of water/ waves/ ocean
The Middle Passage
water/ chains/ bodies – sweat, vomit, shit
and blood/ blood on so many hands.
The little boy asks, ‘Are they still swimming?’
PAD/ 028 – A little boy listening to the audio recording
healing
PAD/023 – empty
The last thing I emptied was my heart
I emptied my heart of lies and shame.
Took out the crammed spaces and rot/
carried them all out to the trash.
It was decluttering to the max of my heart/ of my love – for others/ for myself
I tell, you I haven’t felt better. Heart beating full-blood-red.
Like a new lamb to the slaughter, I’m showing up in my day to day/ jumping/
Springing/ heart open and bleeding.
PAD/ 021 – Let’s say …
Let’s say you find yourself going down to the sea shore each day. Each day you’re there at a different time. At the sea shore, you find the space to let go, to surrender yourself to the moment.
The sea pulls you like a magnet, a magnet you cannot resists or pull away from even if you tried. And you don’t try because you feel as the light touches each crest of wave, rolling them with gold that your soul is fed love.
Let’s say, along the sea shore, you also take off your shoes to get closer. You might feel the damp sand between your toes. You might also feel the cold bitter water tingling your toes. You prefer the warmth yet you move further into the ebb and flow. You allow your ankles to be caressed. You allow your flesh to moan.
Reading Poetry (ish)
As I mentioned earlier in the month, reading and writing/ writing and reading go hand in hand. As I’ve tasked myself with a poem a day this month, I’ve also tasked myself with reading poetry and wider as it all feeds into the creative process.
Dal Kular, a dear friend and awesome imagineer, brought Foluke Taylor and their writings to my attention. I’ve been taken by Foluke’s writing around creativity and repetition so when Dal mentioned the book, Unruly Therapeutic, I knew I had to pick this book up and read it. And I’m so glad I have done just that ( well still reading it in fact!).
This is a hybrid, break down the structures kind of book in terms of how it’s written but also how it centres the Black woman’s experience. It’s music to my ears on so many levels. More so in being real, and allowing the thoughts and concepts presented to meander. To double back and repeat. There’s even a music playlist at the end go each chapter as an indication of what Foluke was listening to while the book was under construction.
I’ll return here with a review of length, but for now I just wanted to mark the reading of this text and a recommendation to get out and buy your own copy, as I’m not lending mine out!
It continues this write for life
If I was following the book along meticulous, then I’d be starting week 4, of the Julia Cameron book, Write for Life. But hey life gets in the way and SLOW is my mantra. I wouldn’t be digging deep if I was to rush through this text as it’s like mining gold really, there are gems everywhere.
What I’m reading is speaking to my soul. I mean receiving reminders that my best writing, the only good writing comes from being vulnerable. Which means I have to lead the own with my heart, through by heart, by my heart. Otherwise, it would be false, untrue, and boring.
Being vulnerable is my strength. It’s one of my superpowers!( You see what I did there, right? I said ‘one of’. Because I have many superpowers).
Being vulnerable on the page means writing what disturbs me, what fills me with fear and what I’m unwilling to say but will share it anyway.
Being vulnerable means being willing to spilt myself open again and again on the page as Natalie Goldberg says. Because then I’m being honest, daring and authentic. Writing how I really feel opens myself up to myself.
I might be behind in the book reading, but I’m not behind in terms of being vulnerable and writing from the heart. And this means I have to be patience with myself and tender. As writing with heart is a tender way of being. And takes care, attention and love.
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.
Pages/ Soul of Dark n Light
In the garden, warmth of sun on right cheek. Dark skin soaking up the heat.
Other cheek caught in the shade and cool breeze.
Body experiencing so many different sensations at the same time.
Gratitude to be in this body in this present moment. Present. Visual journaling outside.
Page black paint and collaged blossom papers. The light catches upon the pages, illuminating the wisdom and joy within.
Gratitude to be in this space in this present moment. Present. Visual journaling inside.
Soul dark hued and sadness rage collaged. The light catches upon the soul, remembering the true nature within.
Another Day Another Spread
It’s the afternoon. And I’ve just finished another visual journaling spread. I might have been up at 7.30 and came to the page but again, remembering yesterday, I’m here to slow down. I’m here to savour these moments of light and joy.
I might have even shifted rooms in the process, moved from the bed to the couch. Exposure to more light and more bird sounds. Seagulls squawking and trees budding casting shadows on the living room floor.
The energies are quickening. There’s a fizzing of excitement in my stomach, my core. Who know’s what the day will bring?
The day has already gifted me time and space and colour and light and an immense feeling of peacefulness. Mindfulness. Kindness. Thank you.
PAD/001 – A Month of Poetry
Happy April. Time for showers, blossom and light. Oh and poetry.
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.
Living Wild Studios 