A yellow flower – two meditations on a theme
Often when I share my writing with you, I feel vulnerable, ‘naked’. So why do I do it? For that I need to rewind 6 years.
Why I write
Although I have had a daily meditation practice all my adult life, after my son and my husband died, I found that when I closed my eyes, the pain was so excruciating, I couldn’t get beneath it. I was floored – I had imagined this would be my way through. I carried on making the effort every day, but in truth there were other things I did regularly which brought me home to myself.
I walked in the woods every day (thank dog) and their familiarity and incremental changes as the seasons turned, were solace and guidance to me. I also had a rhythm of singing alongside the women in my Threshold Choir; singing songs like lullabies, songs to bring comfort, gentle, kind songs which carried understanding and love.
And I wrote. Every week, sometimes more often, I wrote to my beloved man, uncensored outpourings of whatever I was feeling. I wrote poems as well and also stories and plays, not necessarily about grief but just following wherever my imagination took me. Writing was a lifeline, a connection to the innate creativity which I have and which we all have by virtue of being human. I know others – including Roger Womack with whom I am offering Clay Stories – have found relief and renewal through clay. Other people dance or paint, but it is the creativity which is key. None of it – in my book – has to be ‘good’. It is the process of creativity which matters.
And that’s why I write vulnerably – to share with you what has been invaluable to me – both the method and the content. Today, I’m sharing with you my method.
How I write
As you will know if you read these blogs regularly, I have just led and completed a 28 Day Writing Challenge, alongside 19 other women. The challenge wasn’t just to write for 28 days, it was to write without the inner critic silencing us, to write without pause, to let ourselves go wherever we wanted, to keep it personal and to forget all about grammar, spelling or being good. What I’m sharing is an unedited piece of writing I did over that time and another piece using the same prompt, a couple of weeks later.
From Song for Nobody by Thomas Merton
A yellow flower
(Light and spirit)
Sings by itself
For nobody.
Meditation 1 – 5th October
I sing for the river, I sing for the tree,
I sing for company and I sing for me.
I sing when I'm happy and sing when I'm sad –
but maybe I don’t so much because my voice is too weary to raise itself from the depths.
I speak to flowers – yellow maybe or pink or red – I see their light, their depth, their intensity and fragility, but maybe I could sing for them too.
Or listen. Can I listen to the song of the yellow flower? Am I allowed or is it private- should I ask permission?
I sing for nobody but somebody hears. I sing as I walk and song keeps singing itself. The tread of my feet in a rhythm of four. And then I want a song that will dance and I change it to three, like a waltz, like a lullaby.
I sing for the birds and the birds sing for me. Except they’re probably saying,
“Alert! Human!” or “Get off my branch/my wife/my worm”, or “Come over to my place and I’ll show you a good time”.
I’m not in the picture, yet my song joins with the soundscape of river and wind in trees and feet on earth and birds on high. And me. Singing to be included, to let song arise here in this place I belong – for now.
What is my song? A song of sorrow and a song of love; a song of green moss and a canopy of leaves, a song of fast changing skies and muddy paths. I sing of a heart that aches and loves, that is the colour of a bruise and the texture of a cushion. I sing with the voice of a woman who’s lived and knows she will die. I sing for the dying and ones who hurt. I sing because I was born to sing. I sang everywhere and I sang alone. And then I stopped. For a long time. Little by little, after 40 years of silence, my song came back, moulded by life, broken, fragile, strong and spirited. My song is coming and coming like the river flowing through rocks and fields. And now perhaps I have a song to sing, wordless, a sound that arises from deep inside and falls from mouth. Or does it descend from heaven asking to be born? Whose song is it anyway? Mine or Life’s?
A human flower
Love and heart ache
Sings by itself
For nobody
in particular
but Life.
Meditation 2 - 28th October
“All I want”, I said to my friend,
“is to feel, to know, the invisible love
which is here for me and here within,
and let it out into our world.”
The yellow flower has a song to sing
and sings it. She awaits no audience-
she simply beams the song of her soul.
Perhaps, if someone happens along,
she brightens their day, she makes them smile.
If not, she sings the same, her song,
adding her voice to the Choir of Creation,
her tone, her cadence, her pitch unique.
Winds may come and blow her bloom.
Unconscious feet may trample her flat.
She lives a day, she lives a month;
she sings her song, her life has counted.
Subject to distraction, I’ve made some choices
that took me away from the song of my soul.
I hear her call, “Come home and sing;
the Choir needs you, needs your song.”
Sometimes it comes in a minor key,
glides into the air and hovers there,
meets with a heart that sorrows or aches
in melancholic solidarity.
Perhaps it’s heard as an invitation
to pause, remember someone beloved,
remember the transience of today
before the night falls on existence.
Sometimes the song that sings itself,
tumbles in effervescent desire
to play, to sparkle, like sun on water,
to dance, like leaves through an autumn sky.
To sing is to be naked; to be heard, be exposed;
I have nothing to hide and myself to give.
World, you want armour and I give you love
Take to you what I’d like to receive.
I spoke true when I sat with my friend:
I will sing the colours of my soul
(Light and spirit) for nobody.
For everyone. For you. For Love.
I hope you can see from the two pieces above, that the same prompt used on different days led out of me different things. When I need to crack some frozen place within, I write. When I need to express the surprise of joy, I write. When I’m confused, cross, lost, lonely, stuck – I write. Neither of the pieces above are ‘good’ pieces of writing, these are not written for accolades or with an eye to a reader. They are for my own illumination and, if they do speak to you, I am glad.
If you would like to write with me or have me guide you for a little while, then please see below in the NEWS section, there are several ways you can do that. And also please write to me with your own pieces of writing or experiences of the value of creativity; I would really like to hear from you.
With my love
Nickie
NEWS
Writing Challenge
I led the writing challenge as a pilot to see if people enjoyed and found value in it. It seems very much as if they did! So I will run another, sometime next year. It may be more of a Writing Pilgrimage – an idea which came to me over the course of the month. More information to follow but if you’re interested please let me know.
Writing Through Loss
And, if you can’t wait until next year, please come and write with me in a few days’ time. Writing through Loss begins on Tuesday 11th in the evening and there are four, weekly sessions. All of us have experienced loss of one sort or another in our lives, big or small, recent or long ago. Learning the skill of expressing it, helps us to be more understanding and compassionate of ourselves and others. All the details to find out more are on the flyer.
Write to me, go to the events page or book. You can also access the booking form here. I’d love to meet you through our writing – and the marvels of technology!
Other ways to write together
There is more information on the events and offering pages, but briefly, if you’d like to write in a small group, tailor made for you and perhaps the issues you are dealing with, then get in touch. Either you get the group together or I’ll put it out on my blogs and social media and gather a few people around.
Alternatively if you’d like some one on one guidance, then we can have some online sessions together or I can put together a package for you with prompts and Zooms.
Either way, write to me at the email on the flyer or offerings and events.
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Thank you for your continued interest in my writing and my work. I am grateful for all your feedback and engagement in whatever form. As you know, much of my work in the area of dying and grieving is gifted, including this blog. If you would like to gift me, I should be both heart warmed and affirmed. You can do so here.
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