writing

From the WSW vault: Trust

| Sheree

October 2015:

“Fuck. It was bound to come up. Trust. I have issues with trust. Ever since I found out my dad was dying only when he was actually dead, I’ve had trouble with trust. My mum and dad thought it best not to tell us kids that our dad was dying. To protect us. So when I found out it was already too late. He was dead and I felt betrayed.

I do not give my trust lightly. You betray my trust and you’re gone out of my life. Simple as that. But it isn’t that simple. Trust is about feeling safe and putting yourself out there with someone else. It’s about being vulnerable, wanting to protect oneself at the same time as taking a risk, moving out of oneself. It’s leaning in and out at the same time.

I’ve always been able to say I can trust myself. Until now. Now I’m not too sure about myself. If my actions are carried out for the right reasons, with the right intentions?

I’m at the edge of an abyss. At the edge of my existence as I have known it. And I now I have to take the leap into the new but can I trust myself in the fall?

I know it’s about love. Love of myself. There has to be the space to allow myself to fall. To know in the fall that I can still breathe, still live and will find my footing again. It’s about accepting that I am not in control and probably never was or will be. It is about trusting in the unknown. Trusting that I will be alright, that everything will be all right. I just have to trust the process. I just have to trust in me.”

Breathe ( and make time for yourself)

| Sheree

I picked up this new magazine by chance. Not sure what I was looking for. Maybe I was looking to ‘breathe’, to gain some space in my day, in my life.

I’ve sworn off all those glossy women’s magazines, those that carry the images of perfection; white skinny beautiful women. The money I must have spent on them, trying to fit the ideal, and knowing fine well that I’d never would. But that didn’t stop me buying into the construction.

It didn’t seem to bother me that I never saw women in there that looked like me. Or did it?
As I also went through a phase of buying Pride Magazine, Oprah, Ebony to see black women in magazines.
But they still didn’t look like me, as they were still skinny, well styled and looked like they had their lives all together, nice and sweet.

I suppose when I buy magazines now, like this one, I am still trying to find myself, to better myself, but from the inside out.

I am working on my soul, my spirit, my true self when I pick up a magazine like Breathe because I am looking to take care of myself by taking the time to slow down, to try yoga ( again), to start back up with my gratitude journal etc. Magazines like this make me think, make me assess what I am doing in terms of self-care, self-love and how am I working within this world to make it a better place?

I would highly recommend this magazine if you are looking to make time for yourself, for your true self.

Lunar Wisdom

| Sheree

Hypnotised by the moon … I found the more I dwelt with her, the more I became conscious of her tides, and all my life began to move with them. – Dion Fortune

It was a full moon last night. A beautiful sight in a clear dark sky.
I’ve taken to paying more attention to the moon’s rhythms recently. Starting to believe in Her wisdom as well as becoming connected to her as a woman.

For example, the phrases of the moon are matched each month by a woman’s bodily functions. Just as the moon is full, my womb waxes full and then wanes, empties with each menstrual bleed, just as the moon wanes to nothing, to the dark moon, when She is no longer visible.

Before, I never really knew anything about a woman’s natural connection to the moon. There’s energy and power to be enjoyed if we as woman chose to use Her light as a indicator of when to be in action and when to be still. When to gather and when to release. Once we align ourselves with Her natural energy and movements, things could start to flow much more easily within our individual lives.

So I’m finding out through my recent readings, and I look forward to learning more about lunar wisdom, lunar phases as well as lunar rituals and becoming more in touch with my own natural rhythms.

From the WSW vault: synchronicity

| Sheree

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September 2015

“I was never that keen on The Commodores’ song, Easy Like A Sunday Morning. It got on my nerves. But now knee deep in family life, I can really embrace the sentiment.
It’s Sunday morning and after being up for what seems like hours, I’ve finally managed to sit down to some ‘me time’ with coffee, breakfast and journal. And that pisses me off.
Apart from being woken from 5.30am onwards by the little one who wanted to come into mum and dad’s bed. Then spending the next few hours trying to get some sleep with a child clinging around my neck like a little marsupial. Then it’s the constant chorus, Can we get up now?
Then when I get up with a struggle (far too early for a Sunday morning) there’s breakfast to be done, dishes to be cleared, washing to put in, clothes to put away. A whole multitude of tasks to do before I can sit down and savour a moment with coffee and thoughts. And that pisses me off.
Call it what you like, I’m calling it synchronicity, the experience of two or more events popping up in my life that seem to be related. The concept of this experience of things popping up a few times having a meaningful coincidence was described by Carl Jung back in the 1920s ( again someone who keeps popping up in my life lately, coincidence?)
Anyway, over the last couple of days there’s been three instances that I can recall where having a morning routine or even ritual was important as a means of starting your day in the right fetal. And to be honest, I’ve just skimmed read the email, the blogpost, and the pdf. document, just thinking this is not for me. Yeah right if only I had the time. But now I’m hellbent on making this my thing. Making the time.
I don’t want to go through the rest of my day pissed off. I don’t want to carry this resentment around with me for the rest of the day. I love my family but sometimes they can just get in the way. There I’ve said it.
So I need to create a way for me to ease into my day with my good head on, Worzel Gummidge style. Ease into my day with grace. Ease into my day being the authentic me.
So this Sunday, I make a pledge to myself to trial out a morning ritual. I prefer to use the word ‘ritual’ instead of routine because it adds an element of the sacred to the proceedings. And a morning ritual should be placed at that level of sacred because then it is honoured and protected. It’s going to be my time to gather my thoughts and feelings, listen to myself and honour the person I am before I bring this person out into the world, ready.
That’s it, I wasn’t ready this morning to meet the world but if I took the time each morning to be alone in silence and at peace with myself, I’d be ready to meet the world, best face forward.
So yes I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks getting up early, hey why not 5.30am, it seems a popular time these days! And spending this time before anyone else is up in my house to experience some quality time in communication with myself. I’m getting excited about it already.
Tune in again and find out how things are going. I hope to present a less pissed off version of myself here very soon. “

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I’ve brought this posting out of the Wild Soul Woman’s vault because this need for a morning ritual has raised it’s head again. It’s the summer holidays, and my time is not my own. Before I know it the day is over, and I don’t feel as if I’ve given myself the time and space to breathe.
I’m also embarking on a more healthy and balanced lifestyle which needs commitment as well as the time and space to prepare and be organised for each day ahead. So what better time to do this if not before the day starts with it’s demands and responsibilities.

