Returning to words

Picture on the wall, with a plant surrounding it and a dandelion chain

This weekend I travelled North to the Scottish Boarders for a weekend of retreating. It’s been a while since I’ve been on retreat, for so many different reasons, but this one felt possible - more than that it called my soul deeply - a therapeutic writing retreat. Writing is such a part of who I am.  Writing has carried me through the last 20 years or so - it’s with me constantly, even if it has only been a line as I write my diary at the close of another day, and then another. Still, writing in this way - here with you - has evaded me. I’ve wanted to return to this place, longing to be here, longing for the inspiration to flow through me like it once did - where I’d write a whole piece with urgent anticipation, and something would be here, it would just move through me. Recently I haven’t been able to meet my writing, or my people in my writing - more than recently for a long while now. Perhaps its because I’ve been focusing on my book, perhaps its because of our ferocious world, perhaps its because my body is changing, perhaps its because because. All of these things. But I want to return to my writing, I long to return to my writing. So I attended the retreat with this in mind - that it might once again reignite my words, that it would bring me home to writing love.

As I write I’m remembering that my writing has carried me for more than twenty years, it held me as a child too. I used to love writing, letters, poems, love notes, words that evoked something in me, quotes, essays even. I was enamoured with handwriting and how my pen felt on the page - I still am. Perhaps there’s a constant returning to writing, that it leaves and then it comes. That I may trust this returning, over and over and over again.

This retreat was so much more than writing. I needed this retreat in a way I didn’t know, until I was there, perhaps until the reflective time after. In a world where I hold - as a mother, in my work - I needed holding. It’s always an interesting dance moving from holding to being held. Something has shifted within me allowing the holding in very different ways. I realise I was tired, so very tired, that my body was tired, not from any one thing, rather all that I’ve said above, including what it is to be human right now - lets not underestimate this. When I’m tired, when my central nervous system vibrates at the hate and discourse we’re surrounded by, creativity moves backward. It’s impossible to be moved by creativity from this place. In urgency we go to the necessity, our bodies are made this way. And so I’ve done what’s necessary, and more. I’ve deepened into my work and this has been profound. I was with Life’s Poetry for six whole devoted months and gave it my entire attention - this is a beautiful thing. Because alongside my writing I want simplicity, I want to tend, I want to be attentive to what’s here. We spoke about this on retreat too - what it is to direct our attention, to be attentive. Ruth, the beautiful soul who led the retreat, shared the words of Iain McGilchrist “Attention changes the world” and then I came across this quote from Simone Weil “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” And so where we pour our attention matters. My attention has been on growing the ecosystem of Life’s Poetry - my book of this name, Life’s Poetry where we come together for six months of grief exploration, and more recently Life’s Poetry The Conversations. My attention has been with my family, on mothering, and tending. And with my friendships too. Our attention cannot be in all the places, so this is where my heart has been.

Today, in this moment I turn my attention to these words on this page, to my writing. I come here intentionally, putting all else aside to write. I feel rusty, out of practice, wondering if any of this makes sense. Wondering if it will all come together. It feels like home at the same time, like a remembering. Sometimes we need to make an effort to return, to remember. It takes dedication, it takes a willingness to come back. I may need to return, again and again, until it feels different again. This is my reverence for writing. This is my reverence for connection through my writing.

So I’ll finish with a piece that I wrote this weekend - surrounded by the Scottish hills, the medicine of the river and waterways, the immense company of the humans who were there, the most nourishing food, and all held by Ruth in alchemy. Ruth invited us to write a prescription for the heart - it got me, it moved through me, it kept calling me back, again and again. It’s now a spell, a spell for reverence - something to attune my attention through days and time.

A spell for reverence

Start your day slow

Go quiet

Don’t pick up your phone before

A sweet hug

Or kiss

And even then

Linger a little longer

Take in the face

Of the one you love

Look at them

Really look at them

And listen

Hear every beat of their voice

Every movement of their lips

Go outside

Listen to nature’s medicine

The birds

The rustle of leaves

The greens, the blue, the oranges

How do they sound?

Breathe

Take it in

A moment of silence next

Listening to silence

The deep appreciation of silence

And how it repairs your soul

Swim

Always, swim

Let water pour over you

And restore the weaves of fabric in your being

Love

And be loved

Allow all the love in that you’re surrounded by

Bask in it

Bask here as if feeling the sun on your face

Do that too

Feel the sun on your face

Let the warmth soak into every single pore

Don’t forget frivolity

That against the silence

Your laughter is medicine

Their laughter is medicine

Play like a dolphin porpoising in the sea

Play like a frivolous fairy amongst the daisies

Play with your whole heart

Sing and dance

Light a fire and feel the force of its heat

Light your own fire

Don’t forget your fire

Tend to its embers

Keep stoking the fire

Love hard

Love fiercely

Spend time in nature

If there’s ever choice, choose nature

If there’s ever choice, choose love

If there’s ever choice sing, and dance, and love.

And always, always choose pleasure.

If you’d like to explore therapeutic writing I’d highly recommend Ruth and all that she offers.