Solo Walking and Drawing Time in Rural Southern France Part II
Drawing and pondering time in hot January 2024
It’s been the most beautiful and peaceful day, one for a slow meander in the low hills around the village. This video from today captures some of the beauty and some ‘in progress’ sketching plus a flip through of my sketchbook so far…enjoy!
I seem to have written a lot down in my sketchbook this week! Quite a lot of it is to feed into my PhD thesis section on drawing outside and some of it is some real metaphysical questioning which may not make sense by next week who knows?
I love to wonder / wander with no particular destination or agenda - how often do we give that time? I think it’s becoming a very important part of me and correlates with the ongoing nomadic urge. Wandering and wondering keeps you open. Open hearted, open to spontaneity, synchronicity and tiny, easily missed detail. This kind of openness keeps us receptive to other’s and our own new ideas, other’s stories and our own emerging sense of self. We can cultivate this, but it takes the doing of it, the ‘one foot in front of the other-ness’ and the slowing down. This is effort but in the most delightful and rewarding way. I have spent a week doing this, I appreciate my privilege, I do, but it has cost me nothing and the only thing I have really used up is a pencil.
Today, whilst lying in a hedgerow, as I do when weather and disposition allow, I gave time for nature to come to me. In this stillness so often I share a space, a pause, with many other creatures. Today I was lucky to cohabit the spot with a large and curious cricket with lazy flapping wings, clicking his way around me, and a small but curious lizard - how amazing in January! The sun was hot and my body was glad to allow itself to relax and sink into the ground on the edge of the small vineyard.
In the words of Mary Oliver in my favourite poem of all time ‘Wild Geese’:
You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.
I listened to a podcast interview earlier in the day, on the beginning of another walk, with Nina Simons on the Accidental Gods channel. She suggests taking walks in nature and seeing what might come through you. I like this notion when drawing too - you never know what you will get within this mode of inquiry as long as you stay open and curious. Actually the whole interview was encouraging and inspiring - especially for women who aspire to lead, or in a small way do something towards making this world a better place.
Here’s a quote from the interviewer about the episode:
Nina is (as well as leader and visionary in the deepest sense, and an elder) also a writer. She's a co-author of 'MoonRise: the Power of Women Leading from the Heart' and then more recently, she wrote Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership, which is the kind of book that opens new doors, it's got the crackle of authenticity and the deep wisdom of someone who really does listen, to the earth, to other elders, to her own body, who has the capacity to walk the earth, asking, 'what wants to come through me?' without presuming to know the answer and then the integrity to write what comes. And what came in that particular walk was this: "This is no time for small talk. This is a time for mythmaking. This is a time for epic poetry. This is a time to tell the tales that will become our compass for the days ahead. "
You can listen here:
I want to thank my friend Saffi Price for pointing me in the direction of this - it was right up my street and I love the bit about small conversations to be had and painting and drawing your dreams.
The other thing I have been pondering is the concept of A/R/Tography. I want to write some more about this but you can find out in a little video by fellow researcher Emily Wilkinson over here - she makes it clear:
I have been interested for some time in the concept but it struck me today how the academic Rita Irwin identified the idea of A/R/Tography as a portal - an opening to what others can’t necessarily see but something comes through.
My walkings and drawings have pointed me, via their portals, towards that which I keep coming back to. It’s personal really and not necessarily something to share here but it keeps coming back and back - that’s when you know it’s important and fundamental to your soul.
That’s all for today but hopefully you too can get out, go slow, draw something or just look at the sky some time soon - and see what comes through you.
Speak soon!! A bientôt!!
Before I go here’s a reminder of ‘Wild Geese’ by Mary Oliver - I’ll have it at my funeral thanks:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
A Bientôt
Clare
A beautiful article Clare. Lovely to listen to you read. The poem is absolutely beautiful - I had never heard it before and it resonated deeply.
I love this Clare. So pleased the podcast resonated.