Moving Through

Moving Through

Today is New Years Day 2015. It feels very similar to yesterday, the weather is comparable, the grey dull light is familiar for this time of year but it is different. Today is the first day of this New Year, a day that we will be able to look back on, a day that we will be able to tie our different experiences to and that in itself is important. It is a marker, a man-made artifice needed to help us recognise our place in the world, in the natural cycle of life and with each other.

Time and tide worn groyne.

Life and time carries on regardless, I believe that if we are lucky we are able to appreciate this, we may even enjoy the ride. It is a case of moving through, navigating the terrain and enjoying the company on the way.

Today we went again to Seasalter beach and stood on the shore listening to the wind and the cry of the birds on the tide-line. We watched as geese honked their way overhead and traced the familiar landscape of the Isle of Sheppey and the Swale, the Estuary and the receding coastline with our eyes. I have looked onto this landscape as long as I remember, I am fond of it. To me it is my ‘wild’.

 

Louise and I. Seasalter 1973

I unearthed a couple of old black and white photographs at my parents house which show me and my sister on the same stretch of beach, I am aged about 4, my sister is 6 years old. I am quite shocked to realise that both of my own children are older than this now.

Seasalter 2015

Life and time carries on. Today I was probably walking on the same shells that were there all those years ago, the Brent Geese I heard today would have been descended from the geese that would have visited that shore when I was 4 years old, wearing my new purple coat and excitedly showing the photographer, probably my dad, my stone, pebble or pretty shell that I had found! The wind that day would have sounded and felt just as it did today, loud and sharp on the face and ears.

Walking memories

My memory of walking as a family group throughout the seasons is a good one. We used to go out regularly and explore new and favourite places. These included: The Warren at Folkestone, the Pilgrims Way at Boxley, Bysing Woods and of course Seasalter beach. In the winter the walks were fairly quick, in autumn they were always accompanied by carrying plastic punnets and picking whatever fruit was plentiful. Spring walks through bluebell woods were a joy, the smell and colour was magical. Summer walks always seemed to include picnics and boiled eggs and of course there was squabbling, tired legs and probably many other disappointments, but I am glad to say, I can’t remember them now.

Layers of shells pushed up by each tide.

It may be a new year in our human world, but time is a constant, the seasons revolve around and we carry on our life. Shared human experiences are what can build community, especially positive ones. Today I walked on the same beach that I walked on as a child and I still saw the magic of the place.

Me, Seasalter beach, this time, summer 1973.

Maybe my view has been formed by being lucky enough to have parents who made us get out and walk, who showed us the beauty and magic of the turning seasons, the reward of blackberries in the autumn and the thrill of being outside when cold winter wind blew, tangling hair and making noses run. I thank my parents for this love of the natural world and I thank my lucky stars for the power of gratitude I feel to just be healthy again, after a good week of having a rotten cold, I have been able to get out once more and recognise why this is so important to me.

Timescales

Life and time carries on, so do we. Enjoy 2015 and all is has to offer. Nature is out there to be explored and appreciated. It will connect us back to ourselves, (as a 4 year old perhaps), and to everything else. The cyclic nature of the seasons reminds us of our own time and our own timescales. Our lives may be measured by achievements, possessions and experiences; today especially we tend to ask what our new year’s resolutions are?

Let us just have the grace to appreciate the here and now.

 

Tide table December 2014.

Today I went to throw away my 2014 tide table; it ends on 31^st of December 2014. But it is cyclic too; it is just another pattern of spring and neap tides and the space in-between each tide is as regular as our breath. I can look at the months tide table and work out this month’s pattern; I can see the phases of the moon and see how the tides are affected by it. Life and time carries on, the last day of 2014 is not separate from today, the tides are in their pattern, the seasons are in their flow, it continues.

Years ago I heard a radio interview with Claire Rayner, she was once a Matron and when asked how she coped with it all, she said that when she struggled with a situation, she always reminded herself that ‘This too will pass.’ It is a phrase that I have used through difficult times and it has really helped. Life and time carries on. ’This too will pass.’ It continues. I am grateful to be aware of this moment and try to practice mindfulness with grace.

 

Walking on Tankerton beach before Xmas, 2014.

I believe that walking regularly in the real world allows us to adjust to our natural pace, season and thoughts and gain a humbling recognition of our place in the bigger picture. When we walk we find peace in place.

 (I completed my MA in September 2014 and recorded the last two months of it in another blog called www.thesaltwayfarer.blogspot.co.uk

Please feel free to look at that anytime, as it is from that, that I am where I am now.)

Reading and Writing

Reading and Writing

‘To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June’, Jean-Paul Satre

This quote is the one I tried to find a few blog entries ago and even wrongly merited it to Yeats. But in researching the author of this quote I came across many other inspirational words, poems, stories and lyrics. So that was good. 

Seasalter beach, looking East with stormy sky.

Sinky mud, leaking wellies.

   

Ironically, in setting up my walking project, I have done less walking, but more reading and writing than I had ever expected to. I think this may be due to existing time commitments, but I must admit it is also due to the fear of walking alone in the countryside.

