Tag: mind

Posted on

Erasing the Full Stop

Well, there I was, merrily writing away, absorbed in my enchanted sandpit of words: castles and moats galore, my hair and gusset full of sand, and not a care in the world.

Until I asked the wrong people for feedback.

When they told me my castles were “a bit much”, I quietly left the beach, my creative armbands losing air. I let the tide come in and wash my miniature kingdom away, turning my back on my inner sea.

The ebb came and went, inhaling and exhaling each day’s rich shore of possibility; fresh shells, new rockpools, shoals of will-o’-the-wisps all glistening hopefully. “Come back!” they cried, “We want to play!” But I refused, digging deeper into my own full-stop while those little wriggles of inspiration called in vain.

Until today, when Julia found my little red bucket and spade and threw them back onto the beach for me – plastic gauntlets of play. “It’s your homework”, she told me, smiling through her voicenote. “Write an essay on erasing the full stop.” At last, I had no excuse anymore! I was being told to build sandcastles for the pure fun of it. Who was I to disobey?!

After all, I hadn’t really been asking for feedback, had I?

I’d been asking for permission.

Darn it, I’d been checking – again – whether me and my wobbly creations were allowed, leaving the poor things to prove their worth against the waves. What a bloody drama queen!

I have always valiantly upheld the importance of feedback as a commitment to learning and growth: a point of honour; an exercise in humility. I thought it was noble and virtuous to expose myself to the cleansing winds of criticism.

What a foolish scourge, to sacrifice one’s creativity at the make-believe altar of another’s words.

As the Buddha said, “Even as a solid rock is unshaken by the wind, so are the wise unshaken by praise or blame”. Or as Julia put it, “I don’t want silly old feedback! I just want to do what I want to do.” (I can’t tell you how much I love her take on it!)

I’d hardly given my wonky castle of creativity a chance to settle in the sand before exposing it to the harsh waves of judgement, like unclothing a newborn on a mountaintop.

Really, Clare, did it need to be the moment the poor thing emerged, still blinking and bleating in shock? Freshly delivered from its warm, protected womb into the brittle glare of others’ creative blocks?

All that is new and unsure must be nurtured and protected awhile; given time to grow solid and steady roots.

Creativity is no different.

The Balinese have a ritual where newborns don’t touch the ground for the first three months of their lives. They are carried everywhere as sacred guests until they’re thought to be fully anchored into human life; only then are their feet ceremoniously placed upon the Earth.

I think I might take a leaf out of their book and welcome this guest into my life with a little more care before I plonk it in the dirty backyard of other people’s feedback. After all, when I first started writing my blog, I opened with this statement: “This blog is my intention to share – to open, to risk and to trust – and a commitment to authenticity; a practice of releasing self-expression as freely and lightly as I can, letting thistledown-thoughts drift gently in the breeze of this curious confetti of life experience.”

I didn’t mention asking for permission or making each seed prove its worth. And I’m hardly releasing them freely and lightly if I’m asking for others’ feedback, am I? I’m more like an anxious parent constantly calling my newly fledged teenager’s friends to check my little darling is safe!

And would you believe it? As I’ve been writing this, not one, not two, but THREE thistledowns have drifted in through my attic window and across my desk.

Posted on

The Leaf Litter of the Mind

As the leaves begin to drift and decay, so too do my thoughts. Here I am once again, in stout wellies and overcoat, tending to the damp and depleted garden of my boggy autumn mind. Here comes the dwindling of daylight and the slow creep of dormancy; the building weight of mud clinging to the heavy boots of my thoughts.

I submerge a little further with every sodden step, my energy sinking deeper into my roots. My flowers have blackened, my stems have begun to sag, and the instinct to grow has retreated like sap. I want only to cover myself in protective mulch and lie dormant till spring.

Goodbye to the billowy-blond tresses of the long-haired meadow grasses; to whiskery ripples of barley, like green silk in the summer breeze. Goodbye to nodding froths of cow parsley, and to baked earth cracked like dragon-hide underfoot. Goodbye to freshly-mown lawns and bare feet on sun-warmed stone.

