Autumn winds

Monthly newsletter, September 2024

Dear friends

Those of you who’ve been around for a while will know already what I’m going to say: all of a sudden it’s autumn, and I’m so happy I could spit. Though tinged by sadness as always for the departure of the swifts, swallows and martens, that shifting, warming autumnal light is once again resonating with my own internal frequencies. All at once, I’m in tune with the world again. My metaphorical pencils are sharpened and nicely in order, the actual file for the new book manuscript has been created and laid out, and I’m ready to properly begin.

Sometimes I wonder whether this utterly reliable kindling of my creative fire with the coming of autumn isn’t actually a hangover from school and university days: September has always represented the start of a new term, a new academic year. So maybe it’s partly habit: at this time of year I’m primed for new beginnings. Whatever the reason, this is the only time of year that I really like to begin new books. And although this next book has been brewing for a while, arising out of some recent writing as well as some teaching over the past few months, my confidence that I might after all manage to turn the seething morass of insights and ideas into a coherent manuscript has only blown in with the last week’s cool autumn breezes. I’ve a publishing contract which specifies an end-of-May delivery date, so there’s some intense work ahead over the next few months – but I’m masochistic enough to work best to really tight deadlines. And besides, that means that it’ll all be done before the coming of another summer scatters all my thoughts to the warmer winds again.

A few years ago, as autumn approached, all this creative energy springing into new life would be burning far too bright, and I’d inflict upon myself far too many beginnings. I’d feel obliged to put into action any idea I had – for a new course, a new workshop, a new retreat – as well as, more often than not, a new book. My way of thinking seemed always to be: I could do this, and I might be the only person who could do this in this way, right now, right here – and so I must. But I have always overestimated my own energy and underestimated my tendency to burnout, and although I loved all the different aspects of my work, every single year I’d end up wishing I hadn’t embarked on at least one project that was going, eventually, to eat me alive. Looking back, I seemed always to be in a hurry; I’m not entirely sure why. A sense of time growing short? A worry that I’d started on this work of mine – this teaching and writing – quite late in life, so I didn’t have enough years ahead of me to prove myself worthy, to make what I had to say count?

Well, those days are long gone. Burned away by the alchemical fires of menopause, and the residues dissolved by chemotherapy. These days, as I slip and slide into elderhood, I’ve learned how to manage the furnace more effectively. I don’t run huge yearlong online programs any more, and I don’t teach or speak on programs run by others. (I certainly don’t give my time for free to ‘online summits’ in which I’m kindly ‘offered the opportunity’ precisely to give my time for free – and for someone else’s benefit. The last time I was asked I was also ‘offered the opportunity’ to give that person’s audience a ‘free gift’. Whose ‘opportunity’ is this, precisely? – But I digress.) This radical but necessary downsizing means I’m free to participate in occasional academic/ educational training programs, such as the Graduate Certificate I’m currently offering at Pacifica Graduate Institute. For someone with my academic and professional background, these programs excite me and also contribute to the forming of my own ideas and outlook. I like to learn as I’m teaching, to participate in exchanges with others who are working with and thinking hard about the same issues.

But these days, my focus is wholeheartedly on my writing, and it takes priority over everything else. As my autumn years turn slowly to winter, I find myself better suited to sitting in a quiet room writing books than to putting myself out in the world. It’s that ancient obsession with the archetypal fairy-tale Old Woman in the Woods rising up again. I also find myself wondering about how other ageing authors prioritise their work. Which books they feel they must write next, as time grows short; how they bear the fact that an idea for a book might never come to fruition, or that a book begun might never be completed. I find myself fascinated by the authors who wrote furiously all the way to the end. By Margaret Atwood, who is writing furiously all the way to the end. By Mary Wesley, who I mention in Hagitude and who didn’t properly begin writing till she was 70 – and who then wrote furiously all the way to the end. I don’t believe that being a writer is something you can ‘retire’ from; for me, for sure, it’s too much a part of who I am, too much tied up with my sense of calling and meaning. Well, the winds blow true but the winds also change, and they carry their change along with them. Today it’s an energetic, moist westerly; tomorrow, who knows.

Meanwhile, autumn has also blown in a little something else: this handsome, smiley, middle-aged, male Border collie.

Chase ended up in a rescue centre because of a marriage which ended, causing the breakup of the family with which he had lived for all the eight years of his life. That’s quite some bereavement, and so although it undoubtedly was not wise in many ways (is love ever?) I brought him home to see if he might be able to become part of our little pack. We’ve plenty of river (and sofa) for a third dog, and our old man Fionn only died last summer. Two and a bit weeks on, integrating Chase with our two harridans ladies, Jess and Luna, has not been easy and is very much a work in progress. But we are going very slowly and patiently and are hopeful that it can be done; as I write, he and Luna are happily bookending the sofa while I am squashed up with my laptop in the middle, but Jess is a harder nut to crack and thinks he would be nicer chopped up (by her teeth) for breakfast. Please send any calming doggy vibes this way!

