time

best day of 2017

| Sheree

Day 3 of December Reflections and the prompt is : best day of 2017.

This year has been long and short, amazing and disconcerting, a breeze and a challenge. But I started with an intention – this year was one of the ‘voice’. My voice.

In January I attended a writers’ retreat for finding our voices to talk about the issues we care about.

Visiting #Iceland twice, strengthened my relationship with the land, my vision as well as my voice talking about my body in the world.

And now into the final month of the year, my time with @Idlewomen #shiftingloyalties is coming to an end and the signs I have been receiving are that I am on the right path. Sometimes that path might be lonely, I might be the only loud voice quaking ( we have ducks here) about an issue but support and encouragement is not to too away.

Last night I shared my poetry for the first time since I lost my voice in 2015. I’m emboldened. I heard my voice. My voice is strong and true and she is me.

December Reflections

| Sheree

This year is drawing to a close. The time is coming to go within. This is the time for taking stock and reflecting on what has gone and thinking about what is to come.

Susannah Conway offers for a free a December Reflections prompt for each day of this month. I dipped in and out last year but this year, I’m feeling the need to bring in some more reflection and ritual. I feel the need to have something to hang all my thoughts and feelings about 2017 upon. This free offering is an ideal vehicle for just that. Hopefully, I’ll come back here each day to share my insights as the month progresses. Happy December.

Today’s prompt is : early.

ten:one

| Sheree

1. He goes into the bathroom and slams the door.
2. The candle flickers in the draft.
3. My shirt with black blobs of paint is creased.
4. The coffee beside me smells hot.
5. I curl my legs up under my bum and feel my muscles stretch.
6. A car drives past outside.
7. There is cloud. There is weak light.
8. A fine drizzle speckles the window.
9. The central heating rumbles into life.
10.The house groans in its spaces.

New Practice : Ten@Tuesday

| Sheree

I’m planning to share my new practice with you, just on a Tuesday, even though I’m completing this task everyday. This practice came to me first via Alisha Sommer and her beautiful writing and photography. And this practice came to Alisha via Marie Howe being interviewed on On Being.

Within this podcast, Marie Howe talks about the power of poetry and the sacredness of the every day. Sacred space is there always just waiting for us to stop and pay attention. To stop and hold space for the now.

I love the thought of this. I love the idea of gifting ourselves the beauty and grace of our present moments. All we have to do is slow down and listen. Slow down and observe.

Marie recommends to her students to write down 10 observations of the actual world each day. No metaphors, no comparisons, just detail the world as it actually is. Simple. Engage the senses and be up close with the world around us. Be present.

After embarking on this practice for a few weeks now, I have to say it hurts, sometimes, to be so present as the tendency is to look away. To want to distract myself and move on. Get moving, get producing. But at the same time as the pain and is the simple joy of being present. There’s pain but also happiness to be found in being present. And this is amazing. Try is yourself and see.

Marie Howe calls this ‘a gift of holding sacred space.’ And you’re doing this for yourself, no one else, just yourself. I claim this as self-care to the max.

Each Tuesday, I’ll share my 10 observations. Feel free to share yours too, here with me.

listening to the voice of my soul

| Sheree

When my days are lived at a pace.
When my time is filled with noise.
When my eyes are lit up by a screen.
I feel a creeping dread up my spine.
Red ants invade my hairline
and I feel as if there is no escape.
I’m uncomfortable in my skin,
taking only shallow breaths.
Heavy and awkward, never feeling rest or calm,
I forget who I am.
I’m distracted.
When I withdraw to slow down.
When I turn off external sounds.
When my ears become accustomed
to the voice deep within my being,
I can feel my soul and she speaks
from heart of love.

The Creative Retreat Iceland Is Here

| Sheree


When I was at my lowest a couple of years ago, I channelled what little energy I had left into a pipe dream.
I didn’t have much money or direction. I was working on myself from the inside out but wasn’t sure of the path. But my soul whispered to trust; trust in myself.

I’m not sure when Iceland came onto my radar, but it has always captivated me. It always seemed to me to be a distance mythical land that would remain thriving within my imagination and never become a reality. Until I took action and made the decision to invest in myself.

I booked a flight to Iceland with a credit card without much time to reconsider or second guess myself. I didn’t have a plan, I just took one small step after another to create this trip away. Booked the flight, then thought about places to stay. I thought this would be my only chance to get to Iceland so I’d try to see as much as the country as possible. I booked a hire car, and started to plan my route around the whole island, stopping each night in a different place. Hotels, motels and hostels, whatever was available I made the bookings. My dream was becoming a reality because I was believing in myself. Believing that I could do this.

By the time I reached Iceland, May 2015, I had a map and a plan but I was still scared. I’d never visited the country before, I hadn’t driven there, and I certainly didn’t speak the language. But I’d been dreaming about this and now it was happening so I made a promise to myself to just enjoy it. Go with the flow and enjoy.

