Spice it up...Wild Style

"Vegetarianism - boring! Anyone who thinks so would have their world severely rocked by this little number...enclosed within the covers are poems, recipes and a little touch of folklore...served up with humour and a dash of sexiness...enjoy a little Bacchanalia for St Valentine’s Day and all the days that follow. Wonderful!"
(The Vegetarian Magazine)

Cooking, eating and sharing in the sensual pleasure of food and feasting has always been important to those in Wild Women. Right from the first meeting, it was apparent that the lunch hour would have to be extended! Behind this desire to bring our foods to the cookfire lay an ancient tradition, where women would gather to prepare the foods, sharing stories and songs. This, in my mind, is where we find the birth of the poem.

(Kim and Sal taking part in the collective bread baking workshop - kneading our wishes into the dough...)

I have long believed that our emotions flavour our foods - I am careful to not cook angry - a guarantee for heartburn! When I am cooking, it feels as though I am creating something magical, summoning spells and stirring up love. As we tucked into the glorious feasts every meeting, it was obvious that this act held inspiration for us all, and so I suggested that we used it as the starting point of our next anthology and series of workshops. Hearty agreement followed!

Over the next 10 sessions, I used different creative exercises for approaching food, exploring it from the point of the food, the eater, the creator. For example, choose a food or meal and write from that perspective!

Without intending it to be so, the subject soon turned to sensuality and sexuality and I swear that the room actually began to steam up! Ruth and Gill started to supply spells connected to food and passion and we each brought in our favourite Wild Women recipes. As we wrote, shared and enjoyed a creative feast, a book shape started to emerge. I decided at this time to turn the editing over to the group, and Julie Stebbings took on the task - her first ever book! it was decided by majority that the book would be entirely vegetarian - including the poems and Julie set to organising the poems, recipes and spells into a beautiful and rather tasty anthology. Adam Clarke provided us with the delicious cover design and typeset the pages and we found local business sponsorship (from an optician!) to help us reach our printing costs. We decided on the title of

Hot Pot of Passion: A Sensual Celebration of Food

To promote the book, we organised 2 launches in Cumbria, broadcast live on Radio. These events became the stuff of legend, as our guests were treated to a vast feast of homecooked Wild Women food, live music, Egyptian dancing and 13 women reading sensual poetry, dressed in the most beautiful attire! True to our belief that poetry is not dull and stuffy, the evening was gorgeous. Never has a poetry reading been so much fun! My favourite bit was seeing the sign at the foot of the grand stairs at the Penrith George Hotel saying: "Wild Women in the Ballroom"...

As with our previous anthology, Hot Pot sold out faster than...well, hot cakes and soon we had to go to reprint. It was awarded the honour of being the Vegetarian Society's Valentine Gift Recommendation and won over fans across the globe. It is still one of our best selling books. We had succeeded in taking poetry out of the ivory tower once again, and this time placed it right in the heart of the home - with Hot Pot of Passion, you could read a poem, cook a meal and learn a spell all in one go!

and we had a lot of fun doing it as well...what better recipe is there than that?

And if you want a little nibble before eating the whole dish, try this for taste...

Soul Food

No more slavishly following sensible Delia.

No more faddish attempts at TV chef fashions.

No more mealy-mouthed hipper-than-thou wholefood homage.

I need soul food.

Vast, richly spiced cauldrons of firework flavours,

to bring a sparkle to the eye of the most reserved of men.

Buttocks of sweet smelling dough,

warmed and shaped by my own soft palms,

that quiver to be patted by a firm hand.

The very tips of tender asparagus,

anointed in butter and nibbled tenderly between gentle lips.

Mounds of fragrant rice,

that hint at geisha skills with tongue and fingers.

Midnight bitter chocolate;

an intensity beyond sweetness,that only melts

after long, lingering encouragement in the mouth.

Mmm, baby -

I want it spicy, strong, rich, slow, creamy,

fresh, home-grown, hand-cooked and hot!

Hungry?

(Rosemary Doyle, pp.24)

Salsa De Chile Verde

4 ripe tomatoes, skinned in hot water

1 - 2 green chillies, de-seeded

1 medium-sized red onion, chopped finely

1 fat clove garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon fresh coriander, chopped

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon unbleached sugar

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

juice 2 limes

pepper to taste

Add all ingredients together and blend with hand-mixer or fork. Mix well, chill and serve with tortilla chips topped with melted cheese.

Loving Cup

Mix 4 tablespoons of rosewater and half a cup of elderflower cordial into a pint of dry white wine. Drink with your lover, and things will go well. Serve at a party and love will be in the air all night.

