Hello all
Welcome back to The Wild Edge. This week’s creative retreat (which really can also be called a creative practice) is all about noticing in nature, but with specificity. I have a short essay, which I narrate in the audio of this post too, followed by some creative prompts. Hope you enjoy!
Clare x
I wait for months. The sky is an empty nest. All winter its song plays haunting. I hold my breath, until the first stab of inky wing makes me gasp. There- the forked flight, and that flash of moon belly, soon to swoop. Within weeks, the swallows are scribing their stories over the harbour in lavish-looped italics. It is the cursive of return. I watch them rise, then dip: their acrobatic rollercoaster of flight, shifting, turning, sharp around the sails, low to the stream, then disappearing between two thickets of hawthorn; for a brief moment, wing and blossom as one. I cry a breathy welcome, welcome.
It is so hard to believe how far the swallows have travelled, and over what terrain. Desserts, oceans, ridges, roads, these miniature masters of aviation, now here, finding their particular place again. I wonder if there is a women in South Africa, holding her breath, waiting, pen in hand, for the return of her inky companions. Arrival here means departure there. We are a tag team, this stranger and I, bound by migration and a miracle called Swallow.
Midnight-blue, black, that glean of milky undercoat, a throat of red-orange until at dusk it turns magenta. Their evening chirps, thrills, the quick patter of their call, resting like a quaver on the telephone wires for a brief pause in the great song of life.
Once I see them, I see more. High on the overhang of a gablewall, a nest is being re-modeled as the 2025 edition. In the groves of a corrugated barn, held up with only rust, they conjugate, dip-dive, cavort. Here was their birthplace. Soon now, their own brood will be born here. Home can be a rusted flake you’d fly across a continent for. Home can be here as well as there, and both be true.
At dusk, I go to the shore. The water is a mirage of quiet golden. The calligraphic swirl of a forked pen, writes us into the night. Tomorrow, all summer, next summer, and next, I will be tracking, watching for wing, dipping my ink. We are each only ever seeking our own form of flight.
Creative Retreat
My creative retreat for you this week is all about tracking a single element it nature. It might be a bird, as it has been for me, or a tree species, or a particular flower, or insect. Maybe it is common, maybe rare: no matter. Pick one, and keep your eyes peeled.
As you begin to notice it, start to observe its habits. Is it still and static, or moving and swift? How does its colour change throughout the day? What times of the day is it more active, or less? What images or metaphors might it evoke for you? And importantly, what do you notice about yourself when you engage in this kind of noticing?
Tracking this kind of details is a form of specificity: noticing detail and how those details change over time. How might you change over time through your own evolving awareness too?
You may choose to journal about this, or keep a ‘field notes’ diary, jotting down sightings and observations over the course of a few days or weeks.
Feel free to comment or send me a message with your observations. I would love to know how you get on.
Bonus Post
I went on a special surprise journey last weekend, to a lighthouse with some fiddlers, and created a photo-essay which is here..
Save the Dates!
Summer Solstice Salon: Friday June 20th
It’s hard to believe we are soon to be in June and crossing the Summer Solstice. I will be hosting a special seasonal salon, with poems, prompts and creative ritual to mark the threshold. Tickets are included in the ‘Gold/ Founding Membership’ of The Wild Edge, or can be purchased below.
There is lots more too- Owl Hours, Poetry Salons, Writing Sanctuaries, and some surprises coming later in the summer.
If you are enjoying The Wild Edge, there are three very direct ways you can support the ongoing development, reach and deepening of this work.
One is by becoming a paid member ( if you are already, thank you!). Alongside giving you access to a whole range of writing and events, your membership also helps me plan and navigate the loops and swoops of freelance creative life, including covering some of the costs of making all this happen.
Two: Gift Membership. Do you also know you can gift a membership? Is there someone in your life who would value a year of creative retreats, creative salons and lots of resources to spark and sustain their creativity throughout the seasons?
Three, by sharing this publication with others you are helping to spread the word. Word of mouth is one of the great migratory miracles of connection!
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