night

Tender, Undoing Self Within Night’s Skin – Day 13

| Sheree

I say to myself : stop. Stop undoing yourself within night’s skin.

Tell myself a promise to sort out my living habits so I don’t die prematurely like my mum.

Imagine the tenderness: like soft beige rolls of fat, like soft pink tongues languishing in wet mouths, like soft woollen blankets tickling toes.

I may no longer be the second daughter, the misfit who could conjure a soul’s reflection through colourful art.

Please night as you stretch out your skin one more time, please be tender with my damaged, twisted stars.

Noctalgia

| Sheree
Noctalgia: Dark Skies Matter, Beth Maddocks

I had the pleasure of driving up the the Sill today for the opening of an exhibition to mark the 10th anniversary of Northumberland National Park and Kielder being designated an International Dark Sky Park.

Ten year again to the day 09 December 2013, this area, the largest in the UK, was recognised as an area of exceptional dark skies and should be protected.

I’m going to explore this further as well as this new word created to describe the pain and grief we feel around the loss of our dark skies: Noctalgia.

Sky grief.

The exhibition commissioned to mark the occasion as well as share the message that we all can be doing something to reduce our light pollution, we created by Beth Maddocks.

It involved a play with light and shadow, and paper and movement and sound. Exploring the nocturnal creatures and flora who depend upon the darkness to survive and who are being forced out as humans move in with their harsh electric lights.

I was inspired by the speeches and films and the exhibition and I’ve become curious.

More to come.

Meditative Walks

| Sheree

Thank goodness for the long light nights. They’ve been pulling me outdoors. Even after full days of activities, I’m finding solace in evening walks. Alone with my thoughts. Alone with my feelings.

I appreciate these spaces and places I roam. Allowing my senses to land upon some beauty. Some part of nature to hold my attention. To hold my hope.

Thank you.

Late Night/ Early Morning

| Sheree
Visual journal 03/05

I couldn’t sleep last night. Not sure why but sleep evaded me.

I read. I surfed the net and then I just gave in, got up brewed fresh coffee (yes I know not conducive to sleep) and broke out my visual journaling supplies.

I was no longer tired or annoyed or frustrated about the lack of sleep. I was wired and alert. My energy has shifted up a gear and I was in the flow.

Outside was dark and silent. Inside was just as silent but the lights were on and I was dreaming with my eyes wide open.

I felt as if I was stealing back time from my day. Getting a head start on the day ahead by already connecting with myself before the sun was even up.

I felt I’d been given a gift to be at my journal at this time of night/day. This totally shifted my mood into gratitude and joy.

Try it next time you can’t sleep. See how you feel afterwards. Something would have shifted in the process. Guaranteed!

Shifting Loyalties

| Sheree

I’m getting ready for the off again. Remember my time in residence on a canal boat with idlewomen? I facilitated a visual journaling workshop for women while there which was really inspiring. Well off the back of that, I’ve been invited back as a guest speaker/ presenter at their informal conference for women in Lancashire next week.

Shifting Loyalties is a gathering of women. Establishing in 2016 in collaboration with Silvia Federici in 2016,
for a week we’ll be living together near Pendle, a place known for its persecution of women as witches in the 1600s, utilising the space to have critical conversations and self-organising against society’s treatment and representation of women. This is an opportunity to share stories and experiences at the same time as becoming empowered as a sisterhood to make change, internally and externally.

All week I’ll be sharing my visual journaling practices through workshops and a drop-in room hopefully inspiring and encouraging other women to explore and adopt this creative practice for self-care and self-awareness.

I’m pulling together my resources and materials, gathering journal prompts that I feel will be accessible as well as beneficial for us to dive deep within safely and effectively when I realise that I could be a witch.

Witch. I really haven’t considered it before but I’ve got witchy tendencies. I believe in the Divine Goddess. I worship the natural world; Great Mother Earth. I observe and honour the Wheel of the Year, sensitive to the seasons and rituals as we cycle through the year. This year, during Samhain, I spent time at my altar conversing with my dead ancestors.  I look upon this path I’m on as magical, empowering me to grow, change and heal.

I call myself a Wild Soul Woman who listens to the wisdom within; my intuition and instincts. This is where my power lies. Maybe this isn’t the mainstream way of thinking and believing. But this is my truth.

The Witch was feared because she ( and sometimes he) lived “outside” the natural order. They represented a different way of living that challenged the status quo. Self-contained and self-possessed, they were a threat that could not be explained  and had to be eliminated.

Unfortunately, witch hunts still happen today in such places as Africa and India where old women are killed on the mere accusation of being a witch.  It saddens me that women who know their own power and worth and self-determine their lives, are persecuted and destroyed.

I’m hoping that my time at Shifting Loyalties will clarify my thoughts and feelings around this realisation at the same time as strengthening my voice in speaking out. ‘shifting loyalties is another beginning…’

 

Lunar Wisdom

| Sheree

Hypnotised by the moon … I found the more I dwelt with her, the more I became conscious of her tides, and all my life began to move with them. – Dion Fortune

It was a full moon last night. A beautiful sight in a clear dark sky.
I’ve taken to paying more attention to the moon’s rhythms recently. Starting to believe in Her wisdom as well as becoming connected to her as a woman.

For example, the phrases of the moon are matched each month by a woman’s bodily functions. Just as the moon is full, my womb waxes full and then wanes, empties with each menstrual bleed, just as the moon wanes to nothing, to the dark moon, when She is no longer visible.

Before, I never really knew anything about a woman’s natural connection to the moon. There’s energy and power to be enjoyed if we as woman chose to use Her light as a indicator of when to be in action and when to be still. When to gather and when to release. Once we align ourselves with Her natural energy and movements, things could start to flow much more easily within our individual lives.

So I’m finding out through my recent readings, and I look forward to learning more about lunar wisdom, lunar phases as well as lunar rituals and becoming more in touch with my own natural rhythms.