There’s a famous quote from Labour luminary Tony Benn which I love. ‘There is no final victory,’ he said, ‘just as there is no final defeat. Just the same battle to be fought over and over again. So toughen up, bloody toughen up.’ It’s easy to say and to love, of course, and a whole lot harder to feel and believe.
Knowing this all too well, the thing that has nevertheless distressed me most about yesterday’s election result in the UK is the sheer number of people who seem now to be wanting to flee the country. The panicked memes about not feeling safe; other posts on social media about looking for sanctuary in other countries, as if it would be possible, ever, to find one which doesn’t in some shape or another perfectly epitomise the same old human predilection for messing things up (just in more exotic ways, maybe. Novelty can take you a long way).
I really hope that doesn’t sound critical. I certainly don’t mean it to. At nearly six decades on this planet, I understand despair all too well. And I can’t exactly claim always to have stood still when the going got tough. But I also understand that what looks like defeat can often be the tipping point that swings the pendulum back over again. Because I’ve learned a lot from my own failures, and you can imagine that nearly six decades on the planet have provided the opportunities for plenty of those, too.
Rather than feeling critical, what I feel is sad. Sad for an island that, more than ever, needs those of us who want to transform the world to hold strong. Not just sad for the people who’d be left behind, still in the struggle – the people who haven’t the option, perhaps, of shipping out – but sad for the places which need us to protect them, to witness them, to stand firm for them.
So I’m done with fleeing; instead, I’m going back.
Those of you who regularly visit this blog will have read, a month ago, about my decision to leave Ireland and go back to that strange and challenging old island across the Irish Sea. And the sense of being called home which led to that decision was a very real and visceral one. A sense that, more than ever, the work that I do, and that so many of you who are reading this do, is needed there, and urgently.
Maybe I’m crazy, but if I am, I’ve been this crazy before. I’ve been called back home before, whether I want to be called or not. Mostly, not.
The last time this happened, I was living quite happily in America. I was enjoying the space and the freedom. But, on the eve of the Millennium, oddly twitchy, restless, on the verge of change but not really wanting it, I closed my eyes and opened the New Oxford Book of American Verse and asked for a ‘sign’ in whatever poem would happen to be on the page I opened. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the answer I found. There, sitting in Louisville, Kentucky, I opened the book to the only Kentucky poet in that volume: Robert Penn Warren.
His long narrative poem was called ‘The Ballad of Billie Potts’, and I opened the book to this page of it:
Though your luck always held and the market was always satisfactory,
Though the letter always came and your lovers were always true,
Though you always received the respect due to your position,
Though your hand never failed of its cunning and your glands always thoroughly knew their business,
Though your conscience was easy and you were assured of your innocence,
You gradually became aware that something was missing from the picture,
And upon closer inspection exclaimed: ‘Why, I’m not in it at all!’
Which was perfectly true.
Therefore you tried to remember when you last had
Whatever it was you had lost
And you decided to retrace your steps from that point,
But it was a long way back.
It was, nevertheless, absolutely essential to make the effort,
And since you had never been a man to be deterred by difficult circumstances,
You came back.
For there is no place like home.
On December 31 1999 I wasn’t ready to hear that message. I was never going back – never. I decided that the whole idea of trying to find a sign by opening a book at random was utterly ridiculous and this poem wasn’t relevant to me in any way (though indeed, it was perfectly true that at that point in my life I was not in the picture at all). And instead of going home to Britain I went and spent what felt like the worst year of my life in Macon, Georgia. Well, the worst in some ways, but with the benefit of hindsight, one of the richest in others – because it was the shock to my system of being in that place which I couldn’t find a way to relate to at all (whereas I had loved Kentucky, in my way) which sent me home after all, and not very long after September 11 2001.
So now, much as I love the land here in Ireland, we are moving to Wales. To my husband’s homeland – and in some strange sense, to mine, because my mother moved there when I left for university at 18, and, in the vicinity of the lovely town of Machynlleth, I found a second home for three full decades.
On the day the notion to make this move came to me, something made me consult ‘The Ballad of Billy Potts’ again, and I read these other lines, and laughed to see how everything comes full circle, and how the answer again seems to be in this poem:
But perhaps what you lost was lost in the pool long ago
When childlike you lost it and then in your innocence rose to go
After kneeling, as now, with your thirst beneath the leaves:
And years it lies here and dreams in the depth and grieves,
More faithful than mother or father in the light or dark of the leaves.