ISBN 0 9536989 2 0

£4.00

Honouring the Journey

At the end of our first year together, I offered to mark the anniversary by organising a Wild Women Weekend. We had met fortnightly for 12 months. During this time, we had journeyed together, discovering the beauty and strength of each other's creative spirit, so it seemed fitting to mark this journey with a private gathering and celebration. I booked a large house on the shores of Ullswater and each member of the group covered part of the cost. The arrangement was that we would each bring food and drink to share, poems to read and that some of us would facilitate creative workshops over the three days.

I remember the Friday evening, as we each arrived, bringing with us our gifts and excitement. It felt deliciously indulgent to take those three days, just for ourselves, and over the weekend we shared much laughter and even more food. We also did yoga in the morning sunshine, wrote stories in the woods, danced our souls out, drummed, chanted and performed spells for our coming year. Ruth and Gill did readings with the Tarot and we talked and walked and sang in the moonlight. We wore party frocks with only ourselves to dress up for, and we slumped around in our PJ's eating late breakfasts. In those special moments, we not only got to know ourselves more deeply, but we also got to connect even more meaningfully with each other. At the end of the weekend, we each left feeling refreshed, exhausted, deepened, well fed, more aware and celebrated. As one woman wrote in our group diary "Ready to take on the world!"

Guilty? Never... our usual feasting on the Wild Women Weekend (2002)
L - R Gill, Sal, Yvonne, Ruth, Celia, Kim, Alison, Rosie

Despite pressures of family, work and other commitments (which so often make even the wildest woman postpone her time for another moment), the commitment to gather on our annual retreat has remained and each year, whatever is going on, we make the trek (sometimes through 3 foot snow!) to meet. It has become such an institution that partners, friends and children now know to expect us to be gone at a certain time, as the spring creeps in! I always meet with amused (and often envious) comments when I telephone to book whichever house we are staying in and say it is for our annual Wild Women Retreat. We have stayed in farmhouses, up mountains, on the lake shores, in luxury and most recently, in ancient dwellings, all within our local Cumbria. Why go anywhere else when we live somewhere so wonderful? And over the years, we have danced, cooked up spells and feasts, written stories, and poems, drummed, done yoga and reiki, had aromatherapy massages, built bonfires, sung songs, walked moonlight processions, cleared chakras, drawn pictures, baked breads and created magic.

As the years go by, I have come to understand some of what is so special and precious about this time. Even though we no longer meet regularly, we endeavour to gather for this special time and we honour each other's journeys, giving witness to the path we have travelled, giving time and space to share our experiences, our hearts and the blood, sweat, tears and joys they have brought with them. We celebrate the steps we have taken, and we hold each other as we walk through the hard times. Last spring, as I sat and listened to our conversation, I was so moved by the privilege of being part of these incredible stories, of being able to come together to give testimony to the spirit and courage and humanity of these women, me included. In a busy world, where so much becomes disjointed and transient, this is a unique gift and one to be treasured. I can't help thinking that this gathering is vital to the Wild Woman journey and would encourage everyone to do the same.

This year we shared our 7th retreat, and to celebrate this journey point, we have decided to treat ourselves to an extra retreat at Samhain (October). As the moon waxes full, the Wild Women will be gathering again, to share our stories and dance around the cookfire and howl in celebration of the wild spirit and love that joins our journeys together.

Dream a little dream...

Wild Women at the Raymond Williams Award for Community Publishing, London. Our very first, self-created book Howl at the Moon is shortlisted for the prestigious award and we travel to London to attend the ceremony...

How do we do it?

People have often asked me how Wild Women Press has continued the work it has done over the years. There are four main answers to this.

One, is collaboration and generosity. Myself and many other women, and men, have worked for nothing to help make the ideas manifest. As the founder and director of the group/projects, I have occasionally raised funds to support my work as a facilitator, but have never received payment for my project management, editorial work, web development, mentoring or general administration or any of the other work I have put in developing Wild Women. Adam, who over the years has created wonderful designs and book for us, has received payment for this on one or two occasions where possible. All the women from Wild Women have, at some point or other, worked voluntary in publishing, web design, group management, administration, fundraising, event organisation, workshop facilitation and of course, writing and performing. Over the years, we have had the pleasure of sharing our work with many fantastic, international poets and performers. When possible, we have paid them for their art, but often they have given us this gift for less than usual, or for free. People have offered to support our work from all over the world, and we are eternally grateful for this human generosity, especially in a time of money-madness.

