The dance that wrote an entire book in half an hour.
Pain, art and an honorarium to my daughters.
Sedona, the only match to the kind of energy I was seeking.
There are but small snapshots of clarity found in and between the clockwork of this time—breastfeeding twins and going through my own evolution (crisis being the better and less poetic description). I was simultaneously being made new whilst losing the very ground I self-built in the season that preceded me. Essentially I was learning about the conditions of ground better chosen for beholding timeless things, things made to last.
I was unknowingly re-defining my womanhood, untangling myself from the traps I had gotten myself into due to my lack of self-awareness and the concoction of various survival go-to’s I was holding hands with.
I was going through a friendship grief
I was learning twins
and it was a terribly beautiful and painful time,
a necessary experience,
one I am thankful for.
In the blur, I can remember potently this one particular night, a night spent in my garage, feet thrumming out every single feeling held captive in my body, an earnest attempt to shake off two years of impossible things… my confusion started fiercely in the tip of my toes moving all the way to the ends of my long un-kept hair. I was overcome, no language to carry all that was going on for me, turning to my old and faithful friend, dance understood.
Every night once my babies were asleep, with holy anticipation I’d throw on a bralette and some old dance pants, cha-cha-ing my way across the grass to the garage. There was no stopping this hot and messy woman. My garage became a haven, a place to be—I was not interrogated here, clunky rhythms and all, the floors held my body, and as I undid, an unspoken exchange was taking place.
“Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself” - Havelock Ellis
Dance has continuously held a plethora of places and parallels within my process as an artist and in my human experience. Dance, a great teacher, one that has often led me into the art of letting go. Dance has gently moved me through countless seasons as a way of regulation, where sense has had a chance to be made when language has had no reason. Alongside therapy, it’s been a therapy of its own kind, a faithful confidante, a place of play, a parallel ecosystem to creativity and life itself—dance feels like home.
*Film excerpt captured in said garage.
I remember this one particular evening mid Sedona after playing it on a repetition loop—running frantically to find paper and a pen to get down the waterfall of words rising within me mid-dance. What came was written as a stream of consciousness in rhythmic poetry in a very quick 30 minutes. There was no stopping this wave of moving words. It began and finished like a playful and full bodied dance. Upon the last full stop, I glanced quickly over the words that were messily scribbled in my journal and I closed the book—
An entire book was written.
A week later, I took myself on a two day self-appointed writing residency to explore the visual direction of the book (and catch up on two years of broken sleep). When re-reading the flood of words that had arrived that night mid Sedona, I was fascinated to discover that the sentiments were not evenly remotely adjacent to position of pain I found myself in, the words being entirely contrast to where I was standing emotionally, having a hopeful playfulness about them—a brightly coloured chorus, a lyrical honorarium, an array of visual imagery carrying vision. It began to feel like a ‘beauty for ashes’ moment, a moment in time where art was being made out of my pain.
With time to expand, in the spaciousness of my self-proclaimed writing retreat, It became clear that the softer parts of me, my delight, my curiosity, my appetite had slowly taken residence in a holding place and it was here, at the beginning of these words that I felt a leading into a redemption of lost things, a retuning to childlikeness, a remembering of softness.
I spent the two nights and three days in solitude, beach side, as a much needed reprieve to not just gain some full nights sleep but to uninterruptedly explore the book and the outworking of it, visually. Caleb held the fort (and dreams) back home while I had the luxury of creative hyper focus and at the very close of the weekend I got an unexpected but very welcomed phone call from him…
… my quick “yes” awakened every reluctant part in me, a somewhat deeply personal answer to some desperate prayers. An unannounced opportunity with a week to pack up everything we owned and fly abroad—landing us in the summer flowers where I witnessed a deeply personal revitalisation of my imagination. “How kind not to notice the darkness was being swallowed by the light, until I did”.
My process when it comes to art is ever changing but what was interesting about this instalment of art was how the words landed before the visuals did (which is obscure in my usual practice)— I usually see the colours and visuals first and later the words often follow. I now see the intention in this timeline from here where I stand and it is clear that there was still some untangling to do—and in the untangling (in Germany), the colours (and my breath) returned and the book materialised.
‘The Stars Nodded’ / @thestarsnodded is a book I am really passionate about, one that I have dedicated to my daughters— it’s an ode to dreaming, one that formed visually making paper shape in Germany. The book leans into a 1960’s nod with a strong and striking colour palette paying tribute to the colours that returned to me that summer. This book is a restoration of hope and of vision, it presents as a book for children, but I feel that it’s adults that might need it most.
And so this little book of dreaming exists, a book for the little growing hearts (and the older ones alike)—and here, in this moment of time I am celebrating its 2 year anniversary and all that it beholds in my formation as a woman and in the becoming of my daughters—
“There is no one like you,
you are one of a kind,
your heart is like the flowers,
and so is your mind”
To celebrate the two year Anniversary of this special book of dreaming, I have a special invitation for you…
@settlerhives x @fable_bookstore
on
Sunday 10 Dec,
10-4pm
in my beautiful town, Murwillumbah.
Come and be amongst the books and the flowers and the nodding stars for all your thoughtful Christmas gift purchases in support of local artists and small business.
I’ll have a very limited bundle of the very last copies of the self-published versions of @thestarsnodded a beautiful gift to partner with the special @settlerhives co-creation of cosmos seedlings. Hope to meet with you and be amongst the books and flowers.
If you can’t make it to the pop-up and would like to get one of the last copies of the self-published versions please visit the store.
Below is a piece that adjoins beautifully to this reading moment (giving poetic context to what you have just read) if you care for some more —
How kind not to notice...
A song that hold hands fondly with this lyrical piece, listen with the reading, or soon after.
Thank you again for being here as a reader, it means the world to me.
Choosing to sow into ‘Catching Shower Flowers’ as a paid subscriber is a generous acknowledgment that you value what you read here. Thank you for the opportunity to push my own limits and find the words begging to be found, just beneath the words on top.
I have some big plans for ‘Catching Shower Flowers’ in 2024 after gently dipping my toes in the water here over the past 6 months. I hope you are ready for all that will unfold in the coming months as I sink in further, making home here, moving gently into some new mediums that will partner exquisitely with my prose and poetry (and longer bodies of writing)… beautiful things are in the dreaming. Thank you for journeying with me in the early days of this discipline, it is because of you that I can dream a little wider…
Love (and flowers)
xo
Pretty dancer xox
loved this—never know what the imagination is cooking amidst all the wildness of life...