So, weary of greetings now and the new friend’s smile,
Weary to the art of the stranger, worn with your wanderer’s wile,
Weary of innocence and the husks of Time,
You come, back to the homeland of no-Time,
To ask forgiveness and the patrimony of your crime …
… And you, wanderer, back,
… And bear through that limitless and devouring fluidity
The itch and humble promise that is home.
In coming back to Wales, I’m coming full circle in so many ways. As those of you who have read If Women Rose Rooted will know, Wales was the first place I really opened up to the magic of the land, and of the wild. And it was in a small café in Wales, sitting there with my mother one day, heartsick and world-weary and burned out from years of being what I never should have been, that I found, on the windowsill beside me, the old Devon Ware jug in the photograph above. The inscription on it read:
No star is ever lost
we once have seen
We always may be
what we might have been [i]
That jug changed my life. I knew there was something I should have been, and was not. That there was something I should be doing, and was not. This jug was the thing that made it possible for me to understand that, and to change. Isn’t that the strangest thing? A jug.
It’s sat on many windowsills and mantelpieces in the intervening years, that jug. But it’s never far from me. It’s always the one thing which travels with me if I move house, too precious to entrust to a removal van. And it’ll come with me again, when I take it back to Wales where, for me, it began. Because this jug reminds me that change is always possible. That no matter how late it might seem, transformation is always possible. It reminds me never, ever to give up. Never to say I failed, and failed forever. Never to believe that everything is inevitably and irredeemably broken. Because it never is. Really, it never is. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that it is.
As brother-in-arms Bayo Akomolafe says, ‘The times are urgent. Let us slow down.’ Let us slow down indeed. Let’s not panic, or despair, or run away. Let’s remember that sometimes, there really is no place like home. And entertain the possibility that, although we might imagine we don’t need it, home might actually need us.
[i] I later discovered that these are the first two lines from a poem by Adeleine Anne Proctor.
This is beautiful and heartwarming to read, Sharon. Thank you!
Dear Sharon,
So many here said they would leave when Trump got elected, but they didn’t. They realized that this is home and home is worth fighting for. It’s an initial reaction that passes. (Or so it was here.)
Can we be in the place and truly in ourselves and can we resist an oppressive pessimism and continue to follow the star? Can we meet in small groups, knowing that small groups have and can change the world? Can we anchor in place and love place and cherish our place in the wider world? I believe we can.
Me too, Lyn! And I hope it will be an initial reaction which passes here, too. I always feel that when we abandon our places at such times, we leave behind a grieving and a wounding.
Love in your courage Sharon
It’s also blaming a situation, looking out pointing where we’re not part of the “picture “. …
Sharon – I love your thoughts, writings, and books so much. I’m currently in the place of home needing me. I chafe, for many days it is a challenge and struggle…yet, here I am supposed to be for now. Thanks for the reminder.
Thank you for those thoughts. Here in Trumpland, bordering on impeachment which will do almost nothing, I never thought to leave. I only seek to go deeper and deeper into the love of the land, and to resist.
I particularly like the opening verse:
‘There is no final victory,’ he said, ‘just as there is no final defeat. Just the same battle to be fought over and over again. So toughen up, bloody toughen up.’
My way of toughening up, along with living somewhat poor and learning how to earn money at this late age, is to root more deeply in the community of life beyond human. And human too.
I’d thought perhaps to study with you, and decided you were not my teacher. But this writing tells me strongly that you are my sister. Happy to meet you. Thank you for writing.
So many of us here in the USA feel as you so perfectly stated Lyn~ I too get so discouraged, angry and sad about our country. All things will pass~ believe, work toward what we hold sacred ~ and follow that star.
Lyn, we absolutely can, and must. We have before.
In 2018 I was to unwell to remain in the UK on my own and so I went to stay with my mother who has lived in southern Spain for 12 years, happy to see the back of all that had been dragging me down. While I was there, I introduced myself to the mountains, i plunged my feet into the red earth, I let myself be carried by the sea, and I leaned into the trees, but in the end my heart yearned for the place my blood and bones are molded from. It felt like a long exile, and after 14 months, finally, help arrived to bring me back, although to another part of this island, a place I barely know, except I do know the air, the trees, the cold, the rain, and the birdsong so well. I never belonged anywhere more and your words strengthen my heart and my resolve Sharon, to be here more fully and more fiercely than I ever have. Thankyou
Yes,Lyn so true! I wanted to be anywhere but in this country! I had traveled to Iceland when we were going through our thing and the UK going through the Brexit thing and I met a couple from the UK and we could relate… and we felt support from the other knowing that there are still many many individuals who don’t feel agree with what is going on and so if we leave, we abandon them and the place that needs us! I feel the same about Alaska…it’s not a very progressive place and wouldn’t it be fun to move someplace I could find a bigger tribe? But then again, this land needs us who care about it!
