Blog

12 Oct

Posted at 21:28h in Sarah's Journal by

The wild has almost been pampered out of Pickle ad Gigi. What remains is territorial barking when a parcel arrives and the chase in the wake of squirrel or fox scent. Gigi’s liberty to roam is temporarily lost post surgery. Her movement is restrained by a cone. Between trips to the vet for their wellbeing, we meander together on the marshes with a pram. The dogs spend the afternoons in soft warm places. There is a mutual bond of love and trust between us. Gigi uses her ‘please’ eyes to ask for cuddles, while Pickle demands treats with his persistent gaze. We all win oxytocin.

11 Oct

Posted at 19:17h in Sarah's Journal by

For the last thirty years, the British have been schooled in the art of festival culture. We have learned how to sustain ourselves despite the weather, to self-organise, to party, to de-centralise, to entertain, to collaborate and to communicate. This is a significant moment when the old established order meets the new paradigm head on. The new picks up the woolly thread spun in the 60’s, weaves it through the creative practices, spiritual teachings and digital expression we have experienced in recent counter culture and made it child-friendly. In this moment a child sits on top of the lion. This child is the future.

10 Oct

Posted at 22:51h in Sarah's Journal by

Under the eye of Nelson and the banner of Extinction Rebellion, Dr Emily Grossman comes to the stage in a white lab coat printed with the familiar hour glass logo. She packs a punch with a brief but clear presentation of current peer-reviewed climate science. Thousands of people – of all kinds including scientists – are taking to the streets to draw attention to the facts and predictions that people find it hard to hear, to really comprehend, and that governments fail to act on. Take the facts in, but hold them spaciously to allow room for the feelings they invoke. Let your feelings crack open your heart, but then reach out to connect through love.
www.facebook.com/ScientistsForExtinctionRebellion/

09 Oct

Posted at 22:47h in Sarah's Journal by

A pod of grievers meet at low tide at the edge of the Thames in earshot of St Paul’s. We make a circle from mud-larked bones and oyster shells. We are here to mark the death of the humpback whale marooned by hunger or disorientation in the estuary. A whale vertibrae the size of a child’s skull is passed round the circle. It is porous, white and lighter than I imagined. One by one we sing to the spirit of this whale, sing it home on a river of tears and gratitude. Hump backed whales mourn each other with song. I don’t find the words to express my sense of loss. I am dismayed by this example of the dislocation from right-relationship between place, food and the hierarchy of species in the natural world. This is a profound breach of natural order, an out of place death. How big a sign will it take before we recognise the extent of our selfishness?

08 Oct

Posted at 21:35h in Sarah's Journal by

After a delicious lunch – sushi dipped in salty with pickled and sweet – we walk to the beach. I am usually averse to cold, to wet, to mud. Today I slip off my trainers to walk skin on grass. My feet enjoy the experience. I take them to the shore where foam rolls towards them unpredictably. It feels good to stand in the shallows. Salt water laps up my calves. Salty liquids – great healers for so many ills. Later I lie and feel small pools of tears gather in my ears. No tragedy, just the trickling moisture of my humanity.

07 Oct

Posted at 21:08h in Sarah's Journal by

‘Nelson’ stands in the corner. His lower teeth push forward with an under bite. His jaw is anchored with two metal pins. We map painful places in our bodies in our workbooks. Tapping and massaging with fingertips, I find bands of tension around my skull. I open my mouth wide to allow more oxygen in. I feel the pattern of holding in the small connective muscles all around my jaw. These are the tendons, which pay for insincere smiles and nervous ‘like me’ grins. This is the spot that holds back my reluctant truths. This is the place where my nocturnal fear bites down. I breathe, stretch, massage and sound into these tight places of resistance. All around my skeleton I feel painful nodes, hungry for the attention of my persistent hands.

Home

06 Oct

Posted at 20:50h in Sarah's Journal by

Life feels complex, and I feel as though we are facing increasing uncertainty. I have my tool bag of inner resources – breath, mantras, meditations, buzzing hands. I am holding a piece of shungite. I find it reassuring in my palm, an ally, a talisman. Uuduu (a Mongolian Shaman) describes holding a stone from somewhere sacred as “having the telephone number to connect with the place”. The simple beauty and resonant feeling of small pieces of crystal or stone are calling to me. An initiation into their mystery has woken something up inside me that responds to their dense energetic signature.

05 Oct

Posted at 20:00h in Sarah's Journal by

Every day I meet rough sleepers. I try to give them the dignity of personhood – to say hello, to acknowledge them with a nod, to meet their eye. The most regular locals know me, and we exchange greetings and discuss the weather. Sometimes I will buy someone something to eat, more often I don’t. I often feel overwhelmed in response to the desperation in the voices of those who ask for help. This summer a kind and friendly man stationed himself near our front door step. Over the months his requests for our help dwindled. At first he wore white vests, ate only ‘plant-based foods’, bore his misfortunes with optimism. As the weeks passed I watched his skin become weathered, his hair dread, his appearance darken – both clothes and mood. We witnessed how a series of seemingly small events created a chain of increasingly difficult circumstances. He left our doorstep. Occasionally I glimpse his grizzled form shuffling in ill-fitting shoes, head bowed.

04 Oct

Posted at 17:40h in Sarah's Journal by

I have been wondering when it begins – the shutting down of grief in community? On trains recently I have been aware of parents shushing babies and toddlers. Is it because we have become intolerant of other people’s children crying? Parents feel embarrassment and shame at their child’s public bawling. Have we become judges of parental failings and tired babies (either real or projected)? Are we just so uncomfortable with our own sorrows that we want to banish others’ into private spaces? We are programmed to respond to these cries, but when does soothing and calming become silencing? Can we hold baby’s screaming and wailing more compassionately as a collective?

03 Oct

Posted at 11:24h in Culture Reviews by

There’s a pleasing circularity in the things I am hearing in the meditation. It is led by Jarmbi Githabul of the Githabul and Ngarakwal tribes in Australia. Almost the same visualisation was taught to me by Eucalyptus who works in a Celtic tradition. I did a version of it in a ceremony lead by a South American medicine woman, and others before that. I am grounding through the earth, and connecting to the stars. It includes opening my heart. It is a practical way to connecting up both vertically and horizontally, which for me is the key to changing everything. I like his low key practical approach. To connect with who we are and our heritage, “feel your blood”, he simply says. I am finding my way back to the old ways, to those who were earthed, way back in my own lineage. Jarmbi’s bush lore circles through the words that loop round my head – disconnection, trauma, grief, honour, listen, ancestors, remember, ceremony, community, dance, love. The air ripples with the pulsing drone of the didgeridoo. One small gasp for air punctuates the sound of his circular breathing. www.42acresshoreditch.com/events/grounded-connected-as-i-see-it-jarmbi/