Another month has passed and another writing circle is complete. A smaller group this time, yet it is super powerful and insightful to share a creative space with likeminded individuals who have a passion for the written word. The inspiration this week was ‘Five Things’; these five things then formed the framework for our warm up exercises, those being to list five things that annoy (*iss) us off, five things my old school friends would say about me, and five things that I want to achieve in this life time. Our pens got writing.
Go where your energy takes you
With our responses gathered, we were then asked to quickly pick up five items from around us and tell the group what they were. From here we were invited to pick one of the items we’d selected and to write five words we associated with it, a second item to write a memory, a third to write the best thing about it, the fourth to write five words that describe it, and finally the fifth to capture if this object could speak, what would it say. Our response to these questions is not something to heavily think about, the idea is to be intuitive and to go with the first thing you get. Some of my answers surprised me, others made me laugh, but mostly it was a fun exercise to participate in and then share our responses with the group.
After, a rather poignant question followed… “What is the story your soul wants to hear?” Where is the energy in the prompts you’ve written? In the interest of sharing, unfiltered, here’s what I wrote…
I am not the person I was before,
The me that held quiet and hid behind the door,
I once was bullied with words and emotion,
Children can be cruel with the words they spout,
The words that fly across the playground as they shout.
I was fragile and scared,
Afraid to be me,
Socially inept and quite; shy and boring,
Everyone probably reduced to snoring.
But I did have friends,
I remember now,
Not the ones from Ashcombe,
Born from a cow.
Anna and Heidi were always there,
We stuck together a bit like glue,
Laughing and being silly, we really weren’t cool,
But who really cares when you’re at school?
We had lots of fun on trips to Wales,
Swimming in the sea probably looking for whales,
Spouting water from jets that at night time sparkled,
Lighting the surface with shimmer and grace.
North Wales and Devon were totally fun places,
We adventured to the beach for my 18th birthday,
So many fun memories flooding back to be now,
These weren’t born from the cow.
Fast forward to the last 10 years,
And with my friendships I have no fears,
I’m comfortable being me in my own skin,
Sometimes with the help of gin.
My Leopard wreaks havoc when these friends come to stay,
Games endlessly played into the dark night of day,
We laugh, we dance, we sing, we chant,
We swim naked too when we have the chance,
They’ve seen all of me, Worts and all,
Yet still they come back for laughter galore.
The Leopard spells joy and celebration,
Laughter from every nation,
British, French, Italian, Sardinian and Australian,
Our intuitive minds are our line of communication,
We’ve travelled together, holidayed too,
To the French Riviera and the real Africa – not a Zoo.
Soul Safari is our energy and vibe,
These people truly are my tribe,
They accept me for who I am,
Happy, and sad, and resting in the sand.
Joy is the word I want to remember,
I feel it’s important to feel joy and surrender,
Surrender to the warmth that is within,
There’s nothing to hide, no immoral, immortal sin.
Laugher and friendship bring me back to me,
The me that’s short for EP,
EP has EB the funny skin thing,
That I don’t let stop me doing anything.
BE the difference,
BE the change,
BE the energy,
BE insane,
Insanely happy,
Insanely joyful,
Insanely loving,
With my heart full.
Thank you for giving me the space to write,
They’re beautiful these sessions as my pen takes flight,
High into the clouds, way up in the sky,
Enabling my creativity to explode like a custard pie!
I prefer custard tarts if I’m brutally honest,
Have I always been so modest,
I’m not even sure what that really means,
But what’s lovely here is I feel heard and seen.
Thank you for this space,
Thank you for this time,
I sense it’s time for us all to shine.
My bottom is numb so I’m going for a wee,
I’m also going to stretch like a tree,
A tree with its roots that are strong and vast,
A tree that’s looking forward not anchored to the past.
Image on Pexels, Leopard photo by Satria Bagaskara.
To understand more about EB, the condition I have known as Butterfly Skin, visit charity DEBRA UK.
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