A poem I love by John O’Donohue is Exiled Clay:
I am not sure you
live anywhere, no
cord of clay holds
you moored.
The air is brittle
and cannot settle
near your attention.
Your cell has
no cloister for
abandon anoints you.
To what place
belongs the red bush
of your blood?
Who could travel
your mountains of dream,
glimpse gazelles
limp towards dawn,
see flowers
thirst through earth
for dew,
and hear at last
the sound
of swans’ wings
bless the dark?
Felicity
Lovely!
David Whyte writes of staying….learning to stay….stopped me running a few times…from various situations…relationships and such that seemed execrable but I faced it…made alterations to my reactions or mindset….and stayed it out….the storms passed
Oh Sharon, as per usual, your words are soul balm and feel so familiar. As we choose to “stay” here in complicated Ohio (though we want to run to Ireland), we will ride the wave of aging parents and political breakdown and seek to find beauty amidst the madness of it all. Thank you for the wonderful Bayo Akomalate quote. I must read more of his work!! Hopefully my path shall cross yours one day in some sphere other than the online one, perhaps across the pond or in beloved New Mexico. Until then, I look ever forward to your thinking and writing on these delicate times. Cheers to you. Best of luck with the move to Wales!
Thanks, Amy! Best of luck with your own difficult choices – and yes, do check Bayo out. Such wisdom, and so young!
I have such a longing to go to Wales. I’ve never understood why. I’ve had a longing to live in England for years. I was born in St Louis MO which is a long way from England.
I was a curious child so I would ask where my grandparents were from. I thought my grandfather’s people were from Germany. Of course there was no ancestry.com. Recently I found his name originates in England. My maternal grandmother and paternal great grandmothers names originate in Wales. This could be the connection. Your books have literally opened up a part of me that was so closed off. I can’t thank you enough for writing them. I could relate to your job struggles and doing what you love. And could picture all the places you talked about. You are an inspiration.
Ah, thank you 🙂
I loved ready this. It went to my heart. Thank you.
This is beautiful and just what I needed to read today. Thank you x
Good. That’s what it’s for 🙂
Yes, that calling, always. At the end of 2017 I left the USA for Mexico and loved it there yet got called back. Now, called to do some very different (mythic?) work I am being called elsewhere so am moving once more. Thanks for the clarity and perspective.
You’re most welcome! Best of luck with the move …
The message on the jug reminds me of a quote attributed to George Elliot, which has encouraged me through the years: “Its never too late to be what you might have been.”
“Maybe I’m crazy, but if I am, I’ve been this crazy before.” – This made me almost spit out my coffee with chuckles! Love it!
I really appreciate all your writing, Sharon, and this offering, in particular, touches me on a number of levels and deepens my feeling of soul kinship with where you are coming from. I offer up my prayer for a safe journey for you and your husband and a swift settling-in,
Those callings from landscapes are rarely all that convenient. I remember the call I felt to move to Thunder Bay here in Canada – it was truly a soul imperative that I barely understood. It was almost as if my understanding wasn’t required. The 5 year apprenticeship that place had for me was immense. I didn’t think I would ever leave. But alas, eventually the call came to return to another home, the place where my mother still lives…and the transitions, grief, unfoldings, learnings, thresholds, loss, and new beginnings continue to take root.
I must thank you if I haven’t already for both the activity of writing a love letter to places of significance as well as the story of Gobnait and the teaching about the place of our resurrection. These two have been profoundly instrumental in my sense-making of these callings from the land and the work I am called to do within them.
Bright Blessings!
Thank you, Aleyah, as always. And many blessings on your ongoing journey!
We too are shocked by the election result and the divisions uncovered over the last few years around all that Brexit raised. But we are in Wales, raising sheep, pigs and poultry, growing fruit and vegetables and being part of a tiny rural community in which we have found home. I look forward to your arrival here x
Thank you, Jeni!
