the bones of us, that sing . . .

on a creative life at times like these

Good evening beautiful ones,

I’ve been thinking lots this week about the ways our day to day lives and our creative lives intersect.

I am writing to you from a messy kitchen, a messy home, a messy life.

I am writing to you after a morning full of bird song , and monster noise, and the sound of a broken boiler still eating the dirty, planet-destroying oil we feed it, even as it refuses to heat our freezing rental home.

I am writing to you following the latest wake-up I’ve experienced in over three and a half years: 06.41 am.

I woke to the sound of the long tailed tits on the tin roof, checked the time and sped down the stairs from my attic room to the room my wee one and his dada sleep together in at the moment.

To my extreme astonishment, I found two snoring heads, that would remain asleep in one another’s arms until 07.01.

Our son has never, not even nearly once, slept past 06.30, and it’s usually much much much earlier he wakes for the day. I know better than ever to expect this again, and he was up every half hour from the moment he fell asleep until ten pm, so I know he was tired but wow it still feels unthinkably wild to have slept until 06.41; especially with how bone tired I am in this season.

I’ve been working, working so much and for so long, in a way that is extremely unsustainable, and my lived environment reflects that. My lover has been doing the same, and we have known for some time that it could only keep on like that for a certain time period and that then we’d have to rest, and that period of rest is within grasp.

Come January, we are both taking some much needed time off.

I’ve been thinking about the things we prioritise at times like these times.

Busy times.

Achey times.

Times of grief and fear and unknowing.

Times of trying to get through.

Moments of individual and collective transformation.

Where do we place our limited time and energy?

Where do we allow our gaze, our hands, our bodies, our hearts, to linger?

I have been, instead of cleaning and sorting, making and gathering.

I’ve been clearing space on the kitchen table to make pink paper stars, as a pile of dishes sings down to me from the sink.

I’ve been—instead of cleaning out my inbox, sending invoices and sorting piles of books—gathering on zoom calls with other women to write by one another’s virtual sides…

I’ve been placing my all, my everything, into the arms and hearts and minds of other women. Mostly of other (m)others. Mostly women I have never met before in the flesh, likely never will.

Most Wednesday afternoons I have had the joy of attending

Genevieve Beech

MYCELIAL MOTHERS Co-writing group, because on those days my wee one has been arriving home just as it ends, which feels so lucky for me timing wise. I never have dinner ready as planned, the house is always untidy, but I’ve sat in circle with women all around the world sharing our truths and this is what gets me through, these days. And I need to honour that. I often attend Rebecca Schiller’s MOTHERS WHO WRITE, for silent writing with some of the same women, but these sessions often fall when I am working or caring for my wee one so I don’t get to go as often as I’d like.

Right now, though, I’m anyway more drawn to the magic that lives in the sharing amongst mothers.

Almost every Thursday morning since my wee one started kindie, I have facilitated a writing circle for mothers called OAK MOTHER.

It literally exists as a way to bridge what I had begun to experience as a gap between my real life and my creative life. On the mornings I’d return home after a tricky drop off, I’d sit down at my desk and feel completely, unthinkably incapable of writing a single word. I realised, very early in, that I stood no hope of going it alone. If I stood a chance of navigating that vast, confusing, heartbreaking time of separation and anxiety and grief: I needed women. I needed other mothers.

Most of all, I needed other mothers who, as well as tending to children, tended to their own creative core.

To the bones of them that sing of light and birdsong and blood and moss and milk and shit and hope and grace and words finding their way through the fog.

We meet Thursdays 10-11 am GMT, via zoom —for OAK MOTHER— and it is a joy beyond all words.

Email me for the link if you’d like to be held in a Co-writing space with other (m)others.

Email: inchwhooperswan@gmail.com

Oaks nourish 2,300 or more different species…mothering of this kind is an act of repair; of care.

An act of deeply rooted love.

And for exactly half a year now I’ve been holding a woman’s circle on the full moon.

Next month the moon names are, amongst many others beside—

Long night moon / Little Spirit moon / Frost exploding trees moon / Winter maker moon / Moon before Yule

‘Hydrangea, against the once-white walls, like dust on gorgeous, abandoned objects.

The winter’s beautiful bones, in the shelter of the speckled thrush’

[cacophony of bone]

We will gather together on 15th December 7-8 pm GMT via zoom , in circle, for the final full moon of the year.

All women are welcome.

Email inchwhooperswan@gmail.com to book.

There are no words for the ways MOSS MOTHER MOON has transformed my life.

I am beyond grateful, and am increasingly taken by the impact that such a gathering can have on every single aspect of my life.

On things that I somehow never before imagined could be interwoven with my work.

Like on my mothering.

Like on my ability to show up as a friend in my flesh relationships.

Like on my sensuality, my sexuality, and, part of me is confident, on my