Hello all
Today’s piece comes from listening. To myself, and to the kind of writing which has been arriving. It also emerges from your generous comments and thoughts around what you have been finding useful and helpful on the Wild Edge. What I want to assure you of this: if you have been feeling overwhelmed with the way of the world, if you have been finding it hard to make time for yourself, if you have been finding it hard to discern and to slow down and listen inwards, then you are not alone. These are symptoms of this age. You are human, having a human experience in times of upheaval. So many of us are finding our nervous systems are on edge.
I do not profess to have answers, but I do have words and images, and I am trying to find a way of moving through this world which is generative and reciprocal, giving back to the earth as she gives to us. There is poetry, and language with holds remedies, and one of my ways is to offer spaces to find breath, and pause and sanctuary within. The piece today comes from that intention, and will be opening a new thread of inquiry and form on The Wild Edge. These will be pieces of writing with audio narration that are not full essays, but a little longer than the ‘Press Pause’ sequence I have been sharing. Some weeks I’ll still have slightly shorter ‘press pause’ posts. Some will be a little longer. I will see how it evolves over time. So much of this is experiment, in the best kind of way. All photography and art work are my own too, and I look forward to sharing more.
I am also trying to find an economy in my work which makes it nourishing for me, while also generous to others. This is a work in progress. If you are in a position to become a paid member of The Wild Edge, and take out or recommit to a monthly or annual subscription, this is one way to support the ongoing development of this work, and also support me in making it. There are lots of additional offerings which come with membership, including a monthly salon or sanctuary, and additional seasonal resources. Thank you.
Below also, a reminder of upcoming gatherings on the Wild Edge in April- a poetry salon, OWL Hours, and our next Seasonal Salon, for Bealtaine.
Buíochas. Blessings, and gratitude.
Clare.
Making: Slow
Winter wore her coat buttoned. A long, heavy coat, which pressed down on the land with dark threaded seams. It has already been a season of slow beginnings. I have watched the days lengthen, only to be swallowed by mists again. I’ve swum in a glinting harbour, only to find the cloud wink out the light. What’s arriving is not a steady current of presence, but of departure too; a pull back, an edge forwards, motion, I am thinking, much like breath. Perhaps this is the natural rhythm of arrival; hesitancy before passage; timidity preceding being known. Perhaps I just need to remember to make my way with slow. I turn to the land, and take note.
It has been a week of the slow uncurl. Earlier, walking in the woods, I noticed how the young fern began its awakening tucked in a tight spiral, as if bowing to its heart before revealing itself to the world. Its gradual arrival is the unravelling of the spiral, shaped in the way of curve and waves and cosmic folds. A shy, timid, opening, before turning to face the light. The world awakens gently in the pace of fern.
Meanwhile, on the bushes, from hawthorn to bramble, the week has witnessed the gathering plumage of bloom. It’s been a gentle rattle in the land, as if the earth is airing her new sheets and spreading them on the branches. Swatches of bright yellow gorse, like hand printed Indian block cloth, laid alongside the white linen of blackthorn. As the mists clear, the hills are whitewashed again, and the season is opening her hand with her offerings. Her generosity never fails to amaze me; how ever garment of bloom came from that buttoned winter coat; slowing slipping off to reveal the next layer; treasures the darkness kept hidden until the world was ready to welcome.
As the light lengthens now, slowly I am being taught to trust in my own unravelling, to lay the winter layer down. The darkness has served a remedy, and Spring is now taking the reins. The seasons are a splice of time, but they also offer us a language of invitation. What might it be to unburden ourselves of coats which served in one season of our lives, but not the next? What might it be to welcome our own arrival at the pace of fern, a gradual opening to our own possible? The spiral is a patten of arrival from the centre of our being, departure again, before returning; the centre the site of orientation from which the movement comes. To hold our centre in the mist of change. Isn’t this so much of the work of this time. The spiral is also a key.
As I think about the invitation of the spiral, I am also feeling into its pace too, and how far removed from the centre we have become when moving at the pace of fern seems so counter-cultural. So much of the external world is hooked on fast. Fast fashion. Fast acting. Fast food. Fast paced. The algorithms scroll us to the next, leaving us unsatiated. Fed on their hunger for more, it’s so easy to be sucked into their definitions of success, where more is more is more. There is no time for the unfurl, for the departure, for the gradual arrival, for the shy reveal, for craft or skill and the time it takes to truly transform through the process of becoming. Slow has always felt counter cultural but I think it is where the real revolution might be taking place. It certainly will not be televised.
Perhaps it is a function of getting older, but as the seasons pass and the years speed by, my need for slow is quickening. Only in the gentle, am I learning that I can hear my true words. Only in the gradual spiralling of arrival to myself —coming closer, turning away, coming closer again —can I discern the truth of my being. Holding the proximity to centre, like a wave of breath in motion, like another season always on the way in, offers a different form of patterning. I need the slow to listen. In the quite places I am learning to discern the ever whispering invitations. The inner life is a cosmos. I bow my head. The spiral takes me inwards.
Very soon I realise what I have been pushing back against. Fast has been holding the noise of what burdens, weighs me down with doubt and uncertainly, clutters my mind with the debris of the algorithmic hunger for more. I have been craving the certainly of my centre. I hunger for the love which I find there, and the vastness. When I bow my head, I am met not with estrangement, but a welcome. It is warm, and kind and wise. It is set with bloom. Inside are all the answers I will ever need. Inside us all is our own universe, ready to speak.
So I turn off my phone and I go to the woods, where the fern uncouples itself from fear and unloosens itself to the awakening of Spring. The wild garlic brush off my legs, and I am walking now in the scent of awakening. Low to the ground, delicate yellow primrose, blush colour on the soil. There is grace to this pace of arrival.
By what measure, I ask myself, have I been judging my own arrival. By extrinsic deadlines or definitions, or an intrinsic knowing from my own soil, my own soul, from which the spring in me matures.
As I walk in the woods, I am a student of the spiral. Fern is a wise teacher. Slow is too. I am learning to trust in the pace of Clare.
Every person is a cycle, with our seasons of arrival, proximity, distance, return. Yours will be different to mine. There is no right way, or wrong way. You are not late. You have not missed out. We are each our own becoming, ever arriving to ourselves. But what I know is it can not be forced. Just like the fern finds its own shape. Just like the wave breaks within its own beat, our arrival is ours alone. We have our winters. We have our spring, and when we listen inwards towards the universe of our being, we’ll each get the nudge when the time is right: to unbutton our coats, lay the layer down, and arrive the way of our own unfolding spiral, as the breath does, and the seasons. We can always bow to our centre, and begin.
Poetry Salon- 12th April
Bring Poems! Bring your listening ear!
An hour to savour and sink into the spirit of poetry.
Sunday 12th April. 6-7pm Irish/UK time.
Owl Hours- Mondays in April
Creative Co-working circles. An hour to build rhythm and focus in your practice.
6-7pm Irish/ UK time.
Monday April 13
Monday April 20
Monday April 27
Seasonal Salon: Bealtaine 30th April
Marking the next turning of the Celtic Season, come join me for a celebration with poetry, writing and creative ritual. Tickets are included in Gold/ Founding membership of The Wild Edge, or can be purchased here.
Thank you all,
Until soon.
Clare.
