freedom

Supporting Words of the Year

| Sheree

My word of the year is LUSH. And I’ve shared about my reasoning around choosing LUSH, here. On a basic level, I just love saying the word. By the end of the year, I know those around me are going to be sick of hearing the word, LUSH. But I know I’m not going to stop saying/ using/ projecting LUSH.

LUSH needs support moving forward. LUSH needs to spread throughout my life and practice. LUSH is my mantra and I want to direct this energy into bringing about change in my life. Going with the flow at the same time as maybe directing the flow. For me it is all about energy, and for the last couple of years, my energy has been warped, abused, stagnant and awry. So 2025 is me taking it back.

LUSH is a start. And to support this feeling, I have three other words that are coming into the mix, which are coming to my aid and will be used as my guiding forces, this year and beyond, along with LUSH.

So what are these words I hear you ask?

DREAM
CONJURE
FUGITIVITY

For me these supporting words feed into LUSH as well as each other. They all I feel have a sense of magic and possibility about them.

TO DREAM. I think I do this daily through my visual journaling practice. Everything that comes to fruition in my life, things that I make happen for me and others, starts on the page, starts within my visual journalling. This year, I’m adding some more energy, potent energy into those pages as I intend to dream big, dream bold, dream beautiful.

TO CONJURE. This is where the magic lies. I love the word conjure. It has come to take on more meaning over the last couple of years as I’ve explored it in relation to Black Feminism, Black women and another way of knowing. Another way of being in this world which draws upon our ancestors, Mother Nature and our innate wisdom. I want to conjure with intention this year and be open to what appears, what happens. I want to step into my power as a CONJUR WOMAN ( See Romare Bearden) and appreciate all the layers.

FUGITIVITY. I have Dal Kular to thank for bringing this word into my life as well as supporting and inspiring me in the use of it too. Fugitivity is state of being and movement. It’s a way of moving through this world where you are your own authority and guide. You refuse that which has been refused. It’s a divestment from white supremacy culture, the structures and systems which state that I will never be good enough, white enough, human enough. Another life, another way of being is possible. And I’m exploring the possibilities.

I’m mighty happy with the supporting words this year I have with LUSH, because already sharing them here and thinking/ feeling on them, in the process they are already bringing about change, SLOWNESS as well as JOY.

Have you decide on your word of the year yet? Are you going to support that word with some other words? Let me know in the comments, I’m interested.

Rest is a Revolution

| Sheree

How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?

When I start avoiding people. Start avoiding those conversations, connections with other people. Not being able to muster the energy to just look someone in the eye, I know it is time to unplug, unwind and retreat.

When my mind becomes a jumbled mess of to-dos, guilt-tripping myself galore with feelings of not being good enough. Then I know it is time to unplug, unwind and retreat.

When I no longer receive pleasure from the things I love to do, like writing, creating, eating. {BEING}. I know then, time to step away from the tasks, the commitments, the noise, the violence and the ruin and hide.

Stop. Breathe. Lick wounds. Apply water inside and out. And come back to centre. My centre. Me, being just me.

No actions or words in attempt to prove myself. No singing and dancing routine to grab your attention. Nothing wise or in service here.

Just someone unplugging from the system unsure whether or not she wants to plug back in on someone else’s terms.

There are no ‘lazy days’

| Sheree

Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?

This morning’s gratitude

It’s been a bit hit and miss here over the last few weeks as I’ve been busy, walking and resting.

There are no lazy days. Saying a person is having a lazy day is such a imperialist, capitalist, white supremacy patriarchy judgement.

Our value does not come from how busy we are, how productive we are or how hard we hustle.

I’m done with that mentality and practice and conditioning.

I’m been resting up after my 96 miles hike for the lowlands to the highlands of Scotland and have felt no guilt or made any excuses for it. I’m luxuriated in the inactivity.

Rest is a weapon as I’ve said before. Rest is pushing back against a system which was set up not for my survival but destruction.

Rest is a Revolution. So while I write my morning pages from bed, cradling a hot coffee and a sugared ring donut, I creatively plot my next move in chipping away for the dismantling of the system.

This includes another coffee and another page of dreaming. I’m not lazing, I’m not having a lazy day, I’m creating friction, rebellion, freedom.

Appreciation

| Sheree

While waiting for the shower to run from cold to hot, I think of three things I’m grateful for today:

I’m grateful for CoCo ( mini convertible borrowing from a dear friend) because it got me places I didn’t to get to today. All in one piece.

I’m grateful for the warm oat milk poured over Weetabix, with chilled blueberries and chocolate sauce. Comfort food.

I’m grateful for the chance to see my daughter today as I dropped off a book with her after school before she went on to her dad’s.

PAD/005 – Protest

| Sheree

Cinnamon sky rumbles
as electric clouds jag
over glass shop fronts.
Scarlet waves fire street

corners, claiming them forever.
Coppers and politicians
worry the faultlines
left behind.

PAD/001 – A Month of Poetry

| Sheree

Happy April. Time for showers, blossom and light. Oh and poetry.

Forsythia

As I mentioned last week, I’m honouring National Poetry Month with the challenge of writing a poem a day.

I’ve set myself this task many times over the years, and I’ve always been amazed at the creations along the way. Poems have emerged onto the page that I didn’t even know were in me and needed expressing.

So today I come to the page with an open heart and a rough idea of the themes or issues I want to explore. But who knows with the creative process. Anything could happen.

Anyway day 1 – PAD/ 001

Trying to understand “the difference between poetry and rhetoric”

After Audre Lorde

The contested site of black settlement in England

is shrouded a heavy fog of amnesia. The wrong colour,

the wrong body, the wrong sound.

Read the history books, you’d think we just landed

the day before last. 400 years of being here, lost

in the mire, weighted down with size 10, Dr. Martens.

Like transplanted birds of paradise, West Indians

struggled to put down roots. Alien soil. On corners,

skylarking and limin’, jobs, homes and a little bit of peace

denied; harsh whispers on the bitterly cold wind.

The contested site of black settlement in England

is captured in stills. Images speak for themselves.

Black faces filling the frame; black blooms pressed

against hothouse glass. But still an absent presence in failed memories.

I don’t remember when I lost my most important treasure

| Sheree
The Goddess Series, 2023

I don’t remember when I started to hurt.

I don’t remember when I gave up on myself being enough, being worthy.

I don’t remember when I gave myself away to others at the expense of not keeping any goodness for me.

I don’t remember when I started to hate on myself and wishing myself away, wishing myself into something or someone else. Anything else but this. Anything other than who I really am.

I don’t remember when I started to hide myself away became secretive and dishonest as a means of protection and advancement.

I don’t remember when I stopped being my own best friend and started to seek this relationship, this love and attention elsewhere.

I don’t remember when I betrayed myself by thinking that I was someone who didn’t deserve to be here, as someone worthy of love and happiness and joy.

I don’t remember when I started to listen to others, the outside world and stopped listening to my heart, to my own wisdom.

I don’t remember when I stopped just {being} instead of doing. When {being} was enough.

I don’t remember when I stoped paying attention to what lights me up, my wants and needs, what makes me smile.

I don’t remember when I stopped being a child and took the burdens of the world on to my little shoulders like they belonged there.

I don’t remember when I stopped being in love with myself and gave this love to others who were not deserving of my love, who could not see me as me.

I don’t remember when I began to think I needed other people to love me instead of me just loving on me.

I don’t remember when or how or why all this happened, I just feel it. And now, here I am trying to get back to me, to me loving on me, the most important treasure, lost.