Author: Claire Griffin

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this time of year

This slow, golden time of year
as I walk in sun and time moves with me
I think of the world’s abundance
trees heavy with fruit
tadpoles massing in the pond
sheep dozing, chewing, flicking ears
birds fill the trees with song
single notes, whole choruses
and through it all
the white noise of cicadas.

And all this exists in spite of me
I am not necessary to their cycles of life
and yet this is shared.
They let me walk among them
and I feel as close to the centre of my purpose here
as anywhere else.

Today is glorious,
one of those I-am-who-I’m-supposed-to-be days.

I will go home
with the skull I found
and light incense in its eyes.
I’ll scrape the sheep shit off my shoes
and dig it in around the lemon tree.

But before then
I will go back outside
and stand barefoot on the gravel
burning in the sun.

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driftwood

driftwood worn
and rough against skin
what drew me to you
is the almost perfect circle
the hole in the centre
the witch’s eye

I am more interested
in the space in the hole
than the wood
I wonder what can be seen
by looking through the centre
can I see through into another world
can I see through to the past, to the future
to another sense of who I am

I’m aware of changing my mind
its happening more often recently
and not just changing mind
acting upon it

I changed my mind to choose this piece
my first choice was a feather
trapped in a tiny bottle
it felt too sad
too alone
too obvious

but this …
it’s the emptiness I noticed
the possibility
the potential
the circle of space
like an open mouth

IMG_3901

This was written in response to the collection of natural objects presented as prompts/motivations for writing in the recent workshop.
The focus of the recent writing workshop was ecopsychology, an umbrella term for the intersection of environment and human, the integration of nature into poetry, how we respond creatively to nature.
This was a new area of learning for me – but such a perfect fit with things I’ve thought and felt.

 

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line spacing

I’ve discovered how to post poems without excessive spacing between each line 🙂

In poems, lines are often short, hence the need to press “enter” or “return” before the full width of the page. This results in default paragraph spacing which is too widely spaced for my liking, especially over a lengthy poem.

So after a little searching, I found on: https://en.support.wordpress.com/visual-editor/

Spacing
Hitting the Enter (Return) key will end the paragraph you are writing and start a new one. If you want to start a new line without creating a new paragraph, press the Shift key while hitting Enter.

 Just thought – if its helpful to me – might be helpful to others starting out …

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kahini

We sit around the table
gentle, quiet
reaching towards each other
finding connection
reading, writing,
sharing thoughts,
asking questions

and while we talk
the sun warms the bones of this house
cicadas call
the sea laps at our doorstep
and shells gather against the walls

and birds enter the room
sit on our shoulders
listening

 

so – during the writing workshop one of the suggestions was to respond to the place we were in – I like the way this shifts from the concrete, realistic to a magical connection to the natural world – this happens a lot in my work – I explain things to myself through a strange kind of metaphoric visualisation

 

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are we all broken…

Are we all broken, are we all looking for ways to heal ourselves?

While processing my feelings over the last couple of years, feelings of loss and sadness and regret, knowing I needed to find a way to stop being so hard on myself, I began to think about this sense of being “broken”. It makes a useful metaphor to explain difficulties.

I wrote and wrote and through this discovered insights into my past, revisioning the past, reinterpreting events, realising how a others were struggling with their own pain – and the thought came – are we all broken? And if so – how can any of us hope to live positive lives, and have positive relationships, when we are carrying our wounds and scars with us into all our interactions with the world.

I believe in exploring myself, my past, my thoughts, my feelings, in order to understand myself. It isn’t easy, and recently it led me to one of my lowest points in recent years. This thought of being broken surfaced again, and I began to wonder if there could be a way to heal my sadness, my regret, the difficulties I have that can be traced back and explained by my childhood. I wondered, is there a way for these wounds to be healed that creates something positive, that doesn’t leave such damage, that results in beauty and strength and growth?

I recalled seeing a Japanese bowl repaired with gold – and this looked so beautiful. The history of the bowl was clearly there, nothing hidden, no pretense, but it had been mended “healed”. The gold itself was beautiful and the pattern it traced over the bowl.

I wondered if I could use this as a metaphor… but how to find or create the gold, could I replace old scars with new traceries of gold?

And so now, knowing I’ve been broken and mended the best way I could at the time, my search now is to find ways to explore my past, my personality, to acknowledge my weaknesses, the defences I’ve created for survival, and re-imagine these, rework these scars with lines of gold “kintsugi”.

Instead of trying to pretend there has been no damage, or to hide the repair, or make the repair invisible, better to honour the past, to own it, to recognise its effects, and reconstruct oneself with beauty and balance and belief in one’s intrinsic value.

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feeling “thin”

I’ve been reading recently about “thin places”. Places where people feel they are close to spirit, where the barrier between substance and spirit feels “thin”. Where you feel closer to the sacred. These places can be anywhere – some people find them in conventional religious buildings, some in other places where people gather, some find it in nature – its an individual thing. We each respond differently to the world around us.

I’ve begun thinking that its not just a place that might be thin, but an experience that might bring about a “thinning”.

I was participating in a powhiri yesterday. The formal welcome of one group of people into another’s space. So yes there was place involved, but it was the experience that affected me. The singing – loud, repetitive. I felt chilled and shaky. Afterwards I went outside, feeling a little spooked, needing to be on my own. There was a marble carving – triple spiral – I ran my hand over the curves – cold and smooth. I felt quiet and distant and sad – remembering someone lost to me – aware their birthday would have been the next day.

A friend came over to check I was okay – was it that obvious? She told me she feels a similar need to touch things. She’s Welsh – is this a Celtic thing? Only three feet between earth and heaven – and days like today I feel I could pull aside the veil and step through.

I rejoined the group, walking through the new building, making polite chit chat – but soon went outside again. Someone else came to check on me. I told them I feel like this sometimes – “I’m feeling a little spooked” (perhaps today is the first day I’ve told people) – I said the air felt thin, that I felt unbalanced – he knew immediately what I meant – “You’re in tune with your spiritual side – that’s what events like this are supposed to do”. Good to have it acknowledged, accepted without any need for explanation.

But back to thin places – this was more about feeling the barrier between worlds weaken as a result of an event – not so much about the place itself – more about the time and the ritual – bringing about a temporary “thinning”.

I wonder what else makes this happen … ?

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Raven Ash no#2

As soon as I settled on these two elements of the natural world to represent myself – the following flowed:

Raven Ash
tree and bird
show me light
show me black
things you’ve seen
things you’ve heard
take me forward
take me back

carry me through wind and rain
hold me in the dark wet earth
shelter me in cave and cliff
hold my death and hold my birth

speak to me
your secret tongue
listen until we are one
seed and feather
egg and leaf
what lies above
what lies beneath

between the two
I find the centre
stillness movement
slowness speed
breadth and focus
surface deep
a place to stand
a place to speak

Raven Ash
tree and bird
show me light
show me black
things you’ve seen
things you’ve heard
take me forward
take me back                                                                                

lift me on your wings and branches
shift me through time and space
feed me the quiet seedling’s growth
show me thunder’s face

I will watch and listen
as you bring me in to life
I will close my eyes and see
I will close my mouth and speak
I will balance between the earth and sky
between awake and sleep
I will walk the edge of winter’s knife
dream and dance in summer’s flame

Raven Ash
tree and bird
you name me
and I begin

becoming
who I am