Pruning

A poem, and a writing invitation

It’s been a while.

I’m making a return after some time ‘away’ to consider what it is I want to say, and how I want to say it. I have needed to make a quieter place of my world to really hear my own thoughts, to make a cradle for expression. I’ve been saying no, slowing down even when it honestly feels so uncomfortable to do so, allowing fewer words in so that I can detect the sonar of my own creativity. I am reminded that writing really does mean everything to me, including action.

I have remembered, electrified, that moving expression and meaning-making out onto the page, then sharing with trusted others, and then pushing it out into the world (it does feel like pushing just now) are further layers of creative self expression, and of experiencing self in the world of others. Of being amongst it all. In these layers I will often fear a dilution of meaning, a loss of essence of the original piece, and so I’ve come to hold a somewhat miserly grip that only actually serves to throttle further flow.

In sharing though, a paradox: there is instead the possibility of a deepening intimacy with the piece with each remove. This is my experience of those times when I have been bold enough to share: the writing only becomes and becomes, and really in ways I have no say over, and no right to say. There is an ongoing relational vibrancy to be experienced here, a tantalising groundlessness: by sharing I rewild both the words and myself in the world of others. Most times, the next call after creating the thing is moving the thing out into the world in some way, any way. This is the very point I feel most resistance, I’ll be honest, and I’ve been trying to soften the muscle clenched hard around it. When the tension releases, even just a little, I find beneath it layers of curiosity and intrigue, excitement even, not over the prospect of feedback and response so much as what this thing becomes next.

I wrote Pruning, which I share below in text and audio, in the midst of a study in grief. I don’t know what else to call Life’s Poetry with Nicola Duffell, save to describe it as a soul-level experience of contemplation, witnessing and revelation over 6 months. Her next programme begins in October. This poem emerged after a dawn moment alone in the garden, one of those times when the words seem to write themselves.

I am filled with moments that ask to be written, and I admit to rarely answering. So sharing it here is a celebration of having answered, and of having lingered with it for a few months to allow it further shape. It feels a little vulnerable but not so much as it might have done even a year ago, and I’m honing the skill of recognising a certain kind of vulnerability as a way marker onward rather than a closed road.

Pruning
This morning, early, after checking my blood,
I cut back the rosemary,
woody and wild,
ancient, insistent.
It was suffocating the life from underneath, you see
that lay damply patient, dark.
The naive greens and waiting pinks, the budding spires
Of hyacinth, of helloborus.
Surely too intent on this life.
With quiet force they return like old promises,
making their demands for space and light and encouragement:
they need to be able to fucking breathe.

And so I cut back the rosemary.
Hard.
Before coffee,
before reason,
before company.
Meddling with the experiment of sun on soil.
For hyacinth, brief and intense.
For helloborus, nodding,
formidable.

~ ~ ~

Therapeutic Writing

I have some therapeutic writing news for Autumn / Winter to share with you next time, but for now I’d like to invite you to a free upcoming session with myself and Nicola Duffel. On Tuesday 14th July at 6.30-7.45pm (BST) Nicola and I will be joining in conversation about the medicine in writing through life’s most challenging times, with around 45 minutes of guided therapeutic writing time. Here’s a bit more from Nicola about this event (all you need to join is a free account with The Portal) and you can book your spot here.

This Willow Weeps is a writing exploration with the wonderful Ruth Coates. We have both found medicine in writing and all that it can offer. I recently attended Ruth’s Alchemy retreat in the Scottish Boarders and it was beyond beautiful. Writing can offer us a way to process, a way to practice, a way to tend to our grief and to soul - and this is what we’ll be exploring.

And what of the Willow? The Willow tree has been with me since childhood, it’s often a symbol of loss - the weeping willow. It also has great strength too. We’ll explore the symbolism of the willow. We’ll be weaving altogether - willow, grief, writing and water. Bring your writing materials and a candle.

Ruth is a psychotherapist and therapeutic writing guide, working from her shepherd’s hut nestled in the woods of East Lothian. For the last 6 years Ruth has brought her love of words right into the heart of her work, guiding writing sessions and courses, and mostly recently a retreat, to share with others the alchemy that is possible with this practice.

Nicola Duffell tends to grief and soul in an increasingly complex and devastating world. She knows the deepest, darkest heartbreak that comes from experiencing personal loss. She’s also alive to the collective nature of life, grief and death. Still she’s someone who fiercely believes in the beauty of this life and what it is to be human in this world.

It would be really wonderful to see you there.