This is just what I needed to read today. Here in America in the midst of a changing climate and weakening democracy, it’s hard to know what to do. I feel restless and worry for my children. Your words are clarifying. Stay and fight. Cherish the land and her stories!
Precisely. Onwards!
Thank you, Sharon, as always, for your heartfelt expression of the need to be anchored in place. I moved to New Mexico as a hippie in my 20s, lived there 40 years, matured, found my man, then, 12 years ago, we up and moved to Oregon to “retire.” Then a year ago, we found our own “jug” inscription written on the wind and were called back home to Taos, New Mexico where we are now ensconced in our brand new adobe-style home. Are we crazy for following our hearts? I think not. But it’s find a wild and “crazy” journey to our place.
Ah Julian, I don’t think the world (or New Mexico) is quite ready for you to retire. Sending you all the very best to beautiful Taos.
Thank you Sharon and thank you all ??
Two years after moving home to Ireland I’m finally getting my sense of belonging back. I was in Seattle for 20 years, then an island in BC for 5, then Tucson for 10. I would like to say that it’s been easy but despite the unshakable knowing that my soul called me back here (and all of the poetry quoted above all resonates deeply), it’s been very hard at times, and lonely. I’m tough but I’ve been on my knees some days and yet I’m still here, without any desire to be anywhere else, doing the interior re-design that I could only do in this part of Ireland, after an absence of 35 years.
Thanks again to you Sharon and to everyone who shared a part of their story.
Good luck ? and May The Force Be With You ?
Thank you, Catriona!
So much here, so beautifully said. Thanks, Sharon, and welcome home.
Thank you.
I remember the jug ??
Thank you Sharon and thank you all ??
Two years after moving home to Ireland I’m finally getting my sense of belonging back. I was in Seattle for 20 years, then an island in BC for 5, then Tucson for 10. I would like to say that it’s been easy but despite the unshakable knowing that my soul called me back here (and all of the poetry quoted above all resonates deeply), it’s been very hard at times, and lonely. I’m tough but I’ve been on my knees some days and yet I’m still here, without any desire to be anywhere else, doing the interior re-design that I could only do in this part of Ireland, after an absence of 35 years.
Thanks again to you Sharon and to everyone who shared a part of their story.
Good luck ? and May The Force Be With You ?
I could not agree more, Sharon…I too have lived through many low places in my country’s history, and I have ever said that the good people, the people who care, the people who love what we are at heart, or what we could be, are NEEDED. The country needs us, the land needs us, we need one another. The threats to jump ship, to go to some imaginary safer, better place, make me sad indeed. And like you, I don’t really believe such a place exists, not as a country…countries are full of humans, and we are flawed.
Our recent unrest has been a real test, and I can see we are facing another…I can only hope that the good people stay, find their courage and their way, and help.
Quite. We’re all in the same boat, and I don’t think the upheavals are quite done yet. Time to dig in!
I hope you will both be very happy in Powys .We used to live the Brecon /Crickhowell end, before we moved to France some 19 years ago. There are a lot worse places to live ! We can only hope the Boris factor will succeed .Blessings to you both
/|\
From England today, and as one who campaigned for the Labour Party, and who can barely bear to read all the illiberal and racist comments on any blog this morning, I thank you deeply for this, Sharon. And while everyone says they want to flee to Ireland, if they can, I know that this is still my place because here there is much work to be done to heal the land and its people. I very much appreciate your return.
If they fled to Ireland they’d only find a host of different problems. (And would have no real right to tell a people they once colonised how best to change things :-)) I hope people stay. As you say, we have work to do.
This so resonated
I just ‘found you ‘ on checking for a delivery notice from Amazon for a fabulous book I had ordered from the States “ Gift of The Red Bird “ .by PT D’Arcy .( I think you’d love it ).
Somehow your book Foxfire & Wolf skin was thrown up as a possible interest .It grabbed me .
The White She Wolf has been a companion these recent months since my breast Chancer diagnosis in April .( I’m thru Treatment now & well , but tired ).
So I looked you up .And what a resonance .
I’m a Psychotherapist with a clinic in Glasgow , my spiritual home is Iona , and I find myself in the midst of transformation & waiting for the signs…….
… whatever next ?!
I’d love to know about retreats or workshops on your work.
Sending a big hug of recognition ????
Thanks, Angela! You’ll find out everything you need to know (and probably more) at this website. Following the links in the top menu bar here to see where you’re drawn. And waving to you in Glasgow. My dad’s family is 100% Edinburgh. Close enough!
