I love this simple mixture of greens. They say you only truly see a colour when it’s placed beside another colour. That’s when it really comes alive. These greens are alive for me here.
Shades of Green
green
Still/ Just Writing Out – Day 25
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.
My word of 2025
Last year’s word of the year got lost in the mix. It was ‘self-authority’. Not sovereignty as that has colonial connotations for me.
I might not have been intently focused on the word – ‘self-authority’- throughout 2024. But I feel as if by the year’s end I have come to some new understanding of this way of being. I have a new kind of clarity around my own power and grace and being for sure.
As always I will continue to carry my word of the year along with me for the rest of my life and practice. My words of each year do become part of my arsenal, part of my way of moving through this world for ever more.
So what is my word for 2025.
LUSH.
Lush is my word for 2025. I’ve always loved the word ‘lush’ since I was a child. Especially after I moved up to the North -East of England when I was 10. Lush was the in word and it was used to describe anything that we thought was good, and inspiring and exciting. It was our go to word to describe anything that was positive and good. Lush has stayed with me, even though it might have fallen out of fashion over the years with others.
What do I mean now though when I use the word ‘lush’? First of all I just love the song of the word as it sizzles off my tongue. LUSH. LUSH. LUSH. So even the word itself is lush to me. But why do I mean when I use it in my life?
Lush usually refers to nature. To the lavishness of the vegetation. Green is the colour that comes to mind for lush. There’s a sense of abundance to it. Lush can also refer to the loveliness of a a person, their vitality as well as their sensuality and sexuality. Back in the 18th century say, lush also referred to a person who was in the habit of getting drunk. Maybe this gives the impression of lushness being to the excess. Like too much, too green, too beautiful.
For me, I’m picking up lushness for its sense of vitality and abundance. It’s innocence and child-like wonder and pleasure it brings me when I say the word as well as use it to refer to something as being ‘lush’. It could be a lush vista while I’m out with nature. It could be a lush colour. It could be a lush feeling. And this is where I’m starting with lush within my feelings.
This year, with carrying lush with me, I want to feel the thrills and pleasures of lushness. I want to feel the joy and exuberance of lushness. I want to feel the sparkle and abundance in everything and everyone I come into contact with.
This image is lush. Lush because of the way the water reflects the blue of the sky. Lush because of the dusting of snow on the mountain peaks. Lush because it is a moment of stillness and beauty and I’m part of it. Lush because I am present in the moment. Lush because I’ve grateful to be there. Lush because it’s the start of a new day. So much lushness to draw upon within each moment, each snapshot of my life and this is what I want to be tapping into more times than not. Lush is my anchor, my reminder, my mantra.
LUSH. LUSH. LUSH.
Do you have a word for the year? Please share in the comments if you do, I’d love to hear about it.
15 seconds of Trees
Spring Blossoms
I’m not sure when my love affair with cherry blossom came into being. I’m not sure where I was when my heart began to swell at the mere beginning buds of cherry blossom on the trees. Bradford, where I was born and stayed until I was 10? Or Newcastle, where I enjoyed my formative years before escaping to London for my degree?
I’m not really sure when or where my deep appreciation and joy at seeing these puff balls of pinks or white or cerise came to be part of my being. I just know that I experience a child-like delight when I come across a tree in full cherry blossom bloom. My heart skips a beat and I’m jumping with glee, inside and outside, when cherry blossom comes into view. And the blossom is never here long enough for my liking.
Using the delicate pinks of cherry blossom, collaging with the images of cherry blossom in my visual journal, is my way of keeping the blooms alive, in my eyes and in my heart. Not just the sight of cherry blossom in my journal keeps these fragile blooms alive, but the feelings of joy and delight that they bring to my heart is kept alive too.
I created a special spread of cherry blossom for the BALTIC commission last year, that ended up being blown up from an A3 spread in a journal to an A0 poster size on a gallery space wall. In the middle of that spread is a Black woman smiling, almost dancing between the blossom, exuberating lush joy. This is me sharing my jubilation and love of cherry blossom with others.
This is my love letter to cherry blossom as well as giving thanks for the beauty of nature and how we are connected. How we are one.
Ivy Bushes
Day 9 – Concrete Poem – being in the moment
I sit on the bed, cross legged,
window open. Hearing a kid
scream, a car engine revving.
And there, just then, a seagull
flies by carrying bunch of leaf
and twine in its beak. Say you,
what you building? Stealing?
It’s now I’m aware of the trees
trees outside coming into leaf.
Buds unfurling like green ton-
gues with beard and feathery
flower clusters. What tree are
you? And why do you reach so
to the sky as if all that matters
is to grow and thrive? Zooming
traffic, loud, draw my attention
away from nature, from inside
But that’s usually the case with
modern life: a distancing from
our true nature with incentive
of moving faster, go anywhere,
produce anything of fake worth
as if our life depends upon it.
Living Wild Studios 