From the Ground Up

Feeling the summer blues. Exhaustion. Sadness. Beginning to let go, ready for the descent back to the dark heart of winter.

I’m outside the world again, but not just because I am perpetually unwell. I know now that I have always been ‘outside the world’. I knew from a young age that I could never really live in it, nor did I want to—not on the outside world’s terms.

I thought at times that this was selfishness, immaturity, but actually it’s self-preservation, survival.

I am luckier than most. Privileged. This does not nullify suffering, though, the constant loneliness, being misunderstood and unable to make myself understood.

At least I have books to keep me company. In the absence of people: words, ideas, visions.

Thank Goddess, especially, for radical feminist literature. It nourishes my soul, for there is sense to be found in a dominant culture that severely lacks it.

Serious subject matter, yes, but also beauty and joy and healing.

A new perception of self/world gradually taking shape. More plurality in wholeness.

I want to write, and there are glimmers at the edges that I can sense, though they might fade before I can make anything of them.

I realise I probably sound like a broken record. But I have to begin again and again and again. I forget myself, and have to return to understanding, from the ground up.

***

Joan Roberts quoted in Man Made Language (1980/1990), by Dale Spender

Though an old book, the argument that men control language and therefore the construction of meaning is still, sadly, entirely relevant. The monodimensional tunnel vision of men must make way for the multidimensional understandings of women.

From Pornography and Silence: Culture’s Revenge Against Nature (1981), by Susan Griffin

I am constantly astounded by Griffin’s perceptivity, how she peers through the depths of the culture and uncovers the fear of nature and embodiment at the heart of it all.

From Wind (Pictish Spirit #2) (2016), by Louise M. Hewett

The second instalment of a brilliant Goddess spirituality / radical feminist / woman-centred vision of what love and intimacy could be like outside of the culture of domination.

From The Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman’s Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home (2018), by Katherine May

A memoir of late autism diagnosis. I’m about half-way through, but it is proving to be insightful.

From Is This Autism?: A Guide for Clinicians and Everyone Else (2023), by Donna Henderson and Sarah Wayland, with Jamell White

A very basic overview of autism as it manifests in less obvious ways, especially (though not always) in girls/women. It’s informative, though important to ignore the section on gender and attraction, as the authors conflate gender with sex, making it very clear they don’t know what they’re talking about (a huge disservice to autistic people). I just liked this quote.