Two, is financial input - there are some costs you cannot avoid, so through small funds that we have raised from various public sources (when we have time and energy to fill in the endless forms) plus our revenue from book sales and events and our own personal contribution of food, venues, tools and such - we have usually had enough to ensure that the books can be published and the events go ahead. Because we want out books and events and projects to be accessible for all, we keep our charges and prices as affordable as possible - it doesn't give us the high profits (or any actually!) of go-for-it gurus and celebrity spas, but Cumbria is a rural, low income county. It is also very sparsely populated and large so we can't reach huge crowds, but that doesn't stop us putting on a fantastic show for those who come - and often, people travel over 200 miles to come to a Wild Women event or workshop - over mountain and stream indeed! If it reaches people, here and further afield, it is succeeding. But yes, the gold coins help and with more, we could do more.

Three, is through sheer Wild Woman Will and Vision...sometimes it takes a little blood, grunts and refusal to give in to see something born!

And four is simply faith, self-belief and the cosmic rightness of being - believing in the dream helps bring about that little bit if essential magic (and gets you through the really hard bits too!)

Obviously, I want to pay everyone a fair return for their contribution, including myself. And there are so many more things that could happen, if we had the funds, so many more dreams in the pot. In 8 years, it has cost 'money and fair words' to all of us, as my mother-in-law would say. One day, I hope that the intrinsic social and artistic value of this kind of grass roots activism is recognised and supported by those who have funds - it would be lovely if a patron or funder approached me and said "We recognise the value of Wild Women. Here is a big pot of money - use it to develop and continue your work" but, in the meantime, what do we do?

It has always been my view that we create the world we live in - and thus it follows that my actions affect that world. Not in a huge way like a politician, but in the immediate way - in the lives of the people I meet, in my life, in the space I create around me. It is easy to say "well, what can I do about anything?" and resign it all over to A. Nother, but I don't hold with that. For me, direct creative action brings about positive change, and this has underpinned Wild Women over the years. If you have a dream, find a way of making it happen. If you have something important to say, find a way of saying it out loud. If you see a need around you, or feel one within you (it is a good place to start), or know someone who has reached out to you and said "I wish this existed..." then do something about it. And if you need someone to support you in your journey, reach out.

Of course, with funds, all this can be achieved in a larger sense, on a wider scale. The financial support to pay artists and organisers helps to empower women to practically support their creative journeys (and helps us move away from the tradition that views women artists as hobbyists), as well as help to create amazing artefacts and experiences and help bring about positive change within our communities. Over 8 years, during the time I have worked developing Wild Women, we have worked with over 1500 women, published 11 titles, held over 100 live poetry and art events, performed across the UK, made connections across the globe, hosted many fabulous artists in Cumbria, supported the journeys of women and men at all stages of their lives, held 8 annual retreats and created a strong and amazing 'clan' that continues to witness the growth and journey of each member.

And we have done that ourselves, because we can. Not because we have any 'advantage' - we are rural, isolated, broke, holding down jobs, supporting families, going through life. We give birth, grieve, love, lose, get pissed off, celebrate, despair, moan and procrastinate on occasion. We have different backgrounds, we are different ages, we have different dreams. Myself, I began this when recovering from a breakdown. Hell, there are some stories that could make you weep with sorrow - and others that would make you leap with joy. The fact is, the seed I began with was this:

if you dream it, do it...be yourself in this world, because that is the wildest and most powerful thing you can do.

Life is too short to wait for circumstance to give me permission to live, love, create. I give that to myself. Through my work, I hope I give that to others, and in turn, they give that to their families, friends, co-workers, communities. This is the spirit of Wild Women, and I hope that the work I help to put out into the world inspires people to take their own journeys and to do away with that voice that says "but I can't..."

You can. We can.

Walking naked in the storm...

When we began the Wild Woman journey, we made a pact to keep it real and honest, and not to hide away from the source, even if it hurts. This can feel very exposing and often in workshops there were tears as people shared their poems. The important thing was that whatever the source, however painful, it was always shared through the act of positive creation. So, even the most painful exposure was in itself empowering. It is a case of owning one's own story, speaking in one's own tongue and saying "ok, from my life I create because that is my source and my power - I do not need external approval saying I am an artist, a poet, an author - I create because I am!"

Wild Women attracted people who were both published authors and those who had never written. When we first started performing, there were people, like myself, who had experience of public performance and those for whom this was a completely new experience. It was fundamental to my work in this group that no-one felt inhibited to create, that the poems and stories flowered naturally. Over time, I guided people in polishing their words but no judgment was offered on its 'value as Art' because it is all valuable. The quality is in the integrity of the poems and this is what makes them shine. These had a right to exist in the world at large, and I was determined that I would find a way for that to happen, to honour and celebrate the lives of each individual woman, each unique voice. Which is where Wild Women Press was born, but that is not this story just yet.