Ideally, I would like to use this quiet time to ease into the day. To continue my yoga practice. To start a mediation practice, undisturbed. To write and touch base with myself. To maybe get out into nature as the sun is rising. Have the sea all to myself. Also to have breakfast and plan the rest of the meals for me for the day. Spend the time looking after myself.
It sounds so selfish written here, but I know it is so very very needed and necessary, if I am going to succeed in this commitment to me and my health.
So yes, as I start this practice again tune in and see how I get on. Hopefully share more of my experiences and insights as they unfold.
Please wish me luck, thanks x

 

 

 

The Dark Goddess Collection

| Sheree

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I’ve been on a journey. Some days it feels like to hell and back. Other days, it seems like I went dark. I ventured into the underworld to the Dark Goddess. I’m not sure what or who the Dark Goddess is but I do know she is within me. She has always been within me, but I have failed to acknowledge her, or feared to spend time with her.
Over the past year or so, I haven’t had a choice but spend time with the dark Goddess. Associated with death and avoided, She also holds the power for life, and transformation. Before this can occur there has to be death. The natural cycle of every thing is life, death, life cycle.
Anyway, I’m working through things at the moment, working to become more empowered from within and part of this journey does include embrace the Dark Goddess, my Dark Goddess. I chose to document this process and share my practices through poetry. The Dark Goddess is the focus of my next full collection of poetry. What shape this will take is left up in the air. I jut know in my core that this is the path I must take.
Here’s a poem that I think will fit well within this collection.

Forecast

I had a friend once, Fresh, who could talk to the weather.
She tuned into their energies or something.

She could persuade a seafret to stray away from the Scottish coast,
turn back a storm before its even thought about which Caribbean isle to hit next.

She had a certain way when she looked at you,
numbed you to the core,

yet when she smiled it was like the sun glistened
through her pores.

When it rained, she’d be out there for hours arguing
about which was the best colour of the rainbow.

And when a wind blew she came into her element.
She grew in size, raised her arms in welcome

blustered through the cracks of light and disappeared.

From the WSW vault: the sea is my medicine

| Sheree

September 2015, I write:

“People who know me would say I am a positive person. Usually a positive person. Lately, my moods have been dark. In the past few months, disastrous things have happened which have left me feeling worthless, victimised and suicidal. I will start to document the experience here over time. But I understand why people haven’t wanted to be with me. Hell, I haven’t wanted to be with me either
I’ve been walking the line around the edge of depression. My husband suffers from depression and low self-esteem. Has done so for years. So there’s no room in our household for me to be sick also. I cannot go down there as it is I who holds our family together. I’m not trying to big myself up. It has been the truth, until now.
Now, I’m just falling apart, been doing so gradually over the last few months. At the same time, I’ve been attempting to build my life, myself back up. I see now my mistake has been to hold on too tight to how things were in the past, how I was in the past, resisting change at the same time as wanting these difficult times to pass.

Robert Frost wrote:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I first came across this poem in the film, The Outsiders. Ponyboy recited it to his friend Johnny. Then on his death bed, Johnny told Ponyboy to ‘stay gold.’ I loved that film. I think Johnny was trying to tell Ponyboy to stay good, stay innocent and pure, to not let the harshness of this world change him. That’s a difficult request to fulfill. There is more ugliness in this world than ever I feel, but I have to acknowledge that there is also beauty.

I have to remember that how I behave, act or speak originates from me. No one else can or should control how I act and behave. I do want to be a positive person but I know that person has gone. Changes occurred. They had to. I want to be whole. So more changes will have to come. I’ll be a positive and good person but a wholly different positive person than before.
Why the image of the sea to accompany this post? Because I got back into the sea today after weeks of avoiding it. The sea is my medicine. I’ve been refusing to take my medicine. Maybe because I didn’t have the energy, or maybe because I didn’t want to heal. Today, I dived into the cold sea releasing a little of my pain. I smiled while I luxuriated in her cold watery embrace reminded why I love being in the water, that feeling of freedom and what I’ve been been missing. The sea saved me.”

Podcast: Straight Talk For A Curvy World

| Sheree

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At the end of July, I was honoured to be featured in an episode of Straight Talk For The Curvy World hosted by the lovely and perceptive Ann Peck. A podcast covering the challenges women over the age of 40 face each day, has been a life -line for me since I found this gem in November 2015. So it was such a dream come true when Ann approached me asking if I would complete an interview with her about my up and coming book, rubedo.
I jumped at the opportunity and I am so glad that I didn’t allow my fears to stand in the way. This would be the first time I’d spoken at length about the ordeal I went through starting in May 2015 leading up to now. An ordeal that played out in a very public way on social media. Detailed within my creative non-fiction book, Ann has a way of questioning that gets to the heart of the issues, and I honestly came away from this experience closer to my authentic self. And I thank Ann and this podcast for their continuing insight and support.
Check out the episode in question. Episode 46: Raw Feelings Put On The Page Can Heal You.