Walking with others and their dogs is a lovely option.

Living by the sea, here in Whitstable, I am very fortunate to be able to walk along the concrete promenade that edges the coast, built as part of the sea defence which stretches from Seasalter to Ramsgate.

Walking with company.

It is often busy with other people, especially dog walkers, so it mostly feels very safe to walk alone along the coast. But when it comes to walking along a country lane, footpath or through woods by myself, I feel a sense of anxiety. I think it would be good for me to acknowledge this and work out what I could do to feel more confident,  because if I feel this way, I am certain that I am not the only female feeling this anxiety when walking alone.

 

Really stormy skies over Whitstable.

I wonder whether this could become part of the art project that Arlette George and I have now decided we will do together, to explore human movement in the landscape. We will look for funding to create a project that will link two far away places in the UK: the Ardnamurchan Penisular in Scotland and Kent in England. Both areas have a large coastline and lie at the furthest geographical Westerly and Easterly points of the UK.

It's amazing what inspiration can come from just looking closely.

So, in my mind, to create a dynamic between these places and between the land and our bodies through the exploration of movement would be great. I don’t know how the project will look at the moment. That in itself would be part of the inquiry. How to articulate the project and create something of worth that could be discovered and used to inform the walking project ‘People-to-Place’ would be just one outcome. I would hope that the project in itself would lead us to other less prejudiced conclusions too.

Seaweed awaiting the tide to come in.

The Landscape as Metaphor

I attended an inspiring workshop on Saturday, it was held at the Beaney Institute in Canterbury and led by Mary Reynolds Thompson.

‘Reclaiming the Wild Soul’, turned out to be the perfect antidote to the last weekends' disappointment. From the start we were given a warm welcome and an appreciation of how we could expect to spend our valuable time. It was made clear what was to be the subject of our inquiry and guidelines were given so that we were able to understand the expectations of our group work such as confidentially, emotional responses and sharing.

A close up of the top of a groyne. A mini landscape.

After such a disappointing and traumatic workshop held the previous weekend by the UCA in Margate, this clarity and recognition of us as individuals was most welcome. Mary led the workshop with great integrity and generosity.

Mary lives in California and so it was a great opportunity to participate in, I think, her only workshop this year on our soil.

We wrote about archetypal landscapes, such as deserts, forests and oceans and rivers. These formed short texts, poems and more. In exploring the landscapes and in our thoughts how we feel about them, we are able to tap into a deeper wisdom. The other participants at the workshop were a great group, fully engaged and inspired by the idea of the landscape as metaphor and I really enjoyed their company. We all seemed to create beautiful writing.

‘When we connect to the wild we discover within ourselves the insight of the poets, the power of the shamans, and an unbridled passion for our precious earth. The wild exists in us and around us. Enter it and you transform the way you live, work, create and dream.’ 

Mary Reynolds Thompson.

She has written two books on this subject and holds many events. I urge anyone with an interest to look her and her work up. It is inspiring and deep.

Daily Practice

Here is a small snippet of a longer written piece, my response to a poem by Mary Oliver that I had been asked me to read. The poem was very apt. A couple of questions prompted me to think about ‘How is paying attention to the world a kind of prayer?’ and ‘How does this poem make you re-examine your own ‘wild and precious life?’

‘My wild and precious life; my luck to be here,

Right now, to feel connected, engaged and open.

Appreciation of it all is my prayer; I try to remain devout in prayer; even on the greyest day there may be a rainbow somewhere, a raindrop with all the colours within.’ 

Clare Jackson

I listened to a wonderful radio play years and years ago called ‘Spoonface Steinburg’, it was written by Lee Hall and broadcast as a monologue on BBC Radio 4 in 1997. The music is amazing, with excerpts from operas, sung by Maria Callas. But the part of me it touched and was able to be eloquently put was her understanding of what it was to be alive. How she recognised that everyday actions that we take can all be seen as prayers. I recommend listening to it, I will do so, soon.

It was with excitement that I realised that my painting ‘My Path’ is on this weeks page in the ‘Earth Pathways’ diary.

'My Path', on this weeks' diary page spread.

I feel quite proud to see it there and very pleased that it has been put with a poem by Simon Sawyer called ‘Dream Song’ which I feel really resonates with it.

‘Out of the earth came wind, and out of the

 air came sun, out of the rock came water.

Where they met, spirit grew,

And trees were born,

The trees dreamed of birds,

The birds dreamed of song, the song yearned

To love, and the love grew strong.’ 

Simon Sawyer. 2012

Every day I complete my ‘Morning pages’, a few pages of writing recommended as a creative tool in Julia Camerons’ wonderful book ‘The Artists Way’. I see this as my daily practice, this and appreciating what it is, to be.

(I completed my MA in September 2014 and recorded the last two months of it in another blog called www.thesaltwayfarer.blogspot.co.uk

Please feel free to look at that anytime, as it is from that, that I am where I am now.)