travel

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.

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.

A month in ( nearly) of the new 100 day project and this is what I want

| Sheree

7C24914C-3C55-4B45-9D9F-5C0D49CF4141.jpeg

 
At the beginning of August I started my third and final #100daysproject of 2019.
I started 2019, painting 100, A3 sized abstracts. Then come April when the official #the100dayproject took place, I jumped on board with painting and drawing Black women’s faces and bodies. I’ve found these practices challenging at times, especially when I’ve been traveling and had a shortage of time. But the flip side has been such a overflowing pot of creativity which has had a knock on effect with my writing and general outlook. 
Now nearly 30 days into photographing my golden goddess statue, I‘m figuring out how this practice works in anchoring as well as inspiring me. 
With these 100 days, I‘m carrying my beautiful goddess statue out into nature and taking instant photographs of her there. I’m using her as a surrogate for my own body in nature. She takes up space so confidently and with such a ‘don’t care less’ attitude, that her essence is rubbing off onto me. 
How she behaves and holds herself is how I want to behave all the time when I’m out there in society, hustling and getting by. I want to have her self-confidence and self-awareness and magnitude. She is badass but so gracious with it. To have what she has, to be so in love with self and grateful for it is how I want to live my life. 
Hopefully, from the practice and folllowing the goddess‘s lead, I could get there, well slightly there, over the next 100 days.
We’ll see.

Day 2 – 100 Days of The Goddess and Love

| Sheree

E81EC88C-42C6-475D-9327-43961F807A21.jpeg

Posted Instagram today : 2/100 – Private Farm, Brattleby, Lincolnshire
I wrote in my morning pages today: I want to be debt free in so many meanings of the word. I want to be able to eat and eat healthily. I want to be able to love my body now. Love how my body serves me now so I no longer abuse her and I’m not waiting for the weight to drop off before I love her. #100daysofthegoddessandlove #100daysproject #the100dayproject #blackwomenmatter #blackwomensbodies #selfcare #selflove #healthyatanysize #creativepractice #blackbodiesinnature #brownbodiesinnature #womenscreativity #womensempowerment #instax90 #instaxmini90neoclassic #photography #bodylove #goldengoddess #darkgoddess #mothernature #earthgoddess #goddess

Wow – time flies!

| Sheree

3AB24704-7171-439E-AE66-2566BEB2799C

I come here today not realising how long ago I was here. It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything, updated the website etc. My head has been down. July saw me trying to get through the last days of the school term before the holidays. And then the holidays come and all I want to do is rest.
But have I got to that stage of rest yet when I let all of my load down? I’m not sure I even know what that state is never mind feels like, as I’m always carrying around something; some project, some event, some concern. So is life and I accept it rather than spend time and energy trying to run from it.
Anyway, August is here and I’ve feeling the moving at a slower pace. The sharp angles at the edge of my consciousness have softened and become hazy in a sense as they lose focus and I become more present in my here and now and relax. I realise I have some time now to focus on me, my passions and my desires, those things that make me sing from the inside out.
I’ve started my third #100daysproject over on Instagram and it’s all about the goddess and love. #100daysofthegoddessandlove.
I’ll be sharing come creations here too but initially it’s all about black bodies in nature, my body in nature and how I use a surrogate of a golden goddess statue to go places I might feel I don’t belong or won’t be welcomed. She’s pushing me into places where I might fear to go in both internal and external landscapes. I’m excited to see where she takes me. More to follow on this project in time.
For now, I’m off to enjoy these long lazy days of summer and hope to pop back here more regularly as I shift my focus and attention towards my joys and passions. Happy summer.

10 things that bring me joy

| Sheree

733512AE-748C-412E-93B8-AB878CFC563DSometimes we forget what makes us happy. Sometimes we’re busy running through our lives that we don’t have the time to stop and smell the roses. Sometimes we are stuck on that producing carousel that we end up whizzing past joy straight into the next thing to do or achieve or buy.

For me, I try to slow down and practice being, practice joy because sometimes it is easier to bypass the positive feelings and skip straight to the negative; the bad things that have happened, are happening it will happen. For me, I’m trying to lean into the joy when I feel it as what you give your attention to blossoms. And who would ‘t want more joy in their life?

So this is where my list came along. And it does change from time to time, as I’m a changing woman, things change, circumstances change and it’s easier on the self to acknowledge and accept this.

What’s bringing me joy at the moment are:

1. Sea swims – bitterly cold but invigorating
2. Writing – after a online intensive course ( note to follow here) my writing has taken a turn for the better
3. Cooking – trying out new vegan recipes as I embrace a meat free lifestyle
4. Walking – I get a chance to switch off my brain and switch on my senses
5. Visual journaling – always my go to, to process, to dream, to play
6. Spending time with family
7. Connecting with friends, true friends who I can trust and be myself with
8. Sleep – especially in clean, crisp sheets and no alarm set
9. Dancing and singing
10. Exploring new places – loading up the car and just driving with a sense of adventure.

Get up, get out, into the sea

| Sheree

I rise at 6.30am on a promise. A promise to myself to take my medicine. My medicine is getting into the sea. And sometimes it is diffcult to take my medicine.
Day to day commitments, life just gets in the way. I allow other people’s wants and needs to get in the way.

It’s as if I don’t value my needs and wants. A great growing stone of guilt weighs upon me when I choose me over others. It isn’t the natural order of things. Self-love and self-care isn’t encouraged or promoted in the main, in the mainstream.

The sea makes me feel free. The sea releases me from real worries and cares. The sea connects me to my true me. After being with the sea, the rest of the day flows easier and with gratitude.

Really, it isn’t that difficult to get up and get into the sea, if I get out of my own way.

Loosening The Bounds

| Sheree

I missed submitting for the special challenge with Nine Muses Poetry this month. The challenge is to respond or be inspired by a different photograph posted at the beginning of each month. For April the image was fittingly Viewing Cherry Blossoms at Ueno, by Katsukawa Shunzan. I completed this poem this morning in response.

Loosening the Bounds

I wish I could say,
the orchard is a rare find.
That I never think of blossom.
That the pure smell doesn’t
undulate to the sea.

But that would be lying.
At this time of year,
there’s no escaping the stain,
the crowds. No escaping him.

His neck is red. Pain in his head.
That must be why he seldom smiles.
I know I put them on a pedestal.
I want what they had.

How they kept the blossom from dying.

Perhaps, the sea is history
and the lop-sided pagoda clinging
to the shoreline, made me think
we were going somewhere.

Same images played over and
over again. The trickster,
just using my face. My skin. My voice.
Give me the cherry blossom every time,

time with my sisters,
lost in the crowds, easing off
our sandals, loosening our bounds
like blossom caught on the bsea breeze.