The story I want to share with you is about Pat, a woman who joined that very first series of workshops. Now, it was a few weeks into the workshops that Pat admitted to us that she had not known it was 'a poetry writing course' and that if she had done, she 'would not have joined'. Too late, I told her, we have you now! Pat stayed with the group beyond the duration of the workshops, and wrote wonderful and powerful poems, and got up there and performed them with gusto and grace, but still she said "I am not a real poet, not like the rest of you"...

Eventually, I decided to challenge Pat on this. During a weekend residential poetry workshop that I facilitated for the group, I set a number of exercises. I worked everyone hard to dig deep and discover - over dinner they complained I had turned them into the 'dry husks of poets' but by then, they were used to my technique - take no prisoners, but take them with love! Anyway, one of the exercises was to write a poem starting with a scent memory - a memory of something you could smell. I asked everyone to relax and remember a smell from their childhood and then write intuitively from that inspiration, using this as the basis for their crafted poem later. When we returned to craft the poems the next day, I tried a new approach, asking the group to read and critique each other's work, making suggestions for strengths and improvements. Pat tried to escape, saying that she was not a poet and did not want to take part in the editing workshop. Now, what we did next was, I admit, a bit unorthodox, but we had all known each a long time and we trusted each other. We barred her exit and told her she was not allowed to leave until she had written her poem! What is more, at the end of the workshop, I got everyone to enter the national Ottakars Poetry Competition. We each filled in our forms and submitted our poems, each with an equal chance of winning the local award. Poets and supposed 'non poets' alike.

Of course, you know what happened, don't you?

Pat won. I remember the day she called me to say that she had just heard that she had won the competition and that they had asked her to go and read at the prize giving ceremony. Not as part of Wild Women, but as a poet in her own right. What is more, she had accepted the challenge! I pointed out to her that she won, over and above us apparent 'real poets'. Even she had to admit a laugh at that point! It was a moment to be treasured and an achievement we celebrated.

The poem that Pat submitted was a deeply personal and courageous piece, and her decision to read it in public, in front of her two grown up sons, was a life-changing moment for her and one that showed enormous confidence, honesty and bravery. It was truly inspiring for all. And it was one of those moments where I am reminded of the importance of Wild Women and it makes all the work done over the years worthwhile. I am so proud of Pat, and of all of us.

Pat agreed to allow me to share this story and poem with you, and has written a few words about her journey with Wild Women. It gives me great pleasure to do so now.

Pat's Story

Pat celebrates the release of Howl at the Moon, September 1999

‘Taking part in the workshops being part of the Wild Women group allowed me to be strong enough to leave an unhappy marriage and have an independent life. The opportunity to write poetry, which as a complete beginner I found very scary at first, gave me the confidence to speak out and find my own voice. In 2003, I won the Ottakars Poetry Competition for my region, and went to Carlisle to read my poem. This was a significant moment in my life, as the poem dealt with a very personal experience. I hope that in my own small way, my strength to speak out helped others. It was such a thrill to win and made me realise how far I had developed since joining the group in 1999. I even discovered that I enjoy reading my work out aloud and that gave me a new confidence, creatively and personally. I am now blissfully happy with a wonderful new partner and we are shortly moving in together. I really believe that Wild Women happened at just the right time for me. It has been a wonderful enlightening journey, which I wouldn’t have missed for the world".

Pat July 2007

Swarfega

Slimy, frog spawn gel
Memories from childhood, memories from hell
He washed his hands in Swarfega
Cleaned off my blood, so I wouldn’t tell.

His taste of stale beer and pie
HP sauce, coffee, all a lie
Sweat, excitement, fear, alone
No one heard my body moan.

The touch of creeping fingers
Hands too big, for my small body
Prying, prizing, arousing, hell
All triggered off by Swarfega gel.

Trying not to wake up mother
In my bed, my mouth is smothered
“Do not shout or she will die”
So I gave in without a sigh.

Where were you mother in time of need?
Did your empty bed not plant a seed?
If only I had rung a warning bell
The memories unleashed by Swarfega gel.

(Copyright Pat Tolmie 18/9/2003)

My Wild Woman...

Close up of front cover image Howl at the Moon by Victoria Bennett (copyright)

So - where have we got to? The journey so far:

We have made the decision to accept the quest;
We have gathered our clan together and packed our knapsacks with hearty provisions;
We have called on our guides and gathered our talismans and tools;
We have faced the first obstacle and cleared our creative river of sludge;
We have entered into deep listening and stillness, sharpening our wolf skills;
We have named and done battle with our first enemy - the shrieking harpies!

