observations

Day 11 – NaPoWriMo- Mount Cherry

| Sheree

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And here, we begin our ascent.
Please be careful of your footing.
There are loose chippings.
Look up. See how the sun graces
her face. Depending on the time
of the day or time of the month,
she may greet you with her broadest
smile, inviting. Other times, shadowed
and closed. You have been warned.

As we advance, observe the lumpy,
bumpy terrain, discoloured in places
with distinct dark spots. She was born
with these. And here, stop, examine
the outcrop revealing her core. Layer
upon layer of flesh: emotions
and intuition and wisdom. Years
of neglect has made this particular part
almost impassable. Look away if you have to.

And here, finally, we reach her peak.
Or should we say, peaks. Sagging
too far into the clouds. Inexcusable.
But, we are blessed to witness her
during the fleeting blossom season.
Enjoy the cherry clusters lining the path.
Careful as slippery when wet. And we
wouldn’t want you to loose your chance
to prod and poke and objectify this
rare and formidable mountain.

Day 9 – Concrete Poem – being in the moment

| Sheree

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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.

Day 8 – My Mother Forbad Us To Walk Backwards

| Sheree

After Anne Carson @carsonbot

The misty fret rolls
in from the North Sea
covering the bay
like a shroud.

There is no silence
when everything changes.
Grief strips the skin
from your body and leaves you raw.

Down along the shoreline
terns are turning and turning.
A question coaxed from your throat,
And this is how we love ourselves?

Onwards. There is so much beauty
in the world which you fail
to notice on a frenzy.
But if you allowed

each breath to be a prayer
you will enter the museum
of God and already
be inside of your body.

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Osprey Watch

| Sheree

Kielder Forest and Water. Partaking in training to become a volunteer who will Osprey watch over the summer this year. It is an interesting gig, learning about the birds as they come back to the forest after wintering in Senegal or The Gambia.

Kielder has become the home for 7 mating pairs of Ospreys for the abundance of space and fish to raise fledglings. Our job will be to set up the scopes for viewing the nesting pairs. To talk to visitors about their behaviours and raise the profile of our birds as they work together to build up their chicks for becoming independent birds over the summer months.

There are also Osprey watch cruises upon Kielder water to check out all the nests along the reservoir.

In the past, I’ve volunteered for certain things, indoor jobs, like manning phones for charities, running creative workshops, talking to kids about writing etc. I’ve never volunteered for anything out in nature as I never thought I would be of any use. Or there was the underlying feeling of not belonging there. Bit by bit this self-limiting attitude is changing.

I look forward to start and share my experiences.

January Reading

| Sheree

I didn’t set out into 2020 with a reading goal. I didn’t set any numbers but I did say I wanted to read more. Vague I know. And not the ‘proper’ way to set goals that you want to succeed at but at the time it was enough for me. And it’s been working.

January saw me curled up with actual books and the iPad sporting the kindle a lot more times than I felt I did at the back end of 2019. Could I say the whole of 2019? I’m not sure. Maybe my memory fails me here.

But the reading habit, the muscle memory of turning off all distractions and getting lost in a good book, fiction, non-fiction even poetry, seems weak in relation to the last couple of years to be honest.

Hopefully, with January now behind us, I can say that the drought is over as I hurtled through a number of books this month. I’m pretty proud of my numbers but also about how expanded I feel in terms of ideas and language and joy. The joy of reading has paid a long overdue visit and I want it to continue. So look forward to a monthly round up of books read each month. You might even find a book you’re interested in reading along the way.

I’ll list the books read and then give a review or details about just one of the books, as if I did it for all of them read this month, we’ll be here all day and come on, it’s the weekend.

Completed January books include:

1. Eat and Run- My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness – Scott Jurek ( started in December and completed at the beginning of January)

2. Turned Out Nice Again– One Living with the Weather– Richard Mabey

3. Heavenfield – LJ Ross

4. Angel – LJ Ross

5. High Force – LJ Ross

6. Cragside – LJ Ross

7. Dark Skies – LJ Ross

8. Seven Bridges – LJ Ross

Ongoing January reading include;

1. The Last Wolf – Jim Crumley

2. Big Magic – Elizabeth Gilbert

3. Coastlines: The Story of Our Shore – Patrick Barkham

4. Blogging Basics For Authors – Nina Amir

Book review in the next post. Thanks.

