gratitude

A May of Healing

| Sheree

It makes a difference when we’ve got the light. And it’s warm with it.

I’m in a three day streak of getting into the sea, straight after the school run. The tide has been in too. Which I love.

I love it when the bay is full to the brim with sea. I don’t have to walk far before I meet the water.

I give thanks when I greet the sea. Because she’s always there for me. Not judging me. Not rejecting me. Just welcoming me.

In the past, the sea has healed me again and again. The first time of any significance was when I miscarried our second child, back in 2009. We moved to the coast soon after as I needed to heal.

And to be healed is not a one time thing. Healing is a life long process. Sometimes I’m locked into my healing journey and sometimes I veer off course and need something or someone to remind me to get back into the practice. The practice of healing.

So with a new month comes a renewal. And this is the time of year to renew. Spring is well and truly with us now. And the blossom may be receding and just pink petals on the wind, or white even. But I’m catching hints of bluebells.

So my list of habits and actions to lean into for a May of Healing includes:

  1. A high protein breakfast.
  2. Making sure I get 8+ hours of sleep each night. Priority!
  3. Getting lost in a few good books.
  4. Walking each day. Getting outside into the light.
  5. Getting into the sea as often as possible, at home and away.
  6. Visual journaling daily.
  7. Getting back into painting for pleasure. To hell with the results.
  8. Increasing my fruit and veg intake.
  9. Increasing my water intake. At least 2litres a day.
  10. Continue on my strength training journey.
  11. Insight timer daily.
  12. Reconnecting with friends and family I haven’t talked to for a while.
  13. Solo dates like to the cinema or a museum. Or a delicious meal out for one!
  14. Acquire some new plant friends.
  15. Create a zine or two.
  16. Plan the summer holidays for Miss Ella and me. And also solo me!
  17. Keep traveling for pleasure and joy instead of work commitments and responsibilities.
  18. Write someone a letter.
  19. Dance party, music consumption daily.
  20. Rest. Rest. Rest.

The End – Day 30

| Sheree

I might also be forgiving if you don’t write every day. I drafted these essays in half an hour. There was something very pleasant about that—to have a little exercise. It’s not like you’re trying to write the best thing in the world. 
—Ross Gay

These past 30 days have flown by. If I’d stopped and really thought about it before this month, I probably would have talked myself out of writing a poem a day. I’d been in a dry spell and not reallly doing anything to be inspired.

I’m glad I didn’t give myself any time or space to think about it as I’ve so enjoyed this challenge. And as the quote says, I wasn’t trying to write the best poems in the world. I was just trying to write and enjoy it again.

So mission accomplished.

The final task for the month is to look over the creations and to see if there’s any themes or connections to pull them into some kind of whole. It doesn’t have to include everyone. But if it was going to be a collection what would the title be?

Initial thoughts – something that includes ‘Blossom’ as it’s been a reoccurring image/ focus I think throughout the month. Just saying ‘Blossom’ reminds me of a black and white movie I watch with my mum one Sunday afternoon when I was a kid. And it was about a Welsh mining village and a black man comes to work there. Of course there’s a pit accident and the black man is killed saving the others, if I remember rightly. Anyway the black man would say ‘ Blossom’ but like ‘Blossssooomm’ really exaggerating it.

I must find out what that film was called. Hold on …

Nah, can’t find it. Found Proud Valley with Paul Robson but I don’t think it was that. But I think there was singing in it. Does this mean I have to watch the film to see if he says ‘blossom’ in it?

Blossom is only here for a short time and I don’t want to waste that time on a black and white movie when I could be enjoying the delicate textured colours of real blossom.

So the title of the poems form the month would be titled: when lush becomes blossom

That will do for now.

Getting Things Straight

| Sheree

Have you ever been camping?

This weekend saw me away from home at The Outdoor Connections weekend. It’s a weekend away for grassroots groups who are working to diversify the outdoors. Groups and organisations who connect with grassroots communities to offer opportunities outdoors with nature.

So Earth Sea Love CIC, me as Creative Director, was invited along to take part. And I went with Kiwi, my converted campervan, with the hope of camping out on the site of the youth hostel where everything was taking place.

That didn’t go plan as sleeping in my campervan wasn’t allowed on site for what reason I do not know. So each evening, I left the group to try and find a park up for the night.

Stanage Edge, Park District

I’m not complaining though as I found some lush spots to park up and rest.

Now I have returned home, I’m still a bit out of sorts. Not quite landed yet after my time away. So a way for me to get grounded is to make another handmade journal to use for my daily pages moving forward.

Well no sooner than I’d finished it, yesterday evening, that it’s full today. All I can say is that I must have had a lot to process. I know I did use it as my next to-do list after my last journal was used for the same practice. And it’s just helps me get things straight. Clear the decks and start again. Begin to work my way through the things that need to be done.

Still/ Just Writing Out – Day 25

| Sheree

Going down is the sun. Still warmth to be had. Precious.

Let me sit in its grace and give thanks. A moment. Spring.

Blossom. Lambs. They look at me as if they want to say something.

Make a connection. I see you and you see me.

Running after mum, grabbing at her teat. Kids.

