Things that others have taught me this week #1
how to situate your work, stay sane, be free, make sacred, write a weird little tale and more besides.
I am not one of life's great curators or archivists, let me state that clearly. I don’t note-take or diarise nearly as diligently as I could. Instead, I have a perennial fascination with the bright things that hang around unaided in our memories; asking - perhaps for their own reasons - to be remembered, lingering in their own vitality.
This then my be the first of an occasional series capturing what has stayed with me since I last wrote to you. Maybe you will find something of use. As a method this is bound to surface both small and strange, as well as the large and significant. Idiosyncratic and universal. And I like that. It’s a breccia thing.
How to situate myself in the emergencies of our time
In
‘s gentle but fierce masterclass ‘Writing through Emergency’ for the Arvon Foundation last week (I watched on catch up) she asked us to consider the contribution we make as writers to the emergencies of our times. She recalls that in emergencies we are told to ‘find the helpers’ and so we were invited to imagine how our writing might help others and consider the sort of help that we offer best. In an emergency we need all sorts of people from the deeply practical and energetically activated, through to those who offer comfort and a safe-space to feel. This gave me a useful way of framing my own work, and while I never set out to ‘help in an emergency’ with my books, I realised that my heart feels best being the calm, grounded, companionable voice of perspective, process and solace in difficult times. Solace is a word that keeps returning to me at the moment, and naming this particular way of tending to grief helps me settle into what I write best at a time when the lead time to Weathering is starting to feel too long and anxious; creating too much space for doubt. It was a gift to think more broadly into the way different voices fit together as a chorus, and I think her words will leave a significant and long-lasting mark on me. Perhaps if you are a writer (or any sort of creative) you could consider the same question?How to be free if not wild
Sometimes language gets in the way of the question. This was one nugget from writer
’s newsletter on the rewilding of Pygmy Rabbits in the Sagebrush of the Columbia Basin (US). I try to stay close to snippets of rewilding news the world over, but this one landed in my inbox with positive news about a species I didn’t even know existed until I opened the email. Lost and Saved in one scroll - what a rollercoaster! The read was worth it alone for the good news story and the cute pictures, but Rebecca’s informative piece also asked the question about whether any species can be called wild if they were only saved from extinction by bringing all remaining members of the species into captivity and then releasing them again later. Wild, she suggests, is quite possibly not the point, but a better term might be ‘free’ (as suggested by poet Rob Lewis). She explains how this honours their existence “and gives us something to strive for in this age of unimaginable losses”. I cannot explain why exactly this landed so deeply for me, but perhaps it is simply that while I know for myself I can never be wild, I will never accept not being free. That’s a lot of double negatives, forgive me. I hope you get my point.How to return to sanity
As worries about being published again run rife around my poor, vulnerable, animal body I have been calling in all of my resources to stay upright. This is a whole post for another day - because I have a lot to say - but I am learning for what feels like the millionth time that it's only really Buddhist thought (and some Jungian if I need something a little more…wrought) that can save me at times such as these. It is only getting very calm and very still and practicing thoughts of non-attachment that can finally quieten the noise. Buddhism has a lot to say about the ego of course and I have many texts sitting on my shelf, but I especially appreciate its teachings when I find them stowed away in unexpected places. This week I found it in Spring Rain by Marc Hamer that I was given to review ahead of its paperback launch. What I found was contentment between two covers. Mindfulness told as a love story. There is nothing quite like spending time on the page with someone who knows that the true value of life is not found in conventional success metrics but in the shabby shed at the end of the garden, or in tending to the same plot of land for thirty years, or who can look forward so wholeheartedly, genuinely, to cherry blossom, or the arrival of bees. Marc's book reminded me that when all is said and done, an addled mind needs a gentle hug, and it is sacred gift to be able to offer this. I refer you back to point 1.
