Sowing seeds, delving deep

November's monthly newsletter

Please read on for writing news and course discounts, as well as the usual monthly reading recommendations and poem.

Dear friends,

Those of you who’ve been around for a while know that we’re now entering into my favourite time of year, though the weeks between Samhain and Winter Solstice always seem far too short. This is always such a rich time for me; my creative power flourishes in the darkest time of the year – just as a seed does. I imagine the seeds that were sown in autumn – seeds which emerged from the beautiful flowerings of the plant which bore them – dreaming underground, safely held and nourished by composting vegetation. Seeds that, for now, are fully in the Underworld: protected by it, slowly regenerating, growing, gathering their strength for the greening time ahead. Our winter time is also about deepening and regenerating in the fertile dark, journeying into the Underworld, exploring and plumbing our own depths to discover the mystery of what is within us, waiting for that mystery to be brought back out into the world, illuminated, as the light slowly returns after Winter Solstice and we slowly, blinking, emerge into another spring.

And so it seems fitting that, this weekend, I’m off for a weeklong retreat to the land of my ancestors – because Samhain is a season, among many other things, for honouring our roots. Those roots that reach deep down into the Underworld: roots extended and then tended by the now-dead who walked this Earth before us. I’m heading north to Northumberland, to dream deeply for a few days, and excavate the rubble that’s left of my childhood years. I’m dreaming a spiralling back around, a return to my centre. The past three years have been shattering in so many ways, and now that I’m fully emerging from a period of illness, near-death and regeneration, it's time to ask – again, and again, because this work of transforming never ends, and nor should it – what I might become and grow into in the years that are left to me. There’s a line in a song by Dartmoor musician and artist Carolyn Hillyer – ‘Forest Yarn’ – which reads ‘Where will you lay your bones, my dears, when all is said and done?’ I think I’m finally discovering where mine might lie: back there in those old borderlands where I began.

But I’m talking of (hopefully far-off!) endings when I really mean to talk about new beginnings. And so before I go, I wanted to share some good news about the beginnings of a new book. I was truly delighted this week to discover that I’ve been given the Roger Deakin Award by the SoA Authors’ Foundation. This award is given for a creative work ‘concerned with natural history, landscape or the environment, in memory of the environmentalist, writer and film maker Roger Deakin’, and it was awarded in the context of the book I’m writing now – tentatively entitled Motherlands – about (among other things) how the ways in which we are mothered impacts our ability to belong. I’m particularly proud of this award because Deakin (also a friend and mentor of Robert Macfarlane) was such a seminal figure in British nature writing: his book Waterlog topped the UK bestseller charts and led to the founding of the wild swimming movement.

And so, on that positive note, as always, I wish you the fruits and the flourishings of whatever season you find yourself living through.

Sharon

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The Hagitude Sessions

Since I last wrote, there have been two new episodes of ‘The Hagitude Sessions’, a podcast which features conversations with remarkable women about the challenges and opportunities they found during menopause and in the second half of life. The first is with Kate Codrington, author of Second Spring: the self-care guide to menopause, and with whom I share my lovely agent, Jane Graham-Maw. The second is with my much-loved publisher, Hannah MacDonald. If you’re curious about the publishing business, about how If Women Rose Rooted came about, and how the book market has shifted to allow myth to grow and flourish – as well as many other relevant topics – do have a listen. The next episode, out on the usual podcast channels on Monday, is with therapist, actor and writer Stella Duffy, author of seventeen novels, over seventy short stories and fifteen plays. New episodes are released every two weeks; listen here: https://hagitude.org/podcast/ or via your favourite podcast providers.

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Hagitude membership program

The Hagitude yearlong membership program got off to a rollicking start, and is still available for registrations – priced at just £260 for the full year. In the first four weeks we’ve listened to our first guest speaker, 91-year-old writer and Jungian therapist Anne Baring; we’ve worked on growing our creative confidence with writer Tanya Shadrick; we’ve had live sessions covering dream circles with Katharine Donovan Kane, and on menopause as a rite of passage with Angharad Wynne. And we’ve begun to delve into my version of the tarot-based Fool’s Journey, as a representation of a woman’s journey into elderhood. The community forum is lively, with connections being built and circles being created around the world. Lots more information at this link: https://hagitude.org/the-program/