What comes next? The next stage in our journey was to begin to get to know the Wild Woman within each of us - to find out what she had to say, what her voice was like, who she was. I asked each participant to write intuitively for 10 minutes, beginning with "My Wild Woman..." and we then shared what was written. This was a writing practice that we built into each of our meetings, and through it we discovered the strength, vulnerability and beauty of our individual voices. With each writing down, we peeled back the layers and got closer and closer to the truth of our own journeys, discovering long buried dreams, passions, sensuality and power. It is my belief that this simple exercise built a foundation stone for the creative and personal transformations that followed, as each woman gave herself permission, even if only in that small space once a fortnight, to speak out loud her deepest desires, dreams, fears, angers, frustrations...

So, together we mined for our gold and together, we took the raw writing and polished the gold until it shone, finding the essence of what it was we wanted to say and how we wanted to say it. At the end of the 10 workshops, I asked each woman to choose a My Wild Woman poem to put into the anthology Howl at the Moon. The power and beauty in each piece still shines today. I remember the first time the group performed live - how incredibly empowering it was to stand up and speak out "My Wild Woman..."

We still get requests for these pieces, eight years on, and I still receive letters and emails from people, men and women, who say that this anthology, in particular, these poems and pieces of writing, stir something deep within them, bringing their own creative howl to life.

For your pleasure then, here are some of those poems - join us in a Wild Woman Howl and write your own (and for men, well, you choose - you could go for your inner woman, or your wild man!) ...


The Wild Woman Poems - A Selection


Hallelujah! (Pat)

My Wild Woman is born today.
Out she comes, outrageous, confident.

I'm sick of being kept down.
Let me scream, howl, shout.
Gone are the days of shyness
that held me back.

I'm buggered if I want those days again.
Shout Hallelujah! Lift up my skirts and run free.



Wild Woman (Julie)
My Wild Woman has been away.
Put down, subdued, kept out of sight
lest she offend. But now she is back!
Peering cautiously at a world
where she thought sh did not belong -
and she is saying very clearly
that she won't be leaving again.
And every time she gets put down
she'll come back even stronger.
Soon she'll be indomitable!

There was once a time when
she wouldn't say boo to a goose.
Now she might say boo to a gosling
if the need arose.

It's a start!



My Wild Woman (Helen)

My Wild Woman is free to swim in clear waters
and lie under the blue sky, basking in golden sunshine.
She eats and drinks whatever she wants
and doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks.
She dances in the rain and moonlight,
wears every colour of the rainbow,
laughs loudly and sings to music.
She has wisdom and strength,
gentleness and power,
magic and healing.



The Wild Woman in Me (Gill)

The wild woman in me will not keep smiling when others
are hurtful, she will spit back fire instead. She will run up
a mountain, dive naked into a crystal pool. then bask on
the rocks like a lizard soaking up the sun.

The wild woman in me will buy a huge canvas and make a
bold abstract painting, flinging on colour, rolling in it,
becoming part of the painting.

The wild woman in me will hold onto her power and
never, never give it away to anybody else, however much
she loves them. She will know her power and strength
even if she never shows them. They will just be there.

She will be at peace with herself and the world.



My Wild Woman (Rosemary)

My Wild Woman weaves stories from the rich yarns of her
life, scattering pain and humour like jewels amongst
the threads.

My Wild Woman dances through her life, happy to share
the music of her soul or spin in solitude.

My Wild Woman thinks sex is more fun than aerobics and
doesn't care who knows it. She cooks with passion and
eats with grace. My Wild Woman thinks her bum is big
and sexy and shows it off whenever she can.

My Wild Woman can't remember the last time she
watched TV.

My Wild Woman is an alchemist; a crucible in which the
sacred flame of spirit is fanned into life by the roaring
wind of passion. She visits only rarely, when the love of
friends, the scent of summer or the throb of the beat can
coax her out of her hiding place deep in her belly,
behind my heart.



The Wild Woman in Me (Sue)

The Wild Woman in me dances and wishes she could
dance always as she can dance alone. The looseness of the
body, the supple feel of movement, the bliss of music
lapping you and taking you over, making you move
and feel and travel.

I the kitchen I am the most brilliant dancer ever. It takes
a while to loosen up elsewhere.

No-one is looking, no-one really bothers about you

but obviously I'm not wild enough not to bother.



My Wild Woman (Ruth)

1.
My Wild Woman is dead.
She used to be apoet once,
but I've forgotten where she lived.
She sat too long by the telephone,
waiting for crumbs of your love.
Swallowed up by longing for your arms,
the endless prison of grief.
Trampled by publishers,
scorned by editors and agents.
Worn down by gas bills,
weighted down by wet washing;
the endless peeling of potatoes.
Going it alone at parents' evenings,
lugging shopping with aching arms,
searching for odd socks;
shivering in the empty bed.
Rejected, torn apart, battered, thrown away.
Putting on a smile to tell the world she was over you.
Everybody thought she had been made strong,
while inside she was dying, dying, falling forever.

