This is my final day in Barcelona. Well Spain, as I took a trip yesterday southwest along the coast to Sitges and stayed.
This is the Mediterranean Sea and I got in it this morning. It wasn’t planned as I didn’t bring a swimming costume on my travel. Travelling light I was. . So it was a very fetching set of underwear that saw me right. Who knew!
Not as cold as the North Sea but still fresh. But oh so clear. Glass clear. It was just what my body needed . Now I’m chilled in a good way. Bones, and sinew relaxed, grateful for this time away with myself.
I thought I would have written more here on the blog while away but I haven’t. Saving my reflections for after rather than during. Really being present while here has been my focus. And it’s felt LUSH.
I’m proud of my consistency as I’ve still kept up with my morning routine while here as well as completing a whole month of posting on my blog for January.
Another consistent habit/ practice for January and hopefully beyond, has been honouring my body. Listening to her and giving her what she needs and desires. This is new as before it’s been denial and depriving and depreciating.
Tiger Chai and Cinnamon Roll, yummy!!!
2025 had seen, no felt, a change with my relationship will my body. I’m looking forward to exploring this even more during February. The month of love!
Joy does not always come with the morning. No, joy comes with the mourning. If you invite grief across the threshold and into your home, joy will come alongside it. If you take a deep dive into your pain, comfort will be there waiting. If you allow yourself to go into the center of your suffering, beloved one, rejoicing will meet you there. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the MOURNING! – Sensual Faith, Lyvonne Briggs
I’m still reading Sensual Faith, in the mornings usually with coffee and quiet. And this morning this quite rang a bell with me.
I realise that part of this hibernation is involving some mourning, some processing of grief. I suppose I’m always processing grief, coming to terms with loss – loss of people, relationships, opportunities, moments.
Within white supremacy culture, there’s no room for grief as well as not learning the tools and practices to process grief, as individuals as well as in community.
Grieving and healing are somatic journeys. We have to get into our bodies and feel the pain in mind body and spirit in order to process the pain. Process the loss. But we can’t do this if we spend all our time and energies disassociated from our bodies, disconnecting and hating on our bodies.
This realisation landed with me this morning and it just sang. It sang out the truth so loudly and clearly that I had to take this moment and mark it. Place hold this insight and keep on circling around it/ through it/ over it/ with it moving forward.
I haven’t done this in a while but I’m feeling it today. The mid-week slump, nevermind hump!
After a restful weekend, I used to rush into my Mondays and do all the things. Get everything in order for the week ahead. Full blazing glory that meant come Tuesday, I’d been down and out. Knackered.
It’s been awhile since this knackered feeling has hit me on a Wednesday. After a couple of days of emotional roller coasting and focusing on traumas and past hurts, moving my body to move the energy, today I’m staying put on the couch, alternating between coffee with hot buttered toast, and YouTube and reading. Eyes drooping and head nodding.
I really don’t give a fuck as this is the point of my hiatus, hibernation for the next 3 months, to rest and retreat and dream. If I’m feeling like doing fuck all then I’m doing fuck all. Nothing.
My worth is not measured in how much I achieve in a day, how many things I can cross off that never ending to-do list. My worth just is. I’m here. I’m enough.
So excuse me while I stretch out a bit deeper into the couch of many cushions and blankets and flick through the line up for an afternoon movie, a black and white one maybe. Old school. LUSH.
Our body-temples are divinely designed to restore themselves, but we must rest in order to do so. For rest is not a reward…it is our birthright. And rest helps us to indulge in soft sacred spaces where we are reminded that we are intrinsically worthy of love, concern, care, and pleasure. – Sensual Faith, Lyvonne Briggs
The weekend passed in a haze of pain. Being in pain is tiring. I’ve been keeping moving, not wanting to sit for too long and stiffen up.
My visual journaling practice has been helping to shift my energy. It’s been spreading positive vibes at a time when I could be feeling less positive. My mobility is compromised and I’m feeling it.
I’m not feeling sorry for myself but I have been annoyed with myself. I’m trying to offer more compassion and understanding towards myself and looking at this time of injury as I chance to reflect and learn.