This so resonated
I just ‘found you ‘ on checking for a delivery notice from Amazon for a fabulous book I had ordered from the States “ Gift of The Red Bird “ .by PT D’Arcy .( I think you’d love it ).
Somehow your book Foxfire & Wolf skin was thrown up as a possible interest .It grabbed me .
The White She Wolf has been a companion these recent months since my breast Chancer diagnosis in April .( I’m thru Treatment now & well , but tired ).
So I looked you up .And what a resonance .
I’m a Psychotherapist with a clinic in Glasgow , my spiritual home is Iona , and I find myself in the midst of transformation & waiting for the signs…….
… whatever next ?!
I’d love to know about retreats or workshops on your work.
Sending a big hug of recognition ????
I too have felt that call to home .I have lived in the US for twenty years and felt a deep connection to the Native tribes but not really much else .It is a wonderful life ,a comfortable life ,a starting off point from where I have been so fortunate to travel the world .I am deeply grateful but the stones are calling me .Not back to the North but to the South from where both my mother and father and my ancestral lines hail .A mysterious message from a friend who had passed ,Pointing me to a certain area I had never been too .A reading from someone in that area who said no but pointed me onwards .Went to that place and felt I had never left it .All my life I dreamed of a house above the sea where you could walk down to a cove ,there are three ..Walking down to one of the coves there was a dog approached me with a very large flat black stone in its mouth for all the world like a scrying stone ..I am Irish ,I moved and worked through the country but this area of West Cork has undone me by his wild untouched beauty and the quiet music of the voices that have enchanted me .The circles of the stones have sent their emissaries to welcome me home .
Thank you for this beautiful essay. We just recently moved and as much as I love our new area, I’m feeling a little unmoored. Reading your essay, and the comments that followed, reminded me that the only constant we have in life is change. I need to embrace that, not run away from it.
Oh, yes. Transforming, or ‘becoming’ – I see it so much at the heart of life. Unmoored is natural. But mooring is always a breath away!
Thanks Sharon for this uplifting reminder that our land needs our positive living attention . Attention is the most divine of currencies after all.
I’m so happy to hear your returning to my heart land (Wales , daughter of organic 1970 hippy organic pioneer Patrick Holden) near tregaron .
I know some wonderful people in the hills behind machynlleth. Let me know if you d like good contacts in the area .
All good wishes with the transition,
Wise words these for the unsettling times in which we live. When we looked for a place to live when selling the house in Bath we looked in the counties around Somerset and in Somerset away from the Levels, but it was this land and landscape that kept pulling us back. To have bought anywhere else would have been, I won’t say wrong, but inappropriate for us. We weren’t ‘allowed’ to leave Somerset.
There may be years when one can carry one.s roots about, but eventually they will demand to be set down, to be planted, to be placed in the place of one’s most authentic being. This may well be the time for yours to be so placed. You will indeed raise rooted from Wales. You will flourish there, and your work will prosper as well.
sin
Being closer I hope to see you in Wales, where my ancestors arose as well. Rich blessings during this sacred time of gathering your roots from the land of Ireland and carefully transporting them, with you jug to your new place, in an old land.
Love to see you again, Aurora. And yes, I have tough old roots; they’ve been planted (actually always quite deeply) and unplanted again and again!
Dear Sharon,
I love your writing, for me your write ‘truth’… and I don’t believe I’ve ever read a truer world than that ‘home may need us’. Yes, yes, yes!
Thank you.
Love Suzi xx
Ah thanks, Suzi. Sending you a wave to Dartmoor.
Thank you as always Sharon for your wisdom. I am heartsick at the election result not least because we now have a leader who lies without second thought.
I came here to Wales 2 years ago, knowing no-one yet knowing in my heart this is where we should be. I sniffed the air in several places before we settled here in West Wales. I too know about not being in my life, working at a job at which l was excellent and yet doing it all the time outside my strength so l burnt out. Rebuilding my life again trying to do the things l was called to, failing and starting again. Here l am at 72, having just discovered my tribe. It is a wondrous thing.