How to Make Sacred
In a wonderful article I found on Substack titled An Informed Reverence,
makes a rallying cry for the need to make earth sacred again as a vital step in Earth recovery. His publication is called Field Guide to the Anthropocene, and I love the urgency in his words. The whole article is very much worth a read on what it means to make things, places, life sacred once more, but this question jumped out: How do we broaden wonder to a societal scale reverence? I really enjoyed thinking about the ways I am trying to make my world (and those who enter it through my work in particular) a little bit sacred. With all the egoic fretting I am going through at the moment, it is helpful for me to remember what soulful looks like. This is, and always has been for me, an earnest pursuit for the magic that remains in the animate world. This article is helping me think about how Weathering is my current contribution to ‘making sacred’ once more; how I want to stir up a deep reverence for the abiotic world. It may turn out that my craft lags behind my passion (this is for the reader to decide), but I’m hoping the latter will carry it into a few of the right hands. I am also thinking about the deep love and respect that goes into my Animal Movement Classes. I know I am on the edge of something with these - that they tap into something important that I am still exploring - but I can feel the sacred within them. I can feel my love for people and animal radiating through me when I create my playlist and write my prompts, and I know others feel it too when they’re there, moving. This is sacred work for cross-species connectivity, and I am still exploring how to amplify that through deeper presence and connection. The idea of 'world-building' is on my mind a lot at the moment as I recognise the ways I’m trying to create around me the world I want to live in, with the people I want in it with me, and also how to do this as one introvert person who gets overwrought at the mere sniff of a crowd. Somehow though, Jason Anthony reminds me that broadening wonder might be ‘doing my bit’, and someone else can do the societal scale bit.How to step into new worlds
My friend and collaborator Rob St John and I have now submitted our grant bid. We have three considerably brilliant organisations who want to be involved with and support our work, and it’s a relief to finally get the 72-page application over the finishing line after all sorts of zoom chats and voice notes sent back and forth. That said, Rob has really led the way on getting this application made and I am learning what it’s like to be a beginner again, stepping into new worlds. I have no experience with the Arts Council and no experience with art commissioners. I realise I speak in a different language at times, and don’t feel confident in the language of arts and the social sciences. And yet, it’s also growthful to step in and learn. To watch. To dissect (I am always dissecting like the good scientist) and to be humbled. Stepping into new worlds is hard without someone who straddles the doorway to give you a hand. Grab on to those people is my advice. It has also prompted me to sit down and write an Artist's Statement this week because I would like to start applying for residencies to develop my practice. Writing in the third person seems to be important for that (or at least it used to be)! Ruth says she is trying to be brave.
How generosity arrives when you stay true to who you are
Last week I decided to toggle off the ‘Bestseller’ badge on my Substack profile, sliding it left to ‘Private’. I worked hard for that little orange tick and yet I could also see myself starting to worry about it. What if readers left me and I lost my tick? (it’s based on paid supporters). What if the fear of that social shame leads me to write inauthentically? (this is a grave plight for me, ha!) I have had a couple of viral posts in the last month but I don’t want to be beholden to creating them for cookies; I want to be free (see point 2) to write what is on my heart. And so to cut a long anxiety short I turned it off knowing that it would likely affect my growth and reach, and told folk my reasons. Of course, everyone was terribly nice about it and to my absolute surprise a few people even became paid supporters of my work as a result. It’s a risk to stop towing the party line, even in these small ways, but it also brings the right people closer. I may turn the tick back on at some point perhaps - who knows - but to me it’s about being sufficiently securely attached to myself that I can be confident to take risks and stay close to my needs. I want to move beyond social-endorsement. I want my work to speak for itself. I want this for all of us, but to bring that change we have to enact it in the small choices ourselves, don't we?
How to write a weird little tale
One tonic to publishing (or any) stress is simply to move on. By which I mean, do something else, write another thing. With this in mind I have allowed myself to daydream about future fictions I will almost certainly never write. What I tend to read is not what I tend to write, by volume at least. Which is to say, I have read so many short, sparse, novellas in translation but as yet I haven’t written a single one. This week, I read for the first time a particularly strange little tale set in rural Norway spanning just one winter. The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas is only 139 pages long, centres around two eleven year old girls and an icy waterfall, and is full of strange turns of phrase and repetitious words that makes the dialogue seem oddly artificial and allegorical. But I loved it. I inhaled it. The themes within were big – grief and hope – but held within a singular, contained landscape. My favourite! And by chapter 2 I was already up to my dissecting tricks trying to work out exactly how he did it. Often, I think today will be the day that I sit down and begin at last my own weird little tale of talking animals, desolate landscapes, and melancholy women, but alas it hasn’t happened yet. Still, I felt one step closer this week, or at least I did until I gave up at the first line and picked up his similarly haunting The Birds instead. Ah well, it's waited this long, eh!
How to be bowled over
This poem, Glacier by Claire Wahmanholm from the Montreal Poetry Prize was sent to me this week by my friend Vicky. It’s perfection. That’s all.
Oh my goodness Ruth, what a piece! 1 and 3 particularly spoke to me. 1 reminded me of when I first read Susan Cain's Quiet and I finally start to 'get' myself! That move from realising that, despite what the world might suggest to us, there isn't just one way to be/look in life. I still feel the pull in the 'emergency' type situations to do things that I don't feel comfortable with, but an increasingly seeing that my 'work' is done better in other ways. And 3 'in the shabby shed at the end of the garden' will stick with me - how wonderful. That leads so beautifully for me into No 4 and the thought of societal scale reverence and connectivity. Away from the shiny stuff we are led to be believe is where our happiness lies and into something that both benefits us from its simplicity (so to speak) and our beautiful planet for us seeing her for all that she is and all that she gives us. Thank you, as always, dear Ruth for opening up my world xxx
Another exquisite piece Ruth. I am detoxing from coffee at the moment and feeling mighty grumpy. Not so much from the lack of caffeine (I only have 1 or 2 cups a day), but from the idea of 'lack'. Of someone taking my toys away. Even if that someone is me! Your words therefore were like a warm balm. The small soft toy that I needed, buried underneath the coffee cup. You have given me back that cuddly toy with your words. I literally can not wait to read your book (off on retreat next week so it's in my suitcase waiting for that.) Thank you for making the start to my day so sacred xxxx