Trance Writing

I have been commissioned to write a story for the Royal Horticultural Society,

for five year olds. Easy. I tripped off  to visit their gardens and lay down early one morning, before the gates opened to the punters. 

Just me, manicured nature and a thousand latin placards.

I sat in the middle of 4 willow toadstools and gave thanks to mother earth for making this moment possible. 

"For what I am about to receive may I be truly grateful"

I sank into the earth and the beauty of the place and I heard the hunger of the fairy kingdom.

"Up above" 

a voice shimmered,

"their has come a time when people dare to walk past a tree without thanking it for the gift of life, what hope is their for us then , who hold the magical membrane of belief?"

It sighed and faded into a gust of wind.

Characters and stories, colours and songs followed. I was flooded with  memories, dreams, possibilities and responsibilities.

It was dizzying, thrilling, intense and so, so, fast.

I woke up to the  voices of the first of the visitors searing into my mind. It was deafening and disturbing. everything seemed intrusive and unbearable now that I had landed back into reality.

That was 3 days ago and I am still exhausted.

My note book is filled with talking worms and latinist butterflies.

Sometimes I worry about losing my mind, but then I  read James and the Giant Peach.

Storytelling at The Camden Roundhouse

Stormy Weather

I am having one of those days.

The rain is pouring.

I have just screeched through a double driving lesson.

I feel stupid. Vulnerable. Incapable. Lost.

Somewhere in my body there is a feeling that is telling me I am in the right place. that this is a rich, juicy place, a spring board into deeper clearer seas.

There are some things in Life; maths, driving, drawing, to name a couple. Some things that take me into an ancient lost space.

I can't hear anything, see anything and because I have shut down I am not learning anything.
I end up doing three point turn after three point turn but in this blank white world I go into I never remember any of it.

It reminds me of being at school. Locked to my desk, feeling humiliated.. instead of trying to work out the answer just reprimanding myself with "this should be simple, why do I keep getting it wrong?"

I wonder if I went back to school today I would get a label that would make it all alright. Or is it just human?

Do we all have these places?

I am going to have an unfashionable cry.

I was nervous about going to Glastonbury. I have been to loads of festivals. You know, sit in a circle, giving thanks, honouring the spirits kind of festivals. Oh yeah and one with my brother, where he spent most of the time in his underpants with a knife strapped to his head dripping in fake blood. Onlookers may have labelled him a casualty but he reckons he had a great time.
I was asked to tell stories in the Tipi Field with a group of fluffy storytellers and musicians that I have been dying to hang out with ever since I moved to Bristol six months ago.
How could I resist?

It was amazing, amazing!I Loved it.

I loved the fun of it, the scale of it, the creativity.

It was a feast. An endless banquet of vibrant morsels being served up with a smile.

I saw so much and heard so much diverse material that I felt as though every pore in my body had been turned into an eye, and ear and a mouth so that it could soak up as much as possible of the juice around me.

I returned home three days ago, hitching a lift with three journalists who wrote in their article
" we thought we'd had a great time at Glastonbury until we picked up a hitcher who happily told us about her stint as an erotic storyteller at the Jaquzzi Lounge at Shangri La.Now we feel as though we have missed out."
Venue 29th June 2008

(The erotic storytelling was just a bit fun I did for my old friend Emma Eastwood ,Glamour Queen of Hackney Marshes.)

Since I have arrived home my brain has been spinning with a carousel of ideas and inspiration.

I can't wait to fall down the Rabbbit Hole again :0)