And it’s never too late to discover your tribe 🙂
Just exactly what I needed to hear today. I was bemoaning the fact that I’m in my mid-sixties and missed the boat. Well, maybe not…
Ah, well the boat of calling is always somehow mysteriously there when we’re ready to climb aboard it, I think 🙂
This is so familiar. When 45 was elected in the US, the comments were much the same. I looked on the election then, and still do, as popping a boil. Three years later, the puss is still frothing out. The denial is staggering to me: a friend reported just yesterday that someone told her to just wait, that 45 has a reason behind all the seemingly awful, outlandish, unhinged statements, and all will be revealed eventually and then those of us who don’t support 45 will understand. The support 45 still has just staggers me, but if the supporters tell themselves things like that, well, no wonder.
It’s hard, most days, to keep from just screaming “WTF is WRONG with you people?!” So yeah, I know the despair, anger and shock that a lot of people in the UK are feeling, and on my bad days I just want to retreat into a cave and pull it in after me. On my good days, a couple of things keep me going. Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents, said, “If you look for the bad in man, you will surely find it.” The reverse, of course, is also true. And it helps me to think of cycles. My degree is in geology, where time frames are measured in eons, not decades. We’re in a decade when everything, at least for me, seems unendingly grim. But in the larger, longer scheme of things, there have been corrupt, greedy, stupid, short-sighted leaders before. And there have always been the people who are working in the background to mitigate the effects, to build something to be able to fall back on when this cycle ends, and who simply have their own circles where they gather to remind themselves of the things in life that really matter, that nourishing good in the world is doable. And who then go forth and do just that.
Thank you for this post, because it reminded me of that. And I needed that, today.
Thank you for your wonderful thoughts and words, Sharon. I am so inspired by your ability and courage to “up and move” with such ease (or so it seems). Ditto, many of the commenters who are searching or have found their place in the world. I feel such a deep longing to move away from the city (NYC area) to somewhere green and laden with trees. I keep waiting for a sign (The Voice literally guided me the last time!) but I keep getting the message that my job here isn’t quite done yet and to be patient. My Sagittarius sun is restless and brave and wants to explore but my moon and rising signs in Taurus love home. 🙂 I never knew my full astrology until several years ago and now it makes so much sense why I’ve always felt this conflict. Regarding the recent UK election – so many of us here in the US felt like the wee bit of hope we have for 2020 took a hit. But, we all have to keep shining our light and not give up. Giving up just doesn’t seem very spiritual, does it? Love to you and your readers. xo
Thank you for touching words I am returning to Nothen Ireland for the first time in 30 years .In March with unfortunately father ashs .The calling to come home has become bigger so much stronger though you work and teaching. I am finally healing my relationship with Ireland .Thank you
I needed these words of yours today, thank you.
Hello Sharon, thank you so much for articulating these thoughts. I went through a similar process yesterday on hearing the election result, with inital feelings of frustration and despair and helplessness. But I recalled the words that you spoke in your video intro to the upcoming This Mythic Life Circle, how change begins with the individual. So I recommitted to starting the online circle with you in the New Year, because I too believe this is how lasting change will occur, from the grass roots up. The systems are broken, there is too much vested interest and intertia for them to change themselves, a new paradigm needs to open up from outside, from those of us on the fringes. I hope that This Mythic Life brings support and encouragement to all of us who want to make this change happen.
Looking forward to working with you in the New Year
Thank you so much
Alison
The spiritual balm so many of us need. Living in the Southwest Of The US, I have found yet again home. Where would we go? There are only the safe havens that we create by staying and fighting the good fight. The land calls to me. I spend it in the Sonoran Desert and Superstition Mountains around my Phoenix home. This land has it’s own heart beat and I honor your courage to move into the fray.
I was completely devastated by the uk election results and realised that caring and compassion and wanting fairness in society is drowned out by bullying, heartless underhand tactics and loud voices. I just thought ‘what the heck now? Another 5 years of it!’ After reading your moving blog I realise that yes we the people can still change things and we have that power! Tony Benn is a hero of mine so thankyou for reminding me and yes let’s face it and carry on with integrity x
Staying too – and strangely, feeling a confidence to use my voice and my words more powerfully than I have ever before. Sometimes it is a crisis that enables our special gifts to find their true place. My maternal ancestry is Welsh & Irish, though I am a Lancashire lass in Devon, on the edge of Dartmoor, and I feel that the Welsh wise woman part of me can speak out from wherever I am right now – but like you I have always heeded the call to be where I should be – I was called home from Brazil – after 14 idyllic years by the beach – just in time to be part of the Transition Movement – which led to me walking 2000 miles around England collecting stories of positive change in communities. Then I took the tales to Wales where they told me this would never be enough without the inner journey – so I walked across Wales from Caerleon to Bardsey Island in search of guidance. I am now just completing my MA dissertation in Ecology and Spirituality on the role of the Celtic Enchantress in the New Story… and getting ready to start teaching that magic. I love the synchronicity of the Celtic imagination flowering again in so many of us… this is the mythos we need to meet the logos that so needs it. Happy you will be in Wales 🙂 Let the magic begin …
My path has moved in almost the exact same way as Beth’s (above). I moved to Wales 2 years ago despite not having had ancestors here. I also just felt the pull to come here, to a land steeped in myth where the valleys are filled with the mists I think of as dragons’ breath. I also am 72 years old and embracing hagitude wholeheartedly. I live here with my husband and my two Irish Wolfhounds and since we moved here we’ve planted near on 60 trees in our 6 acres.