The sun was shining that first day I drove north out of the Reykjavik, onto the ring road, heading to the Western peninsula of Snæfellsnes. It was just me and Beyoncé’s Lemonade, in that car. This trip to Iceland changed my life. And that’s not hyperbole because by the end of my time there, I felt empowered, I felt free and back to me, the authentic me. I had done it all by myself for myself and I felt amazing. I also knew I had to return to Iceland, and keep returning to develop our relationship as we were speaking to each other on a deep level, on a soulful level.

I have returned to Iceland twice since then and I’m planning to return in 2018. And I’d like you to come with me. I didn’t have anyone with me to show me the way, so I found my way around one step at a time. I would love to be your guide, your safe and supportive passage into Iceland. I would love to share my love of Iceland with you. Go check out the Iceland – The Retreat page, to see what I have planned for our time together. Any questions, just get in touch.

learning to change 

| Sheree


Over the weekend, our clocks went back. We lost an hour and gained the darkness. Usually at this time of year, I go into a bit of a slump. With the night’s drawing in so does my mind and emotions. I get a bit grumpy as this is the way I’m supposed to act. I’m not supposed to welcome the dark, to enjoy the dark, I should be reaching for the light, or so I’ve been lead to believe. But this year, I sense a change. 

This November I plan to go within, deep within. Cosy up and settle into my new home at the same time as explore my internal darkness. I’m looking forward to the rest, to the reduction in the pressures to perform and show up. I’m looking forward to just being. and don’t get me wrong, I’ll not be idle. I’ve got plenty of things to keep me busy, to be getting on with behind the scenes. But allowing myself to rest and to take care of myself, is a change, is an advancement for me that I will continue to cultivate as I reap the benefits of such. But of course if these plans get disrupted, I have also learned to be flexible.

This time last hear, I was knee deep in curriculum planning, marking and examination preparations. Self-care amounted to getting to bed before 10pm and most nights that wasn’t achieved. Things weren’t really going to plan and I was constantly knackered. What I can take from that time now is my ability to be flexible, to not make a fuss but to just go with the flow because I learned that it was me and only me who was hurting. It was me and my unrealistic expectations that was causing the ruckus, not anyone else.

I carry this nugget of knowledge with me now, when my best laid plans go up in smoke because of unforeseen circumstances. I become disappointed and hurt and yet I also see that these things happen and I’m more adept at being centred, rooted in myself but still allowing my trunk to bend, and my branches to sway in an unexpected wind or storm. These things happen, it’s nature. It’s how I perceive and handly these changable circumstances is the development, is an indication of my growth as a human being.

years of marriage 

| Sheree

My husband, Alan and I have been together longer than I can remember, yet I’m still surprised by the turn of events, sometimes. At these points, I have to chuckle.
Alan, annoyed,  has said that I mine our lives for writing material but I do believe it’s not just my story to tell, so I do shy away from writing about our marriage as it is, while in the thick of things.
This relationship, when two individuals come together into a partnership, does play a significant part in my life and to not explore and reflect upon it in within my writing is denying a part of myself. As well as living a lie, as believe it or not, marriageland is not all hunky dorky.

During the years we’ve been together, Alan and I have experienced the rough with the smooth. They say a couple’s relationship changes when children come along. And that much is true. There’s had to be a lot more understanding and communication and patience. And sometimes it hasn’t always been there. 

I’m not offering marriage guidance here as I’m not an expert is marritable bliss. I only know what works and doesn’t work for me/us. So we’re still in the thick of moving house. This follows on the back of months of ill health, cancer treatment and hospital visits. You don’t realise the calm within your day to day until it is disrupted. You don’t realise the love and companionship and trust within your relationship until it has disappeared.
This isn’t a post about Alan and I spliting up, far from it. But it is a post about holding on and appreciating what you have when you have it. It’s obvious but sometimes we fail to acknowledge it, fail to act upon it, fail to live it. 

As we settle into our new home, the time and space has arisen to speak my needs and concerns to Alan as well as to check in with him about his needs and concerns. We’re still part of this dance, growing all the time as individuals and together. But it never ceases to amaze me as you hold a crystal up to the light the myriad of shapes and colours and delights that are revealed.

3 card spread 

| Sheree

This is weird right! Or it is just meant to be?! I’ve just competed my first 3 card spread in the new home. I was asking the questions: who was I/ am I/ will be.
This spread is nearly identical to a recent reading I had with the lovely @rootandrattlesnake regarding my business. The only difference is the middle card.
The cards are telling me something and I am listening.
My old self has gone. The Sheree of many years giving to please everyone and needing outward success and other people’s approval has gone.
The woman standing here now is artistic and introspective with a dark intensity which I claim and nurture.
Those four wands waving at me again signify a completion. In business I saw it as Iceland – The Retreat coming to fruition watch @livingwildstudios
As a person, I see this as all my hard work from reaching rock bottom, from stripping away all the shit and facades in order to see and accept authentic me will pay off/ is paying off each day as I continue on this path, as I become complete – whole.