A WARM WELCOME!

This website is for anyone interested in ‘waking up’ to their life or as Ben Okri puts it in his extraordinary novel, ‘The Freedom Artist’, ‘Upwaking.’ I also love ‘Falling awake’ which is how Jon Kabat-Zinn describes mindfulness.

I explore waking up through story, poetry and mindfulness. I’m a published writer and have written and produced many local community dramas and a few short films (some awards). I am also an experienced mindfulness teacher, trained in mindfulness based cognitive therapy. 

Or rather, these are the two aspects of my life that this website reflects.

From a character perspective,  5 words that might give shape to me, with help from family :  Curious, creative, untidy , warm,  dancy and ‘sometimes annoying’. 

WAKE UP UPWAKE FALL AWAKE!

Why do we want to wake up/upwake/fall awake to this life? Why do you? After all, it means waking up to what is harsh, unjust and frightening as well as what is beautiful, exciting, fills us with wonder, joy, love….

FREEDOM

I want to because it is the only route to freedom.

Freedom and being awake to this life before it is over. That is what inspires me.

WHAT WE DON’T SEE

How can we be free when we are going through the motions, constantly reacting like puppets to other people’s algorithms, to our own upbringing, past hurts, weird dogmas that we haven’t even begun to critique. All of this because so many habits/behaviours of ours are so familiar, that we don’t even know that they are there. A favourite poem of mine by R D Laing (a british anti-psychiatrist of the 1960s/70s) goes:

The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
there is little we can do
to change
until we notice
how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds.

PLAY!

Waking up, becoming more and more free also means remembering to play. Play can be serious or silly or just plain fun.

PLAYING IN THE SAND OF LIFE 						    Susie Stead

I will play in the sand of my life
Because it is sand
And its 
Running
Through my fingers.

Let us play together,
Let us build strange structures
Dig ditches and 
Fill them with water.
Let us create
Extraordinary shapes in
The sand and delicate
Patterns with shells and
Stones.

Let us play together
Create together
Argue
Fight
And laugh together.

Then watch the sea
In leisurely fashion
Erase
Our precious
Designs,

And let them go.

And let them go.

WELCOME IT ALL?

Can we welcome, or not, all that comes our way… That’s a challenge and a half. Rumi, extraordinary, sufi mystic of the 13th century, translated by Coleman Barks here:

THE GUEST HOUSE - by Rumi


This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honourably.
They may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.