Like you I am devastated at the results of the election – someone said on television last night that the poor, the disadvantaged, those in need of special care have been sentenced to five years without the resources they need and should have and this sentence has been handed to them by one man – Jeremy Corbyn. Let’s just hope that Labour can regroup and recommit during the next five years and become the party of hope again.
Machynlleth is a lovely town – I’m sure you’ll re-root there as I intend to be here on the edge of the beautiful Brecon Beacons.
Thank you for this and I’d say, maybe not simply a jug, but a Grail?
YES!
The special jug. A jug is a container and we have many ‘container’ metaphors in our English language….often we speak of the body as a container that ‘holds’ feelings and emotions and sometimes dis-ease. Container metaphors are some of the most ubiquitous in English it seems. So, I have no problem understanding how a an actual container, the jug, could be used to metaphorically represent a body of feeling and emotion. Sometimes, it seems we need to externalize our embodied metaphors to get fully ‘in touch’ with them. I offer this because perhaps it relates to you and your magical little earthen ware jug… 🙂
Peace to you Sharon.
I plan to join your online ‘This Mythic Life’ course.
Larissa Pinhole Estes’ poem “We are made for these times” springs to mind.
Yes women who run with the wolves changed my life in my 30’s just as sharon blackies books are now ‘we are made for these times’ absolutely!!
Thank you Sharon, I have read If Women Rose Rooted and recommend it to girlfriends. This article is exactly what I needed and has prompted me to ask and answer two key questions on the dichotomy of fleeing away and running to, at a time when I am desperately searching for where I belong and how to avoid going backwards:
When we want a fresh start and plunge into a new adventure far away what is it about home we take for granted? Then, how can we make that original home feel like an adventure and progress if we move back?
I realise now that I have some wise elders I know made massive moves to counties or countries they’d dreamed of living in, only to move ‘home’ after a short time. I guess they found their answers to these questions too.
It is exactly what I needed to hear just now! Thank you so so much!
And I also absolutely loved « if women rose rooted »
I loved this line: “as if it would be possible, ever, to find one which doesn’t in some shape or another perfectly epitomise the same old human predilection for messing things up”
Indeed.
After watching way too much of the Impeachment hearings, I found myself remembering the Nixon impeachment when I moved to Germany and all I could get was German language television. And so, I’ve turned it off. This one I mean.
I was stunned when I saw the outcome of the British elections. Really? England wants a crazy PM too? And all this time, I’d been dreaming London streets where I once wandered into a pub on a rainy day and the bartender said, “Towel miss?”
I guess we will survive this one too. Although I must admit, Wales sounds tempting! (If I didn’t have a house we’ve just rewired and re-stuccoed from storms and if I didn’t have a family farm to watch over although no time this year to get up there! As if I could, as I could in my younger years just say, “I’m outta here!” And move to the Caribbean as I once did. Alas. At the ripening age of 75, I must stay put. I suppose. (Although the Caribbean sounds tempting!! – but then there’s the hurricanes rumbling through there)…..alas, we must do with what we have and keep writing and laughing and loving.
My best. I so enjoy your posts. Janet
I was in my Jeep reading your words and feeling sad about something that happened yesterday, when I heard a noise and looked up to see a female cardinal on the right side view mirror. She sat there for a bit. I said hello and thanked her for her visit before she joined her mate in the grass. That was a lovely experience.
I’m glad I read this today. Thank you!
Thank you Sharon, your writing is always beautiful, and strikes a deep chord within me. Things are similarly grim and wearying here in Australia. I often feel that I would love to be in Ireland, the land of my forebears, but with grandchildren growing up around me now, I know I must stay and continue to do my small bit to make us a kinder, more inclusive country once more.