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Interviews and events

I’ve done so many podcasts and interviews since Hagitude was released that I’m struggling to keep up with them all. But my favourite to date was a long and profound conversation with Matthew Taylor, former head of the Royal Society of Arts, of which I also happen to be a Fellow. A man’s perspective on what is, after all, a book firmly aimed at women is fascinating, and Matthew’s questions took me to places I rarely get the opportunity to go. Listen here: https://bridges-to-the-future.simplecast.com/episodes/successfully-shaping-the-second-half-of-life

Coming up: in November, I’m delighted to be a guest of the lovely Wintering author Katherine May, talking about Hagitude and elderhood for her Patreon-based book club, The Rookery. Find out more here: https://www.patreon.com/katherinemay And Katherine will be a guest on the ‘Hagitude Sessions’ podcast next spring, in anticipation of her forthcoming book, Enchantment.

November 25: evening reading via Ashburton Craftmongers, Devon. Details to be announced.

November 30: evening reading at Penrallt Bookshop, Machynlleth.

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Elderwoman art

I know that many of you loved the illustrations for Hagitude that were produced by Australian artist Natalie Eslick. Her image of Old Crane Woman for the special collector’s edition of the book was especially stunning. Well, I’m delighted to say that Natalie has produced beautiful five new prints in the same spirit: Hare Woman, Owl Woman, Raven Woman, Fox Woman, and Red Kite Woman. They really are marvellous, and will make wonderful gifts too. You can buy them individually, or as a set. Find out more here: https://www.natalieeslick.com/shop

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Bone Cave bundle

I’ve had a couple of requests recently for a ‘bundle’ deal on the recordings of my Bone Cave sessions on reclaiming the mythic feminine. They’re available individually at £25 each, but I’ve just put together a special bundle package which offers all 8 sessions for £120, a saving of £80. Find out more about the sessions here:

https://sharonblackie.net/the-bone-cave-online-retreats/

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Reading recommendations

This month I was captivated by two nonfiction books from two British women writers who I was proud to publish during my days as publisher and editor of EarthLines magazine: Sarah Thomas and Nancy Campbell. I can thoroughly recommend both books for those of you who love writing about place and belonging.

First: The Raven’s Nest, by Sarah Thomas. Here is the publisher’s description:

‘Visiting Iceland as an anthropologist and film-maker in 2008, Sarah Thomas is spellbound by its otherworldly landscape. An immediate love for this country and for Bjarni, a man she meets there, turns a week-long stay into a transformative half-decade, one which radically alters Sarah's understanding of herself and of the living world. She embarks on a relationship not only with Bjarni, but with the light, the language, and the old wooden house they make their home. She finds a place where the light of the midwinter full moon reflected by snow can be brighter than daylight, where the earth can tremor at any time, and where the word for echo – bergmál – translates as 'the language of the mountain'. In the midst of crisis both personal and planetary, as her marriage falls apart, Sarah finds inspiration in the artistry of a raven's nest: a home which persists through breaking and reweaving – over and over. Written in beautifully vivid prose, The Raven's Nest is a profoundly moving meditation on place, identity and how we might live in an era of environmental disruption.’

The second is Thunderstone: A True Story of Losing One Home and Discovering Another, by Nancy Campbell, and here is the publisher’s description:

‘It was believed lightning would not strike a house that held a thunderstone. And so these fossils were placed on top of clocks, under floorboards, over stable doors . . . But there are some storms that thunderstones cannot prevent.

In the wake of a traumatic lockdown, Nancy Campbell buys an old caravan and drives it into a strip of neglected woodland between a canal and railway. It is the first home she has ever owned. As summer begins, Nancy embraces the challenge of how to live well in a space in which possessions and emotions often threaten to tumble – clearing industrial junk from the soil to help wild beauty flourish. But when illness and uncertainty loom once more, it is this van anchored in the woods, and the unconventional friendships forged off-grid, that will bring her solace and hope. An intimate journal across the space of a defining summer, Thunderstone is celebration of the people and places that hold us when the storms gather; an invitation to approach life with imagination and to embrace change bravely.’

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This month’s poem

Eye Mask

In this dark I rest,
unready for the light which dawns
day after day,
eager to be shared.
Black silk, shelter me.
I need
more of the night before I open
eyes and heart
to illumination. I must still
grow in the dark like a root
not ready, not ready at all.

Denise Levertov