Vision Board 2020

| Sheree

So I’ve spent the past few days digging in deep to create my vision board for 2020.

Using the free vision board guide from Makeda Pennycooke, I was able to explore my accomplishments of 2019 and let them go in order to visualise and plan for 2020.

It was a very powerful and useful process which I am grateful for and would highly recommend.

2020 looks like a time of creating space and light at home as well as embracing more travel and nature. Health and fitness feature on the list probably after the scare of last year but also realising that in order to achieve anything next year and beyond I need to be in good health.

Practicing Lines

| Sheree

Spending my time creating colour combinations to smooth across just a small journal, A5 in fact. Not a lot of space to cover, not a lot of room to freak me out. And it’s working. This week I’m practicing lines.

That long narrow mark or band which is so simple but so effective. It can be used is so many different ways and I’m enjoying the exploration.

Hanging out in my artist journal is a luxury but such a necessity. It’s here that confidence is built, experiments made and boundaries pushed.

Hope to share some of this weeks creations later on. Until then follow this line _________

A commitment to me

| Sheree

I’m going through my days pissed off. Wasting my time comparing myself to others and their success and finding myself wanting. Maybe I’m coming down after a high. Maybe I’m burnt out after the summer’s ups and downs.

What I do know is that when I get like this, and it’s nothing new, I have to withdraw and focus on me. Make self-care top of the list. Self-care for me includes creativity. It’s also about trying to find the balance between going into my cave and staying visible, sharing my work.

There’s a part of me that wonders what kind of work I’d produce if no one was watching. If I kept every brush stroke and every word to myself. What would I create.

I’m taking Painting the Feminine again this year with Connie Solera. This time last year an anonymous lady gifted me a space on the course for which I’m eternally grateful. This year, not dripping in money but we have enough to pay for this course as I know it’s nectar for my soul. This year, I plan to keep my creations to myself until the student exhibition at the end as an experiment to see how I do create in private.

Over here, I’m launching a new project around walking. Flaneur/ Flaneuse as a concept has been with me for years, the act of walking in the city, aimlessly observing life. I plan to walk for the next 30 days, take an image and accompany this with some text. I refer back to my commitment to self-care. Walking is another life source for me along with nature and the sea. Walking makes me feel expansive and positive and unbreakable.

More to follow as the 30 days unfold.

Anyway each day, gonna post my adventures here as a means of keeping me accountable as well as getting me to blog more too. Win-win.

Moving Foward

| Sheree

Over the weekend, I attended a Wretched of the Earth gathering in London focusing on #climatejustice, billed as Building Our Power. This was a first for me to attend such an event; where I knew the majority of participants would be black, brown and indigenous people as well as gathered together to discuss the climate crisis. I didn’t know what to expect but I was excited about the prospect as far too long I’ve been the only black face in the room when talking about the natural world, the environment and conservation.

The event didn’t disappoint. It was such an amazing and inspiring space to be part of as everything was being co-created; the values and actions, the tactics and strategies of the movement moving forward. What struck me and what I take away with me and move forward with is the way that the climate debate is framed within Western society is wrong and misleading. There has been growing concern for endangered species and the melting icecaps and how we can make a change through recycling and other such individual measures. Yet this narrative keeps hidden the major causes of climate change along with the pain and suffering that has been experienced for decades within the Global South because of such.

Climate Justice is about re-writing the narrative and exposing the inequalities and injustices that have been going on for the last 500 years through colonialism, imperialism and capitalism. This climate emergency cannot be divorced from other issues such as housing, crime, poverty and racism. we enjoy a privileged standard of living in the West because communities and people in the south suffer, be that through being used as cheap labour or have their homes and livelihoods decimated due to extractions industries and drought.

There is so much to be learned around these issues which I’m motivated to explore and share. The creative non-fiction memoir of mixed genres which I’ve been writing this year centres about a black woman’s body with/in nature, I envision to take on a more climate justice stance as I continue to champion how nature has helped me heal and how we, humanity, need to heal through our re-connection with nature.