Always demanding something. Mine are both beautiful

inside and outside. I say this all the time. But what do I mean?

I take no credit in their beings.These birds are singing out

their lives, building nests before they can rest.

But when do you ever rest once you have kids?

What a worry. What a responsibility.

Yet, they have forced me to grow. To step into this thing called

mothering. Like a pink bud, still clinched like a fist, there is more

to learn upon this journey.

Ode to Kiwi – Day 23

| Sheree

Kiwi, my love. Let’s celebrate the love we have for each other.

Just over a year together and we have been places. Seen the seas,

oceans, mountains and streams. Moonrise and sunrise, we have

witnessed with each other. Thank you my love, for allowing me to ride by your side.

We’ve both seen some years play upon our bodies. We are both

worn and rusted. Speed will hear us protest loudly, as we ricket

over potholes and obstacles. But neither stop us.

I’m learning to read your sounds, your warnings. Creaking while

stationary, rocking to and fro when I walk within you, and then

you roll back. Handbrake on truly on.

Rattling while climbing a hill, crawling almost on out knees, slip

back down a gear and then we cruise. I hear you humming,

singing all the tarmac and I feel your joy, matching mine.

Kiwi, little sage in colour. My love. Maybe this is a colour I would

never have fallen in love with. Too pale, too fickle. And yet on

you, I accept it all. Got a lot of extra paint to touch you up when

you fall and scratch yourself. Of rather me. I’m sorry about that

lamppost. To be fair, I couldn’t see it around your fat arse. But I love

your behind, your front, your sides and all.

I love everything about you Kiwi, because I think through our time

together and I adventures, base and far, I have learnt out to

navigate this big and ugly and brutal world with you. And

because of our partnership, I have grown in confidence and wisdom.

Daily, when we go outside to there, as one my love, I learn how

to appreciate the beauty of this world, once more.

And I can only thank you for this realisation.

Thank you Kiwi.

How to Create a Ritual for Writing(Springtime) – Day 22

| Sheree

Play Love Devotion on repeat as I (re)enter the world from sleep, with gratitude and grace.

Welcome.

Open the email from Lemon Grove Writers.

Read the inspiration for the day’s prompt.

Breathe.

Listen to the birds.

Allow the morning air to chill my cheeks.

Smile into the feeling.

Allow it to cascade over my whole body.

Joy.

Read a suggested poem.

Take a word, a structure, a spark.

And jump. Write off and out from there.

Allow the energy to flow through me. Onto the page.

Read over it.

Redraft with a light touch.

There. Right there.

Something Spot lit. Post.

Sakura – Day 16

| Sheree

At the tail end of winter,

loaded with blousy, pink,

double flowers with frilly edges,

are Japanese blooming cherry

trees. At mere sight,

I become mooncalf,

mooning over their delicate

blooms. Reborn.

For a few weeks at least,

hope trembles through

the boughs.

The present moment

like each pink, soft cluster,

is cherished.

An ars poetica poem* – Day 15

| Sheree

“I write only because

There is a voice within me

That will not be still.” ― Sylvia Plath

Poetry is where we are ourselves – Elizabeth Alexander

i try to connect beauty using words as healers of possibilities from the state within, the voice, a teacher, a sage, where my poetry winters, where I can see the ‘I’ like a clearing through the trees, where imagination lingers inch wide mile deep, conjuring for change and connection. i try language, not to trick or demonstrate my intellect, but to spark simple, stretching blossoms into ‘we’ rather than ‘them and us’. from the state without, i’m a beast, caged and muzzled. swallowed. cornered and supposedly cowered, i come out writing, wading into dangerous waters, owning my imagination to practice potential futures.

*“An ars poetica poem is a poem examining the role of poets themselves as subjects, their relationships to the poem, and the act of writing.” —Poets.org

Fugitive Practice

| Sheree

For those of us who live at the shoreline… Audre Lorde

It will be 10 years this August that I started my visual journaling practice.

Then it was called Dreaming on Paper, as I completed the course of the same name by Lisa Sonora.

I needed a safe space to explore the tumult of my feelings and thoughts. I was going through a traumatic experience of escape really. Escape from the life I’d spent the past 12 years building up, that was took away in the flick of a Facebook post.

I ran away from the public, the writing community, my home as I travelled into the Scottish Highlands and Islands. To heal.

Visual journaling helped me heal. Helps me continue to heal.

Overtime, I’ve come to understand my visual journal practice as a fugitive practice. Within these paints, images and words, dreams of freedom are planned out and eventually come to fruition. Projects, happenings, events – all on my own terms.

I mean, the whole point about escape is that it’s an activity. It’s not an achievement. You don’t ever get escaped. – Fred Moten

Within these visual journal spreads, I work out how to escape, how to get outside white supremacy culture while still having to be living on the inside. Coming to terms with the thought of that the outside can only occur from the inside. Being here.

Visual journaling is me trying to create an opening, a break in the fabric in which to slip on through into the otherside/ outside, into the woods running between the trees with the dogs barking at my feet. Creating beauty, creating a beautiful space in which to linger in while the terror rages around me.

Visual journaling is a safe space, is a nurturing space, is a free space.