Thank you Sharon, so much, for mentioning the election in the UK. So often in “spiritual” circles we avoid talking about politics. But somehow the world has changed and politics is now entirely relevant to my spiritual and moral life. I live in California, but when I heard your election results i got a sick feeling in my gut. I’m afraid it may be an omen for our own 2020 election. It’s funny but I’ve always wanted to run away to the English countryside! But I will stay on this 10 acres that I have nurtured for 35 years and fight the good fight. Many Blessings for your big move.
Beautiful and heart warming. Thank you! As a person who moved to Denmark 40 odd years ago (am 68 at this time of writing), I agree, there is no place like home. ????
Thankyou Sharon for your writing titled “Staying When times get tough” There is much wisdom in that. This island of the UK needs us inthese urgent times. There is work to be done on a heart and soul level here.
Yes there are times to move and put roots down somewhere else, but there comes a time to reckon with where your roots feel at Home. As Dorothy says clicking her red shoed heels, in Wizard of Oz, “ There is no place like Home” Amen to that
Thank you, Sharon for this is exactly where I am. For the past nearly two years, the land in southwest England has been literally calling me Home. The long song line has been whispered in my ears since I was a toddler in America. Today has been quite raw contemplating my move, and so I consulted the Runes, which have always been clear, and very frequently eerily specific. Like you in your request for a poetic sign, the message stone was (R), Journey, Raido. (My last name is Rado)… I have been declared on my journey now. Once some time ago I was told that I am needed in England. My energy, my skills. Your words to that end were a large bell being rung! So, next with the sense of urgency glowing full on, I search and watch for the means to go and root in where my blood comes from on my Mother’s side.
The sense too, of feeling I am not doing what I came into the world to do has been burning like a pyre from the time I was 8, nearly 50 years now. Once I get to England, the gates of my creativity and healing for the Land will flood forth. 2020, clear sight, I am going to be there, for good.
So thank you dear Sharon, for this message today. My heart is bursting for belonging, for Home.
Sharon,
Thank you for this – such a blessing. I live in London and have been in (political) despair for some time. You’ve given me hope.
“That no matter how late it might seem, transformation is always possible” This for so many reasons.
Thank you for this post and words Sharon
Thank you for sharing your wisdom in words, Sharon. Just read ‘Meeting Baba Yaga’ in your book Foxfire, Wolfskin….. so in this moment I’m very conscious of how wisdom is shared, not just by words, but in so many different ways…. ?
I’m in my 60s and in 2006 I found a home where I expected to stay until I die. But something went awry in 2017…. I couldn’t sleep, I became someone I didn’t recognize. In hindsight, the signs were loud and clear, but I wore blinders. Then, in 2018 very different circumstances and a home by the forest appeared in front of me and within 24 hrs the decision was made, papers signed. ?
I grew up in the forest, and this home is my true coming home, although it’s on another continent from my birthplace. It appears you listened to your intuition, Sharon, but it took a lot more “signs” for me to hear my call to home. ?
Thanks for sharing your words. Tony Benn is absolutely correct. We’ll continue the fight. I come from Edinburgh but have lived in Dinas Mawddwy, not far from Machynlleth, for 20 years now. Thanks for your inspiration and good luck with your move to Wales, may it be a happy choice.
Welcome home dear woman welcome home
Sharon, Sharon, Sharon… You are what I hope to grow-up to be… although only a year older than me… a scholar and a mystic, and more importantly, one who never cease to marvel a the wonder of it all. Thank you, your words always give me courage and quicken my soul to more.
Gosh, thank you all for these beautiful and heartfelt comments and I’m so sorry that although I began with the best of intentions, replying to them all this week has been a challenge, with a couple of major writing deadlines catching up with me. But I’ve read and taken heart from every one of them and am so grateful to have you all here and engaged. What a remarkable, mysterious life!
Catching up on a ton of old emails and came across this post that I apparently missed. As an American, I can say with unequivocal certainty that I understand these people’s fears. When Trump was first elected and it seemed he was set on bringing us to war with literally everyone, the United States did not feel like a safe place to live. But while my ancestors’ blood may be foreign to these lands, I was born here, on this soil, and I will not give it up without a fight. When we add in climate issues, there is nowhere really safe in this world. It’s up to us to do our best to make a difference, however small, in our own space.