The aim is to create a field guide for summer which prioritises play, curiosity and wonder. Dreaming and imagination.
I want to be intentional around who I want to {BE}/ want to do over the next few summery months.
Become consistent in relation to turning up for myself in play and wonder.
Now is the time to prioritise my joy. No responsibilities but feed my inner child.
Traditionally, a field guide is something created to provide information for a reader to identify birds, flowers or trees. Or other aspects of the natural environment.
With this energy in mind, I want to create a summer field guide that identifies areas of play and curiosity that I can explore.
This field guide is an invitation to lean into what lights me up, steeping myself in the mystery and magic of it all.
Sometimes when I get a download, I just have to grab the first bit of paper and pen I can see and write.
It feels as if I haven’t got the time and patience for my visual journaling practice and I’ve just got to get the words on the page.
Like short, sharp, frenzied sex after a drought, a stream of consciousness shit comes rolling out of me. From my body. Onto the page. Words here. Paint there.
And within this pile of words/ marks are glimmers, signs, clues for next steps, moves forward. Invitations.
I’m been resting, after a full on time of exams and work and in that resting time, I did nothing creative except breathe. Breathe a little deeper and longer. Fuller.
There are still times when I have that moment of dread, that I’ve forgotten something. That I should be doing something else instead of doing nothing.
I know time will heal the wound. Time will suture the skin over the rupture and this period will become a memory. A trace left in an ache running down my neck and shoulder. A dull tugging at my soul.
Anyway, I’m back here. And I’m not going to try and fill in the gaps. The gaps are important, these liminal spaces where possibility and potential are ripe.
I come back with plans to share a new series of posts which I’m loosely calling my ‘Summer Field Guide’. My plan to get intentional about the summer ahead ( or here already!) and offer myself space to play, get curious, dream and imagine. No pressure just {BEING} my inner child out loud.
Today, 1st June, is the start of meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere. 21st June will bring the Summer Solstice: the longest day and solar peak of the year.
I’ve got a love/ hate relationship with summer. While teaching, I couldn’t wait to get to the summer holidays, time off from school. But those 6 weeks always went far too fast. Maybe because I was trying to squeeze in as much as I could, as I was high on freedom.
These last few years, summer has been a more laid back kind of affair. But there’s still, sometimes, an underling tension of not doing enough. Not making the most of my days. Not being out when I think I should be. Not being in when I feel I should be. Sometimes, there can be a frenzied, frazzled energy where rest and relaxation is more of a performance than actually restoring my energy and inspiration levels.
May, June, July, August. Months of summer. Rising energies to the peak. The peak can either be superdeluxe and flourishing or too heady, overloaded and burnt out.
How do I want to experience this summer?
After months of stress and worries, GCSE’s, hustling and financial insecurities, I’m fixing for my summer to be calm and chill. Wholesome and good for my soul. Slow warm mornings, times to linger over coffee and a book. Feasting my eyes on beauty and questions to satisfy the Creatrix in me.
Siestas, sea dips and lake swims. New foods and drinks lingering on my tongue and heart. Scents of rose and peonies reminding me of childhood, ripe strawberries and juicy honeydew melon, tingling in my mouth. Reminds me that, I can slow down and soften. I can stretch out like a cat in the sun, cloudgaze, feel the warmth ease out the tensions and pressures, knowing that nothing lasts forever.
And yet, I’m grateful for being here now, savouring the now. Summer. Summer. Summer ( that High School Musical kind of vibe!)
I had the pleasure of gathering with the WOC Azadi again in Sheffield today.
We gathered to share ideas around how to plot/plotting our healings, our liberation together.
Visual journaling was on hand to capture our thoughts, feelings, plans and plots.
It was such a nurturing and nourishing space in nature. It was a gathering of hope and aspirations.
It was an honour to be part of the day retreat. Ideas for The Plot of Our Repair came about from a reading is Saidiya Hartman’s essay , The Plot of her Undoing (2020).
The plot of her undoing begins with his dominion. It begins in the fifteenth century with a papal bull, with a philosopher at his desk, pen in hand, as he sorts the world into categories of genus and species. It begins with a bill of sale, with a story in the newspaper that enumerates her crimes, with a note appended to the file: she answers questions easily, but appears stupid; it begins with a wanted poster that reduces the history of her life to a single word-condemned.
And then towards the end of this essay there is a switch. A turn to explore how we can undoing the plot of her undoing. How we can move against the forces aiming to ruin/ control/ oppress the black/brown woman.
The undoing of the plot proceeds by stealth. It is almost never recognized as anything at all and certainly never as significant.
…
It begins with the earth under her feet. It begins with all of them gathered at the river and ready to strike, with all of them assembled in the squatter city, with all of them getting ready to be free in the clearing.
The undoing of the plot begins with her runaway tongue, with her outstretched hands, with songs shared across the unfree territory and the occupied lands, with the pledges of love that propel struggle, with the vision that this bitter earth may not be what it seems.
The undoing of the plot, the plot developing towards our repair was started before us. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We continue this journey, this plotting together. Today makes me feel that we have already won.
As the north-east is gripped in another cold snap, with wind and rain, in May, I’m desiring a return. A return to Faro, Portugal, where in March, I enjoyed a few days of warmth, relaxation and inspiration.
Things are definitely looking up when I give myself the time and space to look to the sky.
Spending time cloud watching is always a good indication to/ for myself that I’m slowing down, that I’m breathing that little bit deeper, than I’m present.
When clouds go missing from my radar, from my daily view then it’s time to worry.
As it’s another indication that I’m not taking my medicine, that I’m allowing the shit of this world to overtake me, to bog me down.
Cloud watching, cloud appreciation is such a simple task, gift to myself and yet the loss of it, can mean the loss of self.
I booked up on a whim. Last minute. I needed to get away. I needed to have some sun after months of rain.
When I jetted off in March we’d had rain everyday of the year so far in 2026.
I gave myself a few days in Faro, Portugal. My soul thanked me for it too.
Cheap holiday, with a balcony off my room and the sun just there was needed. And appreciated. The warmth helped me relax and unfold, slow down and appreciate the basic things like good food and wine. And a view.
What I found there was inspiration in the smallest and basic of places.
Their tiles. Inside and outside of their buildings. I made a collection of them. Here’s only a few.
Living Wild Studios 