2.
My Wild Woman is alive.
She is a poet
and she lives in my house.
She switches off the phone
and ells you to sod off.
She is as free as a bird.
Adored by publishers,
praised by editors and agents.
She has oodles of money.
All her washing is dry;
the kids peel the potatoes.
Admirers surround her at parents' evenings,
she has a hunk to carry her shopping.
Her socks are all in pairs
and a red-hot lover shares her bed.
Loved, appreciated, renewed, treasured,
smiling to tell the world she is over you.
Everybody knows she has been made strong,
they can see she is living, living, soaring forever.



My Wild Woman is Home (Sal)

My Wild Woman is at home now. No longer a caged
beast, frustrated and lonely, fighting to be free. My Wild
Woman cleans my river now, carrying away oozing
stagnant waste, leaving me as strong and magnificent as
she is. My Wild Woman is my companion now. We talk
and love each day. I am Wild Woman and she is me.

Kill the harpies...

Creativity occurs in five phases - inspiration, concentration, organisation, implementation and sustenance. Women who have lost one or more of these phases often claim they can't think of anything. They become distracted by love affairs, tiredness, fear of failure, too much work or too much escapism. Very often, there are signs of strong beginnings - endless unfinished projects scattered about the floor, lots of ideas and big plans but never any gestation. Stuck at the inspiration phase, they are dissatisfied with the results, frustrated and unfulfilled. Here, we find the creator seeking approval - taking another degree, booking onto yet another self-development course or refusing to see their achievement until a 'real publisher/writer/artist/gallery etc' recognise its value. At other times, she hides, under siege from the negative criticism from the uninvited squatters in her head, yammering away with a stream of judgments...

your work isn't good enough/ right/ is too small/ is insignificant/ is easy/ is of no value... you can't draw/ sing/ paint/ write... your not a real writer/ artist/ musician... you never finish anything/ are unoriginal/ uninteresting... who wants to listen to you/ what makes you think you have something worth saying... everyone will laugh at you/ that's stupid/ you're boring... it isn't real work, is it?

And the woman, weakened and harassed by these harpies, comes up with her defences, polluting the river over again...

I can't do it... I haven't got enough time/ money/ space/ experience/ training/ equipment... I'll do it when the children grow up/ when I can afford to/ when I retire/when I have a studio/when I finish this course ... I need to look after my partner/ child/ parents/ dog/ cat/ house/ neighbours...

Yikes! The list is endless, believe me...and once we give up our river, our life force, because of some distorted idea of over-responsibility or respectability, the harpies come in and steal our dreams. And that applies to men and women alike! So the first lesson, that is learnt over and over and over...

Life is not meant to be lived in stolen moments

There is no such thing as your spare time

Life is not to be controlled by should and must

No matter how demanding your life is - and it can be very demanding - your own creative, deep life is not meant to be a secondary option. Without it, you will dry up and fizzle out. It is vital that the necessity of nourishing your soul-life is recognised by yourself and those around you. And if they can't...then you have some difficult questions to ask. Without a doubt, if you do not do this, your spirit will slowly suffocate and you will wake up one day and wonder who it is that is living in your life. And if you still don't listen then pretty soon, you will wake up to a tidal wave of destructive sludge heading your way.

It isn't easy, I won't pretend it is. But it is possible. Have courage! Let's shoot those harpies and clear that river!

SHOOTING THE HARPIES

The following exercise can be done alone, or in pairs. Take a piece of paper and write on the left side HARPIES and on the right side, WILD WOMAN. On the left, write the statements that block or hinder or attack your creativity, that undermine your soul-full life. On the right, write down strong, positive, powerful affirmations that nourish your creative life force. For example, here is one from my own list:

HARPIES
Why would anyone be interested in reading what I have to say?

WILD WOMAN
What you have to say is a unique expression of your being in this world and because of that, it is valuable. When you share your heart, you help connect the world in love.

When we did this as a group, we worked in pairs, so we did it slightly differently. Each person wrote down and shared their own particular harpies, whilst their partner responded with the Wild Woman counter-balance - making sure that they did not use a should or must in their reply. It is amazing how daft our own harpies sound when we say them allowed to another - and how simple the counter-answer sounds in our ears when spoken by someone else! We then shared them as a group, along with much laughter and also tears, because it hurts to admit how much we hurt ourselves. In sharing that vulnerability though, something special happened in the group. From that point on, we knew the voices in each other's heads and we could help each other, wounded as we might be, limp onward!

