Sudden in a shaft of sunlight/Even while the dust moves/There rises the hidden laughter/Of children in the foliage/Quick now, here, now, always ~ T.S. Eliot
Image: Grigoriy
The unimaginable Zero summer
On the hillside cresting the deep trough of the valley, there’s a stand of hoary old oaks dancing, as trees do, the vertical line between earth and sky. Midges, moths and thistle down reel around clumps of nettles and foxgloves. Somewhere overhead the cry of a kite hunting for mice spools through the air.
It’s a perfect Summer’s day, polished to a dazzling diamond shimmer but I’m wet through with the damp of October. Full of grief for everything that’s falling apart where my body can’t hold it. For the losses and regrets of the past week. For the parts of the world, on this blithe summer’s day, which have become their own unbearable version of hell. For my own part in making it this way. And for some other deeper, unnameable grief half-buried in the substrate like the ancient rocks tumbled through this landscape by the melting glaciers aeons ago.
Meanwhile, as I walk the faint path in the long grass, the line from a poem, memorised years before, drifts into my head;
Where is the summer? The unimaginable Zero summer?
The ‘child born from living Nature’ & Wintery mothers
In ancient wisdom traditions rooted in Shamanism and Celtic Druidry, the long lazy days of Summer are associated with the child ‘born from living Nature, herself’, as Carl Jung puts it, who talks with the animals, makes friends with the trees and happily plays all day in the mud. The task of this child, meanwhile, is to find her place in the great wide world and for this she needs the sunshine of Summer in order to bloom and grow fully into herself.
But when I was a child, I lived in a cold house with a Wintery mother. On summer nights, I wore the carpet thin watching the other children play out, wishing that just once I would be allowed to join in with their wide games and water fights. In this cold house, any friends who came by were shooed away because, they were told, I didn’t have time for play - there were too many jobs with my name on them. While, whatever I did was never good enough and just when I thought I had finished every task on my Wintery mother’s list, I was sent back to do them again - properly this time.
I have no doubt that, once, my mother, too, didn’t receive enough sun. And not just my mother but her mother and her mother before that. And not just our mothers but our fathers, too, where the legacy of capitalism has taken its toll and we have become acculturated to the cruel, cruel summer of perpetual growth and its promise of the earth while erasing our sense of self-worth - simultaneously leaving us longing for a place to call home while sabotaging ourselves, each other and the one home we share.
The cruel summer of capitalism & ‘primary socio economic training’
In Nature and the Human Soul, depth psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin suggests this devastating death-worship begins at an early age with what he calls ‘primary socio-economic training’. PST, Plotkin says, flies largely under the radar as:
‘The conditioning and indoctrination of the future workers, consumers and soldiers needed to sustain a global industrial growth society and its extreme disparities of wealth… it creates an environment in which healthy natural faculties are repressed - such as imagination, wonder, independent thinking, the love of learning, deep feeling, vibrant sensing, cooperation, self-esteem, positive body image, empathy and intimacy.’
As I walk barefoot toward the old oaks, it hurts to notice all the ways I’ve internalised so much of this primary socio-economic training. All the ways I’ve been seduced by the artificial suns of winning approval, beating the competition and working non-stop to grab what I can. And all the ways I’ve risked becoming stuck in a soul-withering reverse Narnia far, far from the summer where the children play all day and all night under a different Sun. So much so that I no longer need my mother to stop me from going out to play. I can do a much better job of this myself.
That I have kicked off my shoes, then, and am here walking this dusty path into the trees feels like nothing short of a miracle. That the bees did not stop pollinating the foxgloves. That the shadows did not stop lengthening across the meadow foxtail. That no one died just because I abandoned my long list of jobs. That, all around me, the oaks seem to stir - burled and knotted Genii twisting upwards and outwards in rustling plumes of emerald and jade. That, via some kind of strange inter-species telepathy, I hear the nearest oak calling my name… all of this feels like waking up from an intoxicating spell. Unimaginable.
A dance with a tree & a glimpse through the veil
The oak in question has six branches growing from its base, each as thick as a trunk, making it easy to climb. Its mossy sleeve is soft and furry beneath my bare feet. Breathing in a woody mist of sap and mites, I roll around the tree’s great torso, palms pressed to trunk, soles curved to branches, lumps to bumps, cheek to cheek, in a slow upward waltz with the gentle sway of the oak. At the highest branch that can bear my weight, I stop, legs dangling free. Who knew that at 53 I would be climbing up trees?
Far below, the ground dramatically veers away like a rug that has been suddenly pulled. For a split second, a fist of panic clenches inside my stomach. A butterfly floats past my knees. The curtain of leaves above my head parts. And a warm sensation spreads from behind my ribs where the sun is breaking through, alchemising the soft organ of my heart into a shaft of pure light…
On the steep hillside cresting above the deep trough of the valley, there’s a stand of hoary oaks dancing, as trees do. As I walk towards it, I see a child swinging her legs high up in the leaves. When I get closer, I can hear her laughter. It’s such a long way down if she falls, is my first thought. But then, I look again and I see this child is quite safe because her mother is holding her.
Upcoming Events
Introduction to transformational journaling online workshop ~ 17/09, 6.30 - 8.30pm London time in association with The Creative Brain Academy
Explore a 5 step approach to transformational journaling underpinned by cognitive neuroscience
I’ve been journaling for over 20 years and I can’t imagine life without it. So I’m really looking forward to leading this practical online workshop where I’ll be sharing a simple but effective 5-step transformational journaling process underpinned by research at the intersection of neuroscience and expressive writing aimed at fostering cognitive flexibility and supporting self discovery.
Fire Your Wild Imagination Portugal depth writing retreat ~ 1/10-5/10. Rooms from 500 Euros
Expand your sense of possibility with a transformative writing practice in the cork woods of Alentejo, South Portugal.
We are all born with a wild imagination. It is through this unlimited creative resource that we can access the unconscious, connect with our intuition, develop a greater degree of self-awareness and expand our sense of possibility. Fire Your Wild Imagination will be a chance to explore this vast inner superpower through a holistic creative practice underpinned by Jungian psychology that uses writing and imagination to tap into the unseen and untether creativity with me at the dreamy rustic family estate of Monte da Japonica.
Write Your Undiscovered Self 5 week course, 29/10 - 26/11, 6.30-8.30pm London time
Early bird tickets available until August 31st.
Write, imagine & explore the pioneering ideas of Carl Jung
When I undertook my PhD in applying Jungian psychology to creative writing, little did I know how profoundly transformative it would be. The first thing I thought about on completion was how I could share my learnings with others? This led to my 5 week course Write Your Undiscovered Self where I share how writing and imagination can be used as tools to access the unconscious, untether creativity and expand your sense of possibility alongside an introduction to key Jungian concepts.
Find out more & book your early bird ticket here.
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