Light and Loyalty – Spring 2025
Wyldwards, Spring 2025
Hello there!
I’m writing to you from my studio which is drenched in sunlight. It’s so energizing!
We’ve had a very mild winter here, the lack of snow only amplifying the darkness. It didn’t destroy me though. I’ve discovered a new fascination with the night sky. Darkness has so much to teach me. Also, it’s kind of a privilege these days, isn’t it? In our over-lit world, true darkness is hard to find, much less sink into.
For me, 2025 began in layers of mist and smoke, both within and without.
Last year was full of big changes, which I’ve discussed in more detail here.
My family and I left the city we’ve called home for 14 years and settled on a small plot of land. It was more than a change of address. It was new schools and peer groups for our three kids. It was a different pace of life and totally new ways of being. Together, we had to navigate the grief of endings and the beauty of new beginnings. All while learning how to take care of this place and its community.
Living on the edge of a nature reserve got me even more interested in animal tracking. After many years of learning from plants, I realized there’s so much beauty, mystery and intelligence in animals I was totally disconnected from. Tracking animals has not only given me a deeper sense of belonging to this land and all I share it with, but it’s also opened new doors into my own unconscious and intuition.
At the end of last year, I also left my corporate job in the city and returned to freelancing for more flexibility. I was yearning for different ideas and ways of working. I was getting clear on what sort of work I’m here to do at all. As I commuted to and from the city during those last few months of corporate life, I created a vision board of what the next phase might look like for me.
Whenever I feel lost, making vision boards helps me explore and respond instinctively to new and different possibilities – literally seeing what it is that wants to come through.
The vision board that came together for 2025 surprised me. It was obviously calling in a more artistic life.
I’ve always been an artistic/philosophical person. On the side.
Suddenly it was asking to take up more space in my life.
To make space, I had to let go of some things that were no longer mine, and perhaps never were mine. Things that arose out of a crippling concern about what others thought, or a paralyzing fear of failure – both of which prevented me from showing up in the world with integrity and trust.
So I decided to set one goal for 2025…
Make at least one thing every day.
Not for the sake of more productivity, but to commit myself more deeply to a creative life. Which meant learning to trust my own voice while also building the necessary discipline and receptivity.
As Mary Oliver wrote in Of Power and Time:
“Creative work requires a loyalty as complete as the loyalty of water to the force of gravity. A person trudging through the wilderness of creation who does not know this – who does not swallow this – is lost. He who does not crave that roofless place eternity should stay at home. Such a person is perfectly worthy, and useful, and even beautiful, but is not an artist. Such a person had better live with timely ambitions and finished work formed for the sparkle of the moment only.”
For the first couple of months, I mostly just played. Still lacking any clear direction, I managed to push through the self-doubt (of which there was plenty) and make at least one thing every day. Sometimes it was a really bad drawing. Other days, a plant-dyed textile piece.
And then one day, after many days of aimless effort, something big came through.
Big for me, I should clarify.
It all started one normal Monday evening as I watched this Youtube video. Rio, my youngest child, had fallen asleep in my arms, so the volume was muted. I watched with subtitles only, my eyes jumping between images and numbers of years ticking into incomprehensible time, my imagination awakening in ways I could’ve never predicted.
Suddenly, my perception expanded beyond the boundaries of my body and Earth. We are nature, yes. We belong to a beautiful planet that is held in the inner fold of a cosmic arm swirling through the universe. A universe that has become so alive to me. And just continues to expand.
The next day, I threw myself into theories and questions about the universe until my body felt like it was literally pulsing. Something had seized me. I couldn’t make any sense of it, so I went out for a walk. When I got to the sea, on the other side of the forest, everything began to unravel. And I began to write – in poetry – though I’m not even a poet! And I’ve been furiously writing ever since.
I’ve shared a few of these poems
There are many more I haven’t been able to edit yet. I don’t know what to do with them all. I’ve never felt this gripped by anything before. The laundry has gone undone and parent meetings skipped. The lunchboxes have been filled with dried fruits instead of homemade goods. But what I absolutely haven’t been able to ignore is the next kernel of the next word of the next poem.
“I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not extend to the lost button, or the beans in the pot. My loyalty is to the inner vision, wherever and howsoever it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at 3:00, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.”
– Mary Oliver, Of Power and Time
So that’s been my year so far. Creatively anyway.
Oh! I also opened up a mini Wyld shop again. Just a few products so far, as I’m rethinking what Wyld will offer in the future.
Now that spring is near, everything feels possible again! Though it’s still some weeks away here, I can feel the magic of spring vibrating beneath the surface of things.
Have you started any seeds yet?
I have a whole tray of tiny seedlings sitting right here beside me. The smell is unreal. I’m so eager for dirty feet and hands again.
Okay, the light in the studio is so warm now it’s burned through me like a pile of tender. I want to curl up in the sunny windowsill and just listen. I’ve told you enough of my story now. Will you tell me yours?
What’s your year been like so far? Anything you’re dreaming or visualizing for the season ahead?
How does it feel to have the light returning?
xx
Beth
Thanks for reading my first long edition of Wyldwards! It’s a free newsletter so feel free to share it with anyone you think might enjoy it.