Of course, it isn't as easy as just saying them out loud. You then have to work on them, listening deeply so you can catch them when they start to attack. But having the counter-attack helps swipe them away until they become simply an irritating fly buzzing around - easily dismissed and swotted away. Stick your list up somewhere you can see it and use it as ammunition when you need it. Or, as we began to call it - get the HARPIC out...you can see which particular harpy this comes from by reading on. Thanks to Gill and Ruth, for agreeing to share their original harpies and their quest to rid them!

RUTH
My original harpies were:

Darkness of emptiness, grief, pain at life's bitterness -
bloody hell, get the violins out! Well I've definitely slain that one.

Work? What work do you do? (genuine quote from a bitchy neighbour!) - I'm not a proper writer -
definitely slain that one with a silver bullet and laid it in the grave!

Rushed, always rushing - put out the bins, wash up, make the beds, do the shopping, tidy up, sort out washing etc etc - the life of a busy single mum of three -
well definitely cracked that one too - I've got a house husband now!

`Talk talk talk' always on the phone.
Mmmm - not exactly cracked that one, but actually it's been transformed now - I don't see it as a harpy any more, more socialising (necessary for sanity of isolated writers) and networking.

So I've got rid of all of them. The only one that really attacks me now is the
`nobody wants to publish my work' harpy.

The bastard!!!! I'd better kill that one off too...


GILL
HARPICS…that was what I used to call them- mainly because mine were about not being a good enough house-wifey and mummy at the time Wild Women started. There was no way I could write anything until I had scoured my house from top to bottom and swabbed every birds nest in the woods(- a la Billy Collins poem - advice to writers from his collection - taking off emily dickinson's clothes). As I am such a filthy slut I didn't leave myself much room for writing! Every time I wrote I felt guilt, guilt guilt about what I hadn't done for my family. But I wrote anyway.

Which leads to number two- that's not real poetry. My brother said this to me when I showed him Billy Collins collection Nine Horses. Why he feels competent to judge what is or isn't poetry I am not sure. But it summed up how I felt when I tentatively showed my work to others. When I started writing I felt my poetry was not literary enough, incomprehensible enough, I wanted to write poems about my daughter being called ginger minge and about the randomness in my head, to make people think and laugh and it was only through the help of ww that I started to realise that this was actually ok. Then Wildie Alison persuaded me to go and see Billy Collins at Grasmere and the penny suddenly dropped. He was doing what I was trying to do and he was famous for it. Hurrah!

Number three was the attitude - oh you're in a women's group therefore your poems will be crap sonnets about cats or menstruation or it's a nice hobby isn't it and various other snide remarks.

Number four - Are you doing the MA? I lost count of the number of times people asked me this -I don't have an MA in poetry and I don't want one!! (shock horror).

In other words nobody cares about poetry anyway and it is only any good if it has some kind of seal of approval like being dead or published by Faber or being a Professor of it.

5 = The Proper Job virus!! I have always worked in some way, even when my daughter was young I did market research part time, but when I decided to write full time - (eventually after wrestling with all the other harpics) I still felt I wasn't putting my fair share into the family coffers and every time my creativity wavered I would scour the papers for biscuit counting jobs.

Now for how I beat the harpics!...

I still haven't fully beaten them of course- Even though my novel manuscripts are being favourably received by Farrar Straus and Giroux (but not published- YET) I still look in the Whitehaven News for biscuit counting jobs.

The secret of course is this - those harpics aren't real. Those harpics are inside your own head. The more you value the power of your own creativity the more other people do. Basically it comes down to self belief and bloody mindedness. I just kept doing it. I just kept writing and believing in myself and getting on with it, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. Some days it was a terrific struggle. Right now it is really hard because I have had favourable reception of my novels but no one wants to publish - YET. I have optimism, I have hope, I have good supportive friends who understand the creative process. I count myself very lucky that I have so many good friends from Wild Women that I can call or e mail when things are getting me down.

I am still not a 'famous' writer...But I have written two novels, 3 non fiction books, magazine and newspaper articles, 2 and two half poetry collections, done a year's performance course and performed at all these places since joining Wild Women Press:

Loose Muse, The Poetry Cafe, London
Glastonbury Festival Poetry & Words Stage
Verberate, Manchester
Stirling University Poetry & Sexuality Conference
Off the Shelf Literature Festival, Sheffield
Spotlight, Lancaster
Seahouses Shanty Festival, Seahouses
Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
Words by the Water Literature Festival, Keswick
Matt & Phredd’s, Manchester Poetry Festival
Lancaster University
Tullie House Art Gallery, Carlisle
The Beacon Arts Centre, Whitehaven
The George Ballroom, Penrith
Wild Women Salons, Windermere
Bluebell Poetry Events, Penrith
Source Art Cafe, Carlisle
neo gallery Cockermouth
Regional BBC Radio
thecommonpeople.blip.tv

kill the fucking harpics!

