goddess

A Creative Sketchbook, Dec 2025

| Sheree
My creative sketchbook
My creative sketchbook rules

I’m not sure how my creative sketchbook differs from my visual journal. Intention maybe.

Perhaps, I think , I’m attempting to develop my art practice within a designated space. A study maybe.

I haven’t really been in the thick of my art making practice since the preparation for my Baltic exhibition back in 2022-3.

This was quickly followed with the writings and (re)drafts of Darkling, my poetry/hybrid collection published in October 2024.

After this 2025 has been a period of extended rest and refusal.

But something has been niggling me. The desire to create with paint again. the desire to play without expectations and outcomes/ products.

I’ve just scratched the itch through scrolling through Pinterest. Adding another abstract or landscape painting to a board that I’ll probably not look at again.

But it satisfied this niggling feeling. Until it didn’t.

It was going back into the classroom. Completing a few days of supply that pushed me over the edge.

The time I gave away for money. The time I’d lost pursuing my own pursuits. And realising that I wasn’t pursuing all the pursuits I wanted to pursue in the time I had/have.

So out came a creative sketchbook, inspired by the 30 days sketchbook challenge created by Cheryl Taves over at Insight Creative.

This is as much as I’m willing to share for now about the challenge, my creative sketchbook, processes and insights.

One of my rules is that it’s just for my eyes only. I want to see how this rule changes my practice. I want to create without fear but with curiosity. I want to give myself all the freedom without worrying about what others will think or say or comment on.

It’s not like I’m hanging on other people’s responses and reactions but I have gotten into a habit of just sharing anything and everything on my blog and I’m curious to see what happens when I keep things to myself.

Just for my eyes, heart, and soul only.

So far I’m enjoying the process of the challenge and I’m reflecting and paying attention to what makes my heart sing, what’s my creative vocabulary, what pushes my energies.

Do doubt whatever I explore within my creative sketchbook will be showing up in everything that I create. In everything who I {BE}. For sure.

Consistency

| Sheree
Sitges

This is my final day in Barcelona. Well Spain, as I took a trip yesterday southwest along the coast to Sitges and stayed.

This is the Mediterranean Sea and I got in it this morning. It wasn’t planned as I didn’t bring a swimming costume on my travel. Travelling light I was. . So it was a very fetching set of underwear that saw me right. Who knew!

Not as cold as the North Sea but still fresh. But oh so clear. Glass clear. It was just what my body needed . Now I’m chilled in a good way. Bones, and sinew relaxed, grateful for this time away with myself.

I thought I would have written more here on the blog while away but I haven’t. Saving my reflections for after rather than during. Really being present while here has been my focus. And it’s felt LUSH.

I’m proud of my consistency as I’ve still kept up with my morning routine while here as well as completing a whole month of posting on my blog for January.

Another consistent habit/ practice for January and hopefully beyond, has been honouring my body. Listening to her and giving her what she needs and desires. This is new as before it’s been denial and depriving and depreciating.

Tiger Chai and Cinnamon Roll, yummy!!!

2025 had seen, no felt, a change with my relationship will my body. I’m looking forward to exploring this even more during February. The month of love!

Morning Routine 2025

| Sheree

For the past few years, I’ve been trying to protect my mornings. I’ve tried to not schedule morning meetings so I could give myself the time and space to ease into my day. I’ve found that when I give myself this time and space in the morning to be/do what makes me feel more like myself, then the rest of the day runs better. It’s about prioritising my needs and wants before I face the world and give myself to it and other people.

So the past few days have seen me try to embed much more ritual and intention into the start of my day. I would do certain things that I know were good for me but some days I would forget and rush off into the day and then realise later on what I had forgotten to do. A simple act of getting water into my system first thing could be overlooked if I wasn’t being mindful in my mornings.

So on reflection, I realised that I was still protecting my mornings, but I wasn’t being/doing the things that I needed and wanted to do with consistency. And there’s the rub. Consistency. Consistency over complexity. Keeping things simple and doing things over and over again has the potential to bring about change, clarity and joy. Consistency doesn’t have to be monotonous and regimental as I feel I’ve been looking at it over the years. Consistency can be cozy, and constructive and pleasurable, for sure. Well this is what I’m thinking now as I try to become more consistent with my morning routines and rituals. And of course it’s a practice, like everything is. And some mornings I might fail at the practice but really it’s not a fail even if I forget something from the routine. What the point is, is the mindful intention of practicing a morning routine and remembering why I am doing it. To prioritise myself.

So what does my morning routine look like? And sharing it here is just another way for me to remember it, remind myself, to embed it. To make it became second nature with time.

  1. On waking, give thanks for waking.
  2. Water out/ water in
  3. Back to bed to mediate
  4. Read in bed
  5. Move body
  6. Coffee and journal
  7. Get ready
  8. Start day outside – walk
  9. Come back to gratitude at the end of the day and share 3 things I’m grateful for
  10. Repeat

What do I have to do to make this happen? To make this a habit? Do it and keep doing it. It isn’t a chore or anything difficult. It’s giving me a chance to make sure my mornings are SLOW. There’s room for self-reflection, self conversation, self-love. Do it and keep doing it. And if I miss a step, go back and do it when I remember. As soon as I remember. And not to beat myself up about missing a step but offer myself some compassion and grace. I’m not trying to be perfect or a morning goddess. But I am trying to be me, more me. More whole me.

The Goddess of Rest pt.2

| Sheree

What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?

Springvale Farm, Rotherham, July 2024
Springvale Farm, Rotherham, July 2024
Springvale Farm, Rotherham, July 2024

The Goddess of Rest

| Sheree
Springvale Farm, Rotherham, July 2024

Rest is important to me after a lifetime of hustling and running on empty to be the most productive person alive. All to be loved . All to be accepted. All to be successful on somebody else’s terms.

Not anymore. Nine years ago my eyes were forced open to the system. This grind culture. White Supremacy Culture. This only getting your worth from what you do rather than who you be.

No I no longer buy into that crap.

Rest is paramount for me these days as I’ve realised I cannot fulfil all things I want to do in my pursuit of joy and purpose if I do not take my right amount of rest. If I do not stop and smell the roses and {BE}.

This summer I’m taking an extended rest and the Goddess has come visiting as a result.

The Goddess will be showing up this summer because she can. Because she’s ready. Because she has further things to teach me.

Springvale Farm, Rotherham, July 2024