snowed and more forecast. I’d never been to the loch before so I erred on the side of caution promising myself that we would return some other time.

That’s a practice of mine. To not run around like a blue arsed fly trying to fit everything in/ see/do everything but to leave something to come back for. A reason to return.

We were due to return to Loch Morlich in January but after my fall, I postponed it till this week.

So here we are parked up at Glenmore Campsite nestled in Glenmore Forest and kissing Loch Morlich.

Of course I’ve already been in the loch and it was fucking cold. I was tingling with renewed life afterwards though.

Enough energy therefore to take you on a photowalk as the evening draws in.

Enjoy because I know I did!

Loch Morlich
Loch Morlich
Glenmore Forest
Glenmore Forest
Abhainn Ruigh-Eurachan
Abhainn Ruigh-Eurachan flowing into Loch Morlich
Loch Morlich
Loch Morlich

On A Reading Tip

| Sheree

Quantity over quality is a characteristic of whet supremacy culture. Say like with social media, we are wired to focus on the numbers. The number and amount of followers, likes, comments gives us the buzz. Keeps us returning usually. Rather than the quality of interactions. The quality of connections.

But in this instant when I say I’m on a reading tip and boast that I’ve read 12 books already this year, fiction, poetry and non-fiction, I’m taking the buzz of the numbers because I know they were quality reads.

Last year saw me fall off my reading horse. Reading was only happening when I had an extended amounts of time off the clock. Summer reading mostly. I didn’t have the bandwidth or desire to read at any other times. I was too antsy and not able to settle, as too many demands were pulling on my attention.

So I’m really happy that this hibernation season has seen me dive back into books. Physical and digital books. I do not care which as long as I’m reading, expanding my thinking and formulating new pathways of understanding and connection.

So White Tears Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad was completed yesterday. And it so feeds into my experiences with white women. Even though they’ve caused offence, been racist that is, it’s me who’s consoling them and making sure their feelings are not too hurt. Or it’s me having to apologise because my reaction to their racism or them touching my hair without my consent has been deemed far too aggressive and not very collaborative by the organisation or group I was working with.

They are used as a weapon, white tears, to shut down the conversation. To get the white person out of an uncomfortable situation and out of having to look at themselves and their behaviours.

It was so validating to read this book and recognise that it doesn’t just happen to me and that this is a centuries old tactic of the damsel in distress. And that damsel is white as Black and Brown women have never been deemed woman enough to protect. And all this shit is wearing thin with Black and Brown women. Believe.

This book was an extension of an article Ruby Hamad wrote back in 2018 for The Guardian. You can read it there and just know that one Black woman, Lisa Benson, who was working as a journalist at the time got fired for simply sharing this article because it was deemed ‘an attack on white women’. White tears in action right there!

The Black Madonna of Vichy

| Sheree
Original post, Patreon, July 10, 2024

1. While visiting Paris in April, I’d made arrangements before I left to visit Vichy and visit the Black Madonna there in the Old Church, chapel Saint-Blaise.

I’m returning to my relationship with the Black Madonna here but still exploring this connection. This pull I sense towards these Black Virgins.

2. This chapel has always been a magnet in Vichy due to this Black Virgin of the 14th century. She is known for her miracles.

3. I’ve not brought with me the Christena Cleveland book, God is a Black Woman but I know I’ve written about this particular Black Madonna here before.

4. It was during the French Revolution, that she was burnt and only her head remained, thanks to a ten-year-old child who saved her from destruction.

5. There have been times that I have lost my head. Or been disconnected from my body. There have been times that it’s felt that I’ve been burnt at the stake. That my life has gone up in flames.

6. In 1802, her head was placed on a wooden base covered with the old cloth until 1931 when she was given a body again. Became a full bodied statue thanks to the sculptor Emma Thiollier.

7. No- one stitched me back together. Forged that (re)connection with head and body. I had to do that myself. Over years and over turbulent waters.

8. Vichy is known as the “queen of spa towns” with five healing thermal mineral springs.From the Roman times, people used to bathe in the waters, later to just taking to drink from the spring. It was only later after legends linking the healing qualities of the water to a white fairy that Christians connected the blessed waters with their miracle working Black Madonna of the Sick.

9. I’ve always thought of the sea as my medicine. She has healed me more than once. Healing is not a one time deal. It’s a practice and a process. But I’ve not been taking to the waters of late. I’ve not been taking my medicine.

10. I turn up here, create stories as a part of my healing journeys which are never linear. Spirals and circles instead.

A Black Virgin

| Sheree

My mind and body are hurting with the constant stream of information and images of this and that atrocity, and there is very little space to breathe, rest and take stock. I’ll be honest, I’ve been checking out. Checking out into Netflix boxsets, mindlessly watching episode after episode, numbing the pain and feelings of being inadequate , or not doing enough, being enough. Enough.

I don’t know about you, but it’s an overload at times of these times, which feel cruel and oppressive, evil and violent and unbelievable and yet we accept. There are no quick fix solutions but my heart and soul wants to feel that all will be well.

Society and culture ( the whole world) at the moment feels toxic and dangerous and I’m all for just slowing down and connecting in more deeper, honest and nourishing ways. I’m still leaning into my joys. Still bending towards the light as I don’t want to lose myself in this crippling spiral.

I’m slowing down alone and I’m slowing down in groups that I’m supporting and who are supporting me. I’m not by-passing the pain, the harsh realities, the genocides ( as there are multiple happening at the same time just now or have always been going on), but I’m also acknowledging how much I can endure and not beating myself up if I choose silence instead of performance. I know this is a privilege which I recognise, voice and keep checking.

Below I share the images from my Paris trip of Our Lady of Good Deliverance, often referred to as the Black Madonna of Paris. Over a 6 miles walk to see her, I covered more miles within my mind with my thoughts and feelings wondering and wandering, which were silenced or put to one side when I met this Black Madonna. I had the small chapel , in the suburb Neuilly-sur-Seine, all to myself when I visited. I walked around, I sat and looked and I lit a candle and remembered my ancestors and give thanks for this deliverance.

Deliverance: being rescued or being set free. How apt she comes back to me today. How I must have unconsciously known I needed her guidance today, needed her love and reassurances that liberty, salvation, change is possible. I’m not religious or spouting anything remotely religious or pious. I’m not preaching or looking to convert.

I’m spiritual and believe in love. I believe in the good in people and try to connect there on that common ground rather than separation and hatred.

What I do know is this isn’t a neat, tie-it-all-up-ending, with ‘this is what I want to say and you to take away’ as that would be another construct and false prophet.

I just know starting to look/ believe that ‘God is a Black Woman’, that the Black Madonnas are here to support and love us through difficult times ( as well as good times, our pleasures and joys) feels like a blessing to me that I will continue to lean into during these slowing down, turning away from exploitative and extractive society and culture times and continue to nurture others ways of {BEING} in this world.

Original post, Patreon, 10 May 2024