When the Levee Breaks...

The Deep Water - painting by Adam Clarke (copyright)

It is important after an exercise such as Clearing the River that you take time to reflect on the process of change within yourself. As a group, the next time we gathered, we shared what had happened for each of us since beginning the journey. In the space of a couple of weeks, significant creative shoots were already growing. For some, it had opened up new creative possibilities - a new book begun, an offer of television work, a return to old poetry notebooks and a renewed enthusiasm. For others, and this includes myself, the process was more painful - headaches, blocked sinuses, sore throats - all symptoms of aggravated or stiffled creativity. Some shared that although they had not started to write, they were more in touch with where and how they were blocking their expression, for examples, being too busy or not having space. What was noticeable was that for everyone, the signs of change were already surfacing - ad when change begins to happen, it is important to re-awaken ourselves to listening deeply.

The exercise I chose to share with the group at this stage was aimed at developing the three core practices of breathing, stillness and listening. When we undergo a deep journey in our lives, we must equip ourselves with the tools and talismans necessary - in this case, the ability to hear ourselves, the world around us, the unspoken guides...

The exercise is simple, and encourages us to 'tune into' the essence of the words, the vibration of our creative expression. I began with a brief introduction to the three core principles above and followed this with a simple 'energy clearing' colour visualisation, working on the body and "chakras". Once this was completed, we moved into a deeper relaxation and meditation to find a 'guide' for our journey. At the end of this meditation, I quietly encouraged each participant to allow the guide to lead them to a place outside where they could listen...

Whale Cottage, where Wild Women was born, had the benefit of being in the middle of the Lake District, near to fells and a beautiful river. The participants went outside and found a place nearby to sit and listen. For twenty minutes, each person sat and listened deeply to what was around them, and within them, using all the six senses and during this time, wrote down all that they 'heard' and then re-listen through the words they had written, using this to shape a short poem. Then they were to ask their guide for a gift from that place - something that caught their eye or called them in - maybe a stone, a feather, a blade of grass - a talisman to guide them.

When we gathered back in the room, we each placed our gift on the table and shared our writing and our 'gift'. The writing was beautiful, each piece unique and special and moving. It was a precious moment where we each felt the treasure held in our words and the beauty of our own creativity. The tenderness and respect that was held in that moment was immense and powerful. When I look back in my journal, I find one entry for this day:
"we all felt the stillness and connection. This will be a good group - I can feel it..."

And it proved true!

MEDITATION FOR MEETING YOUR GUIDE

Lie or sit comfortably. Bring your attention to your breath, feeling your belly rise and fall. With each breath, let go of any tension or tiredness, letting it flow harmlessly into the earth beneath you. Let any thoughts or feelings that come drift away with the breath, like pearls rolling off of silk. Keep bringing your attention back to your breath and your body. Beginning with your toes and feet, bring your breath and attention to each part of the body, breathing in softness, warmth and light, allowing it to enter all knotted or impenetrable places, and with the exhalation, release any stress or tension you are holding on to. Do this until you have relaxed every part of your body, from toes to face.

Now, take three large breaths through your nose and out of your mouth, letting go a little more with each breath. Repeat this, but this time, softly close your mouth and on the exhalation, let your lips vibrate a 'hmmmm' sound from deep in your body. Repeat this for eleven cycles of breath. Feel each vibration soften your deep centre. Repeat eleven cycles of soft breath, followed again by eleven deep, vibrating breaths. This is your Wild Woman chant, calling up the deep guide.

As you complete the cycle, you find yourself beside an ocean. You feel the soft breeze on your face, smell brine in your nostrils. You can hear the gulls cry overhead and the soft rise and fall of the waves on the shingle. You notice a woman approaching you, smiling, her arms outstretched to greet you. This is your Wild Woman. She takes your hands gently in yours and holds them. Close your eyes and feel the warmth all around you, feel the love filling you. Ask her what she needs and how you can help her. Listen to her reply. She turns your hand around and places something on your palm. She tells you this is a guiding symbol and how it can help you. Thank her for her gift and get ready to return.

Focus on your breath once again. Be aware of your body as it travels through. Let go of any hardness that it hanging on and breathe in the warmth, the light, the salt air. Feel the earth below you support your body as you let go. Now, take three deep breaths in and out and feel the raw, ocean energy fill you, filling every nerve and cell. Wiggle your toes, wiggle your fingers, scrunch up your face and relax. Take another deep breath in, stretch your arms above your head and let out a big sigh on your exhalation, allowing your arms to drop back to your side. You are now fully present. Breath normally and when you are ready, gently get yourself up, take you notebook and pen and find yourself somewhere quiet outside to write.

Good journeying!