I’ve always dreaded the onset of winter. Not just its heavy depths, but the febrile brightness of Christmas too – highlighting every splinter and schism of the family in its unforgiving glare. As the summer tides retreat my hopes seep quietly out to sea, exposing the familiar mud-flats of melancholy that lay beneath.

‘What’s wrong with me?’ I rail, ‘Why can’t I feel buoyant and light?’

As if the trees could pick up their fallen leaves again, or the bees pop back out to pollinate! Would I scold my tomato plants for their withered October fruit or berate my hanging baskets for their decomposing blooms? No, I’d put them in a greenhouse and tuck them in for the night! Just as the trees shed their summer bounty and the dahlias blacken and slump, so my body responds to the whisper of the seasons; the call to rest and hibernate.

However much it feels like an ending, it’s simply another revolution of nature’s wheels; the patient coiling and loading of life’s new springs. Our energies aren’t the straight lines of productivity we so stubbornly demand. Like morning mists on a mountain, they slowly gather, circle, and rise.

The mind, too, is just another deciduous shrub on the scree-slopes of life. But as the winter approaches and the sun begins to ebb, we can still bathe our minds with our inner light. And so I turn my thoughts to the quiet joys instead; to the twinkles of fairy-lights and the smoky whispers of bonfires on cold nights; to the womb-like cocoon of a duck-down duvet, and the bloom of my breath in the cold air beyond; to drizzle-jewelled spiderwebs and crunchy leaves underfoot; to steaming mulled-wine and the crackling hum of burning logs. And to that most glittery of stipples – the hoarfrost of the night – painting the ordinary and overlooked with tiny crystals of delight.

And as I drive home, I spot a man playing the violin on a bench outside the botanic gardens, almost hidden behind a bed of dying wildflowers. Just a few metres before him watches his only audience member: one little squirrel nibbling a nut on its haunches.

The irresistibly daft charm of life’s reassuring wink!

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash.

I welcome all comments! If you would like to share your thoughts on this post, please click here and scroll to the bottom of the page to enter them in the comment box.

Posted on

Jewels in the Turd

As I walked barefoot across the lawn this morning, delighting in the nodding pestemons and bee-deep lavender, my pleasure was interrupted by an abrupt encounter with a small turd.

Fear not, I didn’t step in it. But oh, what a rude little serpent of distaste! Like the discovery of an overripe spot on your nose after a languid Sunday lie-in with a bright new lover, its presence spat me fatly out of my romantic reverie.

The young turd stared boldly back, throwing down the gauntlet of bad decorum and willing this old fogey to make a fuss.

 ‘Bloody cats!’ spluttered my mind, self-righteous with dirty-disdain.

A pause. A recognition. A chuckle. What codswallop, I adore my feline friends! So why this knee-jerk indignity at nature’s ways? 

I looked again. Noticed the sheen of bluebottles clustered on its crust in earnest industry.

And realised: Life is teeming with such moments of choice, the majority made unconsciously. I could choose to see a turd covered in flies and play the tired old record of disgust.

Or…

I could choose to see a banquet of living jewels, dazzling in iridescent dinner jackets at their giant ochre feast! To wonder at the crusade of little winged recycling-champions going about their permacultured day.

I took a moment to admire the beady sequins of their bodies with their taut metallic glaze; marvel at the little mascara-brushed eyelashes of their legs and the maroon globes either side of bomber-pilot helmets, the stunning complexity of their minutely pixelated eyes.

I’ve always been tickled by the saying, ‘You can’t polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter’.

I’m even more delighted to realise there’s no need. Nature sends them their very own living sequins – with miniature delivery-wings no less! Oh tiny fecal fairies, if we consciously clean our minds of prejudices, judgments and beliefs we can see how miraculous you are, and the parable of truth you represent.

Just like the Universe, flies lay their eggs in life’s excrement because it’s such rich nutrition for growth.  So no matter how unpleasant things seem, there’s always a hot steam of transformation in every cowpat and a glitter of jewels on every turd.

The trick is to take off our smeary mind goggles.

And learn to truly see.

Photo by Egor Kamelev from Pexels

I welcome all comments! If you would like to share your thoughts on this post, please click here and scroll to the bottom of the page to enter them in the comment box.