What would I do differently? What do I need to listen to / heed to more? I was following no one else’s instruction than my own when I said I as going out Saturday. Through sheer pig-headedness I continued on my way, even thought I saw the path was dangerous. I didn’t want to be seen as having difficulty in walking. I didn’t want others to judge me as incapable or old even.
I didn’t want to give up on my plans, on myself, not wanting to be beaten I carried on even when my gut was saying turn around and go back home.
But I got beaten anyway and in a much worse way. I’m learning and listening now because I don’t have a choice.
I’m learning how everything is so precarious and one false move everything can change. I didn’t think I was taking things, my life and body for granted. But maybe I was/ still am.
Things have to change. I’m lucky that I have the time and space to bring about this change. Slowly does it indeed. I’m got nothing to prove to myself or anyone else. And I must remember this. No one is watching me as everyone else is focusing on their own shit.
It’s me who’s putting on the pressure, the expectations, the rules and regulations. It’s me who has to let go and surrender.
This week was back to school week but things could have been worse. A cold weather front has hit the UK. Yes it’s cold up North but it could have been worse. At least we’ve had the light. And it’s remained dry even if each morning the windscreen has been frozen.
I’m grateful because I’ve had the privilege of spending quality time with Miss Ella and supporting her on her journey to her GCSE mock examinations. She’s capable, she just needs to believe in herself more. And that’s where I can come in, for sure.
Cullercoats Bay
I’m grateful because I managed to get into the sea twice this week. And there’s still time for more. The sea produced some big waves which were beautiful and dangerous. There was a lot of jumping waves and giggling like the little girl I didn’t get to be when growing up.
I’m grateful to be able to control where I direct my time and energy. At the moment that is all towards myself, first thing, and then I’m ready for what the rest of the day throws at me.
I’m grateful to nature ( until I find a better way of referring to her/ me/ us) as I take my cues and guidance from her and continue to hibernate and rest and dream. LUSH.
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
Glencoe, January 2025
Yesterday within the snowy embrace of mountains I entered the River Etive.
For the past few days, with the wind and rain and now snow, this river has been swollen and running rapids. It’s the fullest I’ve ever seen it on my many visits to the area. I knew it would be stupid to enter the river during the storms. But I could hear its calls; its incessant chant to come and play.
With the snow falling over night on higher ground, a calming hush descended on the glen. The river was still swollen but took on a slower pace. This was my time to play.
I walked a mile or so up river to a point I’d sourced out would be easier to enter. A gentle slope leading in with stepping stones just off to the side of the major flow of water. A place to sit and rest and allow the water to course over, around and through me.
The walk raised my body temperature so by the time it came to strip down to my swimming costume a sheen of sweat layered my skin. But as soon as flesh hit the air it started to chill. But the outside air was nothing compared to the chill/ cold/ freeze of the water.
I didn’t hesitate as the longer it took to undressed the more time I stood a chilling. I mistakenly judged the temperature of the water on my first few steps in. Making the mistake of saying to myself, ‘This isn’t as cold as I thought it would be.’ Sometimes our minds can get in the way of our bodies. Creating excuses for not doing the things we love. Creating obstacles when really there are none except maybe our fears.
Of course my mind and body were both wrong but I didn’t realise my mistake until I was all the way in, sitting on the rocks, water flowing up to my waist, covering all of my lower body, hands, arms and elbows.
My life! The cold. The pain. The joy. I was laughing into the icy ripples of water. Laughing at the absurdity of it all and the thrill of it all as the cold instead of numbing me, electrified me through my body.
Thank god no one else was around to hear the screams or squeals or the colourful language. What was worse was I’d forgotten to put on my neoprene gloves. My hands were red raw. So I retreated to retrieve the gloves. This could have been my chance to stay out and get warm. But fool that I am, I squeeze my now wet and frozen hands into those gloves and walked right back into the flow. And this time I walked in on my hands so I was on my front. Spread out and immersed. This was me making sure everywhere, all of my body had been hit by the water. Had been hit by the cold. Had been brought back to life.
This is my playtime. Getting back into the flow of an activity that brings me joy. Swimming in the wild. Something I forget from time to time when I allow life to get in my way. Something I remember once I give myself the time and space and permission to slow down. It’s a practice. And so many variables feed into that practice but in the process so much joy and wisdom and clarity is achieved.
Living Wild Studios 