Author: admin

19 Jun

Posted at 19:34h in Sarah's Journal by

Shelly scoops up the young robin, who concussed has dropped to the ground in a state of freeze. No avian parents to oversee the youngster’s wellbeing are around to sound the alarm. She uses gloves to avoid scenting the fledgling with human. The cat expresses interest. Shelly protects the robin from predators and the chilly breeze. Her care over several hours is rewarded with a happy ending. Movement returned, the robin takes off, visiting later to drink from the bird bath. Squiffy the squirrel is also a beneficiary of Shelly’s nurturing. Wildlife comes close in the garden. Pigeons, foxes, squirrels amongst other wildlife regularly entertain us. I watch blackfly on a Cardoon – the plant has grown as tall as me – being harvested by ants. Kohlrabi and chard seedlings struggle with my inconsistent parenting. I tell Sophy I am growing vegetables. “Use it as a practice in non-attachment,” she advises.

17 Jun

Posted at 14:19h in Sarah's Journal by

I travelled outside my territory for work. I had time to spare, and drifting, found myself in the neighbourhood which was home thirty-five years ago. Street names began to shake loose from my memory – Pagnell Street, Trundleys Road, Cold Blow Lane. The open square of sky that I loved in the park is still visible. But the map logged in my mind is now tessellated with modern brick-built blocks. Play areas and landscaped amenities now spread where unmanicured industrial spaces used to be. The young adult me encountered sub-cultures of all kinds in Sanford Walk. It was my first experience of living in community. The end wall of the housing co-operative was slowly marked out and painted by mural artist Brian Barnes. ‘Riders of the Apocalypse’ – with its images of Thatcher and Reagan riding war-heads, is faded but still here. Today I met two friendly people from a new generation of community-builders, who welcomed me – a time capsule from 1983. I search my memory for lost fragments of my history. In those days I tinted my hair pink, wore a ‘bib’n’brace’ with DM Boots, painted cartoon images, made vegetarian lasagna and bought 12” singles. Trains rumbled past my mint green bedroom window. Commuters looked in to see strawberry-icecream pink walls. My house mates were worldy-wise lesbians. I was naïve and optimistic, but emotional jelly inside. The losses and joys since then have shaped me, and standing here again I can feel the distance I have come. My sexuality is no longer a mystery. I am still living in queer community with people who share a sense of indignation at the injustices in the world.

14 Jun

Posted at 17:19h in Book Reviews by

‘White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism’ by Robin Diangelo, is a short book that effectively addressed my assumptions among other things, that being ‘colour blind’ or ‘celebrating blackness’ were useful; that waving my white middle class liberal flag was enough. These are toothless strategies in the face of the scale of the problem. Robin Diangelo makes explicit that “my silence is not benign because it protects and maintains the racial hierarchy and my place within it.” She unpacks the unhelpful diversionary tactics of white defensiveness. The nub of ‘white fragility’ as a concept is that the system of white supremacy is perpetuated by white people’s reluctance to talk about race, let alone take action to change the status quo. Once white bodied folk get to grips with the inevitability of our complicity with a system that essentially gives us a massive advantage, in ways we are not even aware of, then we can stop trying to defend our ‘good’ non-racist self-image, and begin the work needed to actively interrupt racism. She describes a workshop in which she asks the people of colour who were present, “What would it be like if you could simply give us feedback, have us graciously receive it, reflect, and work to change the behavior?” Recently a man of color sighed and said, “It would be revolutionary.”

13 Jun

Posted at 20:06h in Sarah's Journal by

At 8.30am for 20 minutes, I bring my attention to a virtual group who “come together in stillness, and send light and love to people who need it.” It’s a brilliantly simple way to connect with a positive attitude. My inspiring friend Julie sets the intention every morning. Yesterday I scrubbed the bathroom first; today I was still in pyjamas. I like the invitation to come together across the ether. The energy of this group helps me to commit to this restorative practice. It can be really hard to find time to meditate, let alone do it. “Even if it is very foggy, cloudy or stormy, the blue sky is always there, for us, above the clouds.” Thich Nhat Hanh describes the sky, as a similie for our true nature – often cluttered or obscured with clouds. The clouds are the mental chatter of worries, memories, inner dialogue and the distractions that usually fill my head. By noticing the ‘clouds’ that cross or blot out my mental space – observing their texture and quality, it helps me to become more present. This foundation of mindfulness acts like an anchor, and then I can focus on generating more expansive thoughts. By allowing a few minutes to do a calming practice at the start of the day, my nervous system resets; so I feel better, and perhaps others benefit too.
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches mindfulness, global ethics, and peace.

 

12 Jun

Posted at 15:43h in Sarah's Journal by

I am sitting knowing that I am complicit in systems of white oppression. This recognition opens up two ‘Gates of Grief’ for me. ‘The Harm I have caused myself and Others’ (Sophy Banks) and ‘Ancestral Grief’ (Francis Weller). I am still only just begining to understand the ways in which my defensiveness and my inaction perpetuate injustice. I am also holding the lines of my heritage – people who stood with the advantages of white skin; who also took part in systemic repression. I think especially of those who were linked with the church, participated in civic life or held social capital. Some worked their way up through Lancashire cotton mills to make ropes and twines of cotton and jute. I sense my guilt and shame exude their rancid odours. I place a rope and skull on a grief shrine, to remind me of the weight of the suffering of others – then, as now. This gesture seems impotent, but I offer it and bow my head. Resmaa Menakem suggests that “the first step is to acknowledge that something has to change” around the “Historical, Intergenerational, Persistent Institutional and Personal traumas” resulting from genocide, colonisation and enslavement. I recommend Resmaa Menakem’s ‘Free Racialized Trauma E Course’ as a brief introduction to white body supremacy and the impact of racialized trauma on black bodies.

