Marking What Has Been

I’ve been wanting to write something about Writing the Wild Soul, the writing course I took part in in early November (which seems like an age ago!), but I do not feel ready or able to pull any thoughts together at present. Perhaps I will leave that for next year.

Instead, I thought that I would engage in what is becoming an end of year tradition, and look back on what I have achieved in this space over the course of 2018. 

This year has not panned out as I expected or would have liked, and there are many things that I would have liked to do, which have remained un-done: stories remain unwritten, books remain unread, and there have only been glimpses of my return to art-making in my studio. Yet, looking over my posts here helps me to realise that I have in fact done many things, and have travelled a long and winding road since I first established my radical focus, and began unforgetting.

One of the best things I did this year was Sylvia Linsteadt’s Witchlines courses, which have not only led me towards an investigation of ancient pre-patriarchal cultures and their art and spirituality (greatly enriching my own art and spiritual beliefs), but also led me to write 13 small stories, all of which you can find here. Perhaps it is more correct to call them vignettes, rather than finished tales, but considering I have struggled with finding the energy and focus to inhabit the storytelling frame of mind, I consider them quite an accomplishment. The stories of Neolithic Old Europe that I love most are: 

             The Vessel Filled With Time 

             The Dance In The House 

             Snake Woman 

And of the places of wild myth: 

             Ariadne Wakes 

             On The Tip Of The Needle 

             Bird-Woman’s Foot (a brief return to Old Europe) 

             Wedding The Troll-Hag

I’ve also written numerous poems, including:

             Anchoress

             In The Dead Of Night

             The Darkness Of The Beginning 

             These Mountains

             Human Roots

I’ve written of embodiment:

             The Sacredness Of What Is (my most popular post!)

             To Be Embodied Is To Heal

I rambled philosophically: 

             Thoughts On Thinking

And I made myself laugh:

             The Sensuous Fabric (Refuting A Man)

I’ve seen some marvels:

             Lakeside Sights

I’ve had my words published in two books!

             Heroines 

             Medicine Woman, by Lucy H. Pearce

And I have made a few pieces of art:

             Rainbow Snake

             Singing The Sky

             Ancestress

And of course, there has been a whole series of Wise Words, a couple more of which will appear before the end of the year. 

I guess I haven’t done too badly after all. But there is always more to do. Bring on 2019!

Thank you to everyone who has read, commented and shared. Enjoy the riches of the holiday season, however you do (or don’t) celebrate it, and happy solstice.

I will leave you with some photos of a family of yellow-crested black cockatoos I encountered recently. They are beauty medicine.