Seeing Green
ideas
Botanic Gardens, Belfast
Day 3 – Pain as Logic and Metaphor #eatmystardust
Botanic Gardens, Belfast
The pain that lives in my body
intensifies confined under
the dome of the Palm House.
Livid burgundy blooms burst
upon ochre and gold stripes
knocking along flat sharp leaves.
How deep it roots depends
upon the heat striking the panes
of glass reaching for the sky.
Process – Part 2
Sometimes when I sit down to write, I can use the journal of my everyday, my visual journal. Other times, I need a blank sheet of lined paper with no other distractions. No image, no colour just a clean slate.
Here I might start with the impression I was left with after my walk. Burgundy. Burgundy what? Wall, poster, leaf? I would try to describe the colour for someone who hasn’t seen it. Is it a flat colour? Dull or sharp? No this burgundy was vivid because it was so shocking to the eye around so much green. There I’m starting to bring in comparisons. I’m starting to bring in feelings.
I could worry this line for ages but the aim is to keep going. Just like walking. Keep one foot moving in front of the other and so the writing of lines is the same. Keep moving the pen over the page, keep the words flowing. This is just the first draft. Things are bound to be wrong, messy, cliched. But only when you’ve words on the page are you able to start the pruning and beautifying process. You have to have something on the page to work with before you can create the masterpiece. The poem.
There are many drafts of the poem, of the same line even. Adding in words. Taking others out. Switching of verbs for more specific ones, verbs that are really working it within this line or that.
At all times the purpose is to leave the reader with an impression. To get them to connect to the words not with their head but with their heart. To move them in some way. Create a shift.
Stardust
Getting Angry
Last night I got angry and I mean really angry. I think I might have scared @hazmatt72.
This was a different anger to any I’ve experienced before. No I tell a lie. I think I might have had a glimmer of this deep visceral anger back in 2014 when I was organising #blacklivesmatter events and I was finding my political voice and going public with my thoughts about race.
And then I was silenced and all that anger turned inward. Turned against myself and how stupid I’d been and the mistakes I made. Anger turned up so high that I almost didn’t hear the whisper of self-compassion, forgiveness and love.
Fast forward to last night, the anger has shifted from focusing on myself to sending fierce fire balls out there.
I recently became a member of @secretmessagesociety ( or am I supposed to keep it a secret?!?) and my first Zine talked about developing a back bone. To start putting myself at the centre of my life and everything/ everyone else out there, outside of me is ‘the other’.
At the mention of ‘the other’ I had a gut reaction. A recoiling. As a black woman in colonial, imperial, patriarchal, hey (wo)man, in any kind of discourse, I ‘m labelled/ perceived/ treated as ‘the other’. And even though I have argued against this, this didn’t stop me internalising it. Taking on the label myself and seeing myself as ‘the other’ in comparison to the white norm.
Coming across ‘the other’ @secretmessagesociety, something shifted and was dislodged to the point that I’ve de-centred my whole belief, operating system. I no longer claim ‘the other’ as me, my label, my positioning out there and within me.
No. I’m right bang centre in my life, in my identity and everything outside of me is ‘the other.’ I’m no longer kept in the margins, the minority, the freak, the fat ugly black bitch, the deformed, the other.
I’m so gloriously centred with me/ within me.
And I’m angry. But a shimmering healthy get things sorted, changed sort of angry. Which always flows from love. #iaintsorry #hellno #fuckem #angryblackwoman #othering #decentre #takingbackwhatsmine #practice #process #patience #self-love #self-care #secretmessagesociety #gettingmesomebackbone
The Way I Feel Today
Feeling the need for more music in my life. Some classic tunes, hits and heart-felt vibes. Enjoy x
Breathing
Juggling Balls
A new month equals new focus. Reflecting on the month gone and planning for the month ahead. Already, I feel as if I’m juggling so many ball but I know I’ve been carrying them around for a while. And I do pick them up gladly, it’s just some days I feel a bit overwhelmed.
It’s sometimes difficult to keep a handle on everything, to engage and move things forward. It always cones down to time and never having enough of it to get everything I want done, done. And then when there might be a window of time, I don’t have the energy to complete any task. Times like these are about keeping the faith and believing in the process.
Projects on the go NOW: ( Part 1)
1. Arts Council Funded creative project with writers around the First World War.
2. Heritage Lottery Funded project with Muslim girls around the First World War.
3. Developing Living Wild Studios as a creative business. Need to update/ rejig the website first.
4. Facilitating a creative retreat in Iceland this June. Planning schedule and securing two more people.
5. Stocking Folksy Store to sell my paintings, prints and collages.
6. Complete the writing and developing of my first e-course around visual journalling.
7. Explore my Iceland landscape abstract photography and paintings.
8. Develop my self-portraiture project through further research and practice.
9. Return to my Flaneuse research to feed into an offering in Paris. Research trip needs to be planned.
10. Start the planning for a women’s gathering in The Highlands through a research/self-appointed residency in March.
11. Start responding to the writing prompts from Eat My Stardust.
12. Listen to the second recording from Liberated Lines and write.
13. Complete final draft of poetry chapbook and send to Culture Matters ASAP.
14. Start the research and writing for my next full collection around our relationship with the land.
15. Continue with my self-directed study around seeking the Goddess.
16. Complete my Creative Journey Facilitator Training with Lisa Sonora.
17. Return to my developing creative non-fiction memoir around death.
18. Complete research around further grants and funding for women’s well-being projects.
19. Continue research for social enterprise – air on skin (working title) to encourage more ethnic minorities to develop a relationship with Nature.
20. Start self-appointed residency – North Sea Writer-in-Residence.
21. Return to second recording of Wild Soul Woman Facilitator training and respond with notes.
22. Get more sleep. Drink more water. Get more exercise. Eat more greens.
New Month
I’m glad January is out of the way. We enter the new year with such high hopes and expectations that we, well me then, weigh the month down with it all.
It’s a dark time of the year in more ways than one. And I’m not sure when it became the norm but me and January fell out. I’ve been trying to heal the rift through time away, meeting friends, setting goals. But I have to be honest, I lost it there mid month. Maybe it was coming down after my Iceland trip. Or maybe it was post-Christmas fatigue. But I am glad to see the back of January.
February has already got a different feel to it. But correct me if I’m wrong but it is lighter, in more ways than one.
So as I stand at the threshold of this month, I set my intentions, take on new challenges and commitments for my creativity and soul.
I’ve returned to the body and my self-portraiture practice. Projects are started and will continue leading me where, I haven’t got a clue. Feeling my way through the process and practice and enjoying the journey.
Living Wild Studios 