10 Jun

Posted at 19:02h in Sarah's Journal by

One of the essential elements for growth, nature needs water. Without moisture plants wither and the dry soil erodes. For weeks the pram has rattled across the hard ground. Now the rain falls at last to lick the cracks where shoes and balls have rubbed the grass bare. The undergrowth seems to breathe a sigh of relief as it gulps down large droplets of cool wet. “Grandfather used to call the rain ‘the erotic ritual between heaven and Earth’,” writes Malidoma Patrice Somé in ‘Of Water and the Spirit’. This sensual blessing of water on parched earth mirrors the tears, that may come when sorrow is tended, perhaps after a long drought. Sobonfu Somé lately, and Malidoma still, brings wisdom from the Dagara people of Burkina Faso to the west. I have learned how water helps me to connect to feelings, to allow suffering to be honoured, to remind me of the cycles of life and death. I feel the rain stroke my skin, and the flow of life moving through me.
See more about Malidoma Patrice Somé.

09 Jun

Posted at 15:11h in Sarah's Journal by

“Grief and joy balance each other like the two wings of a bird,” says Sophy, making wings with her arms, then folding her hands together, palm to palm. She acknowledges Jeremy Thres for the analogy, which came from Martin Prechtel, who learned it from the Tsujitsil people of Guatamala. She holds each grief tending ceremony with natural, grounded lightness of touch. At each event she invites me to assist on, I feel grateful for the honour. Under her wing, I am stretching mine. Pendulating between the wings of grief and joy, the group dips into both. This is how we deepen together, risk being vulnerable, discover unexpected moments of pleasure. I tumble into the beauty of the altar I have assembled to guide my journey. It is a portal into the mystery of this process. Rumi’s words share the metaphor to express the experience perfectly: “Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.
Sophy Banks holds on-line grief tending events, and I may be on the team.

08 Jun

Posted at 17:57h in Sarah's Journal by

In the crucible of these times, things are changing. I have slowed down. My frantic to-do list has become an unattainable manifesto. I settle with ‘what is’, and try to accommodate it more graciously than before. Each day on the path to and from the marshes I see a moment in the life of this rose. It caught my eye, when at first only three heads were visible. The central one, darker rust, was squeezed by the blossoming peach faces of the other two. Then, I watched as the central face unfolded to take its place; until all three unfurled into glorious papaya coloured blooms in a garden full of roses. Each day the rose requested my attention, hoped to be documented. I forgot my camera. I raced to return home for lunch, a Zoom meeting, or to go to the loo. Yet each day on its arc from bud to hip, it became more beautiful. I counted the days past its prime, and yet in decline it gathered grace. Petals dropped to the ground. In its disintegration I remembered its opening, but found in its evolving form an elegant transformation.

07 Jun

Posted at 20:51h in Sarah's Journal by

Part of me died when I came home to find tree surgeons chopping off the top of the old sycamore that was here before me, and has watched over us the last twenty-two years. Part of me died when I noticed how long it took for me to recognise the violence of this pollarding. Part of me died when my neighbourly yet assertive questions were aggressively dismissed by the burly lumberjacks wielding chainsaw. Part of me died when I knocked on the neighbour’s door – just along the street, and didn’t recognise their faces. Part of me died when the owner offered reasonable explanations and an after-the-fact mumbled apology. Part of me died when the shaking stopped and I breathed again; and I stood in our garden to see the remaining brutal hand of stumps. Part of me died when I imagine the territory of squirrels, birds, mice, foxes, cats and all the other creatures and insects that lived in or under the shade of this tree, cut down in its prime mid growth season. Part of me died when I realised this is a microcosm of the cutting down of trees for the benefit of faceless owners around the world, to suit their needs, while others watch disconnected or feeling helpless. Part of me died to know that I am complicit in this system. Part of me died to know the butchery of our times.
Written from a ‘writing shuttle’ inspired by Natalie Goldberg.

06 Jun

Posted at 14:21h in Sarah's Journal by

As an only child, I struggled to learn the rules of play. My games were often solitary imaginings of ‘house’, dolls being ‘mothered’ my way. Eventually I developed impulses to create – ‘Spirogyro’ patterns, badly spelled poems and an illustrated story about ‘My Aunt’. Dexter has always been more hands on. He introduced me to his games of make-believe, where he imagined, dressed up, and we acted out his devisings with him. “You be the shark, and now you fight me…” From an early age, he would suggest costume ideas, “fun-fur patchwork hoody?”, which I would procure. His eyes blazed then, as they do now, with fierce intensity as he conjured up worlds to escape into. He taught me to play, helped me to bring forth some of my reticence to get involved. We are still playing together. “It’s going to be a story, where I get messier and messier. I’ll wear my pink fluffy jacket. Can you find me a table cloth?” Each of us has a part to play. We all revel with delight, in the creative process, and it’s fun. I source the yoghurt.