In the meantime, as always, I’m wishing you all the blessings of whichever season you’re in,

Sharon

Association of Jungian Analysts – Honorary membership

I’m thrilled to say that I’ve been invited to become an honorary member of the UK Association of Jungian Analysts. Honorary memberships are ‘awarded in recognition of the importance of lifetime achievement and contribution to Jungian ideas in the world’. As someone who has worked alone for a very long time, I’m thoroughly looking forward to having a professional group with which to share ideas from time to time. I’ve been a speaker at a few events organised by AJA and its members, including the very wonderful inaugural Jung by the Sea event in Cornwall last year. And if any of you are thinking about analytical training, AJA offers an approach that ‘integrates classical, archetypal and developmental approaches to Jungian Psychology to support contemporary clinical practice for today’s world’. More info here.

Wise Women – almost there!

It’s not as if most of you needed another one, but for the many subscribers who are new here (welcome!) this is a reminder that my next book, Wise Women: Myths and Stories for Midlife and Beyond, is out from Virago in the UK/worldwide on October 3, except in North America where New World Library will publish on October 8.

I hope you’ll forgive me putting out one final plea for pre-orders if you’re thinking of buying the book, because they matter so much to a book’s fate: they tell both retailers and readers that they should pay attention to it. Pre-order numbers are a good early indicator of a book’s likely success, and this can lead to retailers increasing their initial orders for it, so ensuring that the book will be available on publication in physical stores. Online pre-orders are important for the same reasons too; pre-orders on Amazon, for example, make it very much more likely that a book will show up in search results and recommendations.

To read an extract from my Introduction to Wise Women, please visit this page on my website; there’s also a short book video. You’ll find pre-order links there too, and a list of Wise Women events, live and online, can be found on this web page.

If Women Rose Rooted audiobook promotion

Last year I re-recorded the audiobook version of If Women Rose Rooted, and I’m delighted to say it’s currently on a special promotion direct from the publisher, Tantor Media. If you’d like to spend 13 hours and 23 minutes listening to my voice, you can purchase it at 60% off (£11.25); please note that the offer will only be available until 23 September.

Check out the audiobook details and the offer at this web page.

A couple of things you might be interested in

1. For those of you who don’t know Ruthie Kølle (in the image below) at Mother Hylde’s Herbal: she was my assistant for a number of years when I was running courses, and contributed to my popular self-study course, Sisters of Rock & Root. Earlier this year Ruthie introduced her own online herbalism course, and it has been so successful that she’s opening up another cohort on October 1. Here’s Ruthie’s description of what’s involved; her work comes highly recommended.

The Hedgewalker's Path is a six-month online medicine-making apprenticeship, designed to be accessible for beginning herbalists and the herb-curious. By the end of the course, you will feel empowered to bring herbs into your everyday life as food, medicine, and ritual. The course features a lively online community of students, twice-monthly live classes with Ruthie and other herbalists, and monthly lessons that walk you through how to make teas, tinctures, baths, poultices, elixirs, oils, salves, and more. More information and sign up here: https://motherhylde.com/hedgewalkers-path/

2. If you didn’t catch New York storyteller (and my former mentee) Audrey di Mola’s session on ‘Myth and Mental illness’ for paid subscribers a couple of months ago, you might enjoy this conversation with her on the Northern Spirit House podcast. ‘In the conversation we traverse the underlands of diagnosis, approaching our internal “otherness” with the tools of myth, and question the development of wisdom in dealing in the inherently magical realms of psycho-therapy. Come tread a path towards a new and ancient language of “madness” and “wellness.”’ Watch/ listen at this link.

Reading recommendations

This month, due to the many doggy distractions, I’ve been enjoying two short books that are easily dipped in and out of. The beauty of their prose also helped me recover from the trauma of listening to the audiobook of Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War, which gave me waking nightmares for weeks. (Has anyone else read or listened to it?)

– Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie’s Cairn:

Cairn: A marker on open land, a memorial, a viewpoint shared by strangers.

For the last five years poet and author Kathleen Jamie has been turning her attention to a new form of writing: micro-essays, prose poems, notes and fragments. Placed together, like the stones of a wayside cairn, they mark a changing psychic and physical landscape.

The virtuosity of these short pieces is both subtle and deceptive. Jamie's intent 'noticing' of the natural world is suffused with a clear-eyed awareness of all we endanger. She considers the future her children face, while recalling her own childhood and notes the lost innocence in the way we respond to the dramas of nature. With meticulous care she marks the point she has reached, in life and within the cascading crises of our times.

Cairn resonates with a beauty and wisdom that only an artist of Jamie's calibre could achieve.

– American author Joy Williams’ Concerning the Future of Souls:

Joy Williams offers ninety-nine illuminations on mortality as she brings her powers of observation to Azrael, the Angel of Death and transporter of souls.

Balancing the extraordinary and the humble, the bizarre and the beatific, the book presents Azrael as a thoughtful and troubled protagonist as he confronts the holy impossibility of his task, his uneasy relationship with Death and his friendship with the Devil. In this follow-up to Williams' 99 Stories of God, a collection of connected beings – ranging from ordinary people to great artists such as Kafka, Nietzsche, Bach and Rilke to dogs, birds, horses and butterflies – experience the varying fate of the soul, transient yet everlasting.

Profound, sorrowful, witty and ecstatic, Concerning the Future of Souls will leave readers awestruck in their confrontation of life in the face of death.