o' ti spieti Belén*, o' ti spieti balant... [mitili FLK]
In honour of FLK's lyrics and the memories of a life I lived in a different age, different place, on a different plane I went back to Entwistle and the tall trees and sang to them [or with them?]. The song is Vegle di Lune.
It's a song that always resonated with me: it talks about magic, land, soil, moon and Belén*. It runs through my veins and I breathe it with me. Every single note offers me a sense of belonging. I feel that I recognise my feet in the marks left behind and the shades of what has to come.
Inside me
the universe
and the dark soil
the tree and melancholy
Inside me
a lost river
a rose on a wall
and the flying of a bat
on a willow
...
Those words have always been with me since 1995 and besides the connections with having my [ex] sister-in-law singing with them, it feels that there is something else deeper there. So, yesterday, in the rain, alone among those tall trees, I sang. I sang to them, l sang with them. I called out for Artemis and Belén, I hugged them and I felt at home. At home and at peace.
I entered their enclosure and while walking I talked to them. I have a conundrum: there is a block, right in front of me. It's foggy, soft, felt-type; but cloudy and airy and grey. It's like a cataract right in front of my eyes and wherever I move my head, it's still there. Sometimes it disappears by becoming transparent. Other times it's right there, solid. Right in my face. Every time there is a list of things to do, or I think and plan what should happen next, it appears. Everything becomes cloudy, difficult, unmanageable, and overwhelming. "Not my thing / not up to me / shouldn't be doing that / not my job / too complicated / no no no no" The "yes, but..." effect, as my clinical supervisor would call it. It is total rejection, up to an almost physical and emotional disgust and revulsion. While it would be easy to associate that emotional response to a psychopathological dysfunction as avoiding work [but, hey, who likes to work, anyway?!] I think that there must be a root and reason there somewhere. I know that when faced with planning a thesis, a trip, a whole course and modules at university, or my working week I don't feel it. I know that when I have to plan to clean the house, pay the bills, and do chores I do not feel it. But I know that even now that I am simply referring to planning a rework of my previous artistic outputs... oh, god, the dread! Polishing my earliest version of a book which is already out on Amazon and creating a second edition? Shoot me first! Reworking of my earliest versions of covers for my next two books? Take me down! Looking for shows and where to exhibit? Here is my neck! Calling the bank to tell them I won't have the money to pay my mortgage? Not a problem but framing my drawings and putting them up on my website for sale? Please, where's the strychnine? There is something about marketing myself, putting myself out there, and personally taking the full responsibility of consistently showing up artistically that makes my head go fuzzy, tires my body, makes me almost vomit and go: no, no, no, no. Now that I think back, there has always been this idea with me that if I am the writer, I write. I don't do the marketing, the editing, all that jazz. Not my job. Not my description. I am the artist! I am the writer! I am the one who needs all her energy to draw, paint, endlessly walk in the woods, and find amazing convoluted words to convey your most inner secrets. I don't fucking do plans, excel, Mailchimp, 6 P's and budgeting; I don't want to start looking at my competition and potential customers because ALL of THIS eats away at spontaneity, authenticity and... well! artistry! Don't get me wrong: I did Marketing. I worked as a coach and implemented Lovemarks™ for quite some time. I even went on a PostGrad at UCLan in Marketing and Management Studies. Still, that side of my "job" is something I feel I cannot do myself.
I haven't received a specific answer from the trees, but I can now visualise the block, circumscribe it, and delineate it. I am sure that somewhere underneath it all there must be a fear, an encounter with someone who allowed me to create such a block. When I look at all those articles online about marketing and coaching it feels all... dry, trite, boring, fake! I don't know... I only recognise that now I am deflecting. The greyness is still there.
onwards + upwards > out + about
mx
And here, of course, is the song.
*Belén, or Belenus, Celtic healing God with a main sanctuary located at Aquileia [very close to where I am from...] linked to the Irish Bel which gave the name to the festival of Beltaine and often identified with Apollo, the twin brother of my Goddess Artemis...
________________________
Date : 10 OCT 2023
Duration : 01:05:15 - 4.10 km
Steps: 5,481
Location : Turton and Entwistle Res.
Weather : rain
T : 17°