Flamin' June!

The longest day has been and gone.  Like the last one, it was so dull and overcast that it went dark early.  Not very memorable, no Midsummer magic, no fairies dancing in the ferns, not the faintest hint of anything other-worldly or ethereal.

I like to light fires out in the garden on summer nights and stay out for as long as I can - tealights in the rowan tree, lanterns lighting the plants, candles in bottles.  Watching  the fire burn down then going to bed with a warmed face and hair smelling of wood smoke.
But this isn't summer, instead we are stuck inside a non-month that doesn't feel like anything.

There were no bees in the foxgloves today.  One got blown into the shed this morning, all dazed and damp.  Thankfully it was able to get itself together and fly off.
Rain has pelted the garden all day.  In the afternoon the strong winds trashed the mini greenhouse, plants and all.  There's compost and pots all over the place, some tomato casualties, a wooden chair was tossed aside and the Acer (a decent size)took a tumble.  I had to rescue the Gertrude Jekyll rose and put her in the kitchen sink, all other plant refugees are now in the safety of the shed.

It's raining still.  Sounds like buckets of nails are being thrown at the windows.  If it doesn't stop soon I'm tempted to build a boat, not necessarily with two of everything just plenty of plants.  A cosy bunk, tea & coffee making facilities, a telescope and a radio for the Shipping Forecast.

Hope the weather is kinder where you are.  May your brolly never blow inside-out.

Midsummer Fairies by Arthur Rackham

my dream boat :)

  

Feed your Head

I'm not talking mushrooms of the magic variety or a synthesised bunch of chemicals to bring on hours of hallucinations, but I am interested in an altered state of being.
I am convinced that my immersion in gardening, which began last year and evolved gradually, without a plan or purpose, has altered me.

It began simply as a safe place, just somewhere I would go and be, even with nothing in my head and over time it has become my way back.
I am not alone in finding a road to recovery through growing things. Coming back to the world, finding a new connection, being taken out of yourself.

It's a hell of a thing to discover that while your head is black your fingers are green.

Despite the fact that I have a compromised attention span that stops me from curling up with a book and going 'elsewhere', I can browse seed catalogues and garden in my head, in the bath, in my dreams.

I still collect books like talismans, to be reassured by their presence and the knowledge they contain.  It's a hard habit to break, and I guess it's also a small act of hope that even if I can't get into them now, I will one day.
For me it's books, not shoes or handbags or expensive lippy.

But my butterfly brain is straying from the subject...

The process of reading for me now is like pond-dipping; sometimes I catch things, sometimes it's too muddy and murky, but I persist.

On my to-read list currently is 'A Very Short Introduction To Sleep' by OUP, because those of us who find sleep elusive get a tad obsessed by the subject.

I have a copy of Carl Jung's 'Memories, Dreams, Reflections' because he is the man.  I keep it on the cupboard by my bed as a kind of psychological night-light.

Penguin books publish a brilliant series called English Journeys, boasting such titles as 'Through England on a Side-Saddle' and 'English Folk Songs' by Ralph Vaughan Williams.  I will have to buy more of these but at the moment I have Vita Sackville-West's 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Gardens' which is brilliant.  I liked Vita whan I first saw a photo of her in old-school jodphurs.  She writes in a total no-nonsense way in the form of newspaper articles, which my mind can manage.
To be honest, a muse to Virginia Woolf has got to be worth checking out, surely.

Vita Sackville-West poet, novelist, muse, gardener

I love that she was not afraid to have a go and experiment with plants and where to put them, not following an orthodox route.  Deciding to plant a garden purely of grey, green and white to magical effect at Sissinghurst -

By chance I found a book by Mirabel Osler called 'A Gentle Plea For Chaos' which, it promises on the front cover, "...captures the pure enchantment of gardening."  That hooked me, before I read this on the back:

"  A mania for neatness, a lust for conformity - and away go  atmosphere and sensuality.  This book is an appeal for a return to a little 'amiable disorder', to the sense of enchantment and vitality that comes with a more random and intuitive approach to gardening, to an awareness of the dynamics of a garden where plants are allowed to scatter as they please."

The first chapter is called 'A Compulsion for Trees.'  Sounds promising.

Since we are no longer being battered by wind and rain I've been out with my camera again.  Here are more of my lovelies:

The very fragrant Mrs Sinkins

Astrantia, bee-magnet

The gorgeous Gertrude Jekyll rose

Wonderfully scented Jude the Obscure

Flashing Lights dianthus with violet alpine

Violas, painted by pixies

Foxgloves

Blue Barley

Just so you know, I have added new shed pics in Shed Stuff too.

It's tricky

Just read my daily email from Moodscope talking about goals and climbing mountains, and that during a low spell these have to be broken down into bite-size pieces.  A messy kitchen can be that mountain, and deciding to wash sufficient things in order to make a coffee could be the goal.  It's not about the size of the achievement but the achievement itself.

Why am I telling you this? Because I have several boxes and bags recently collected from what used to be my studio and to be honest it looks like the north face of the Eiger.  Possibly a volcano that could go off without warning.

I'm struggling to get to grips with it, even in baby chunks of time, since making a decision about what to keep and what to throw is beyond me.  I don't value any of it, it's just a lot of mess rather than things with potential, work waiting to be resolved etc. Just 'stuff' without any meaning or significance, and it's tempting to build a pyre and torch the lot, but I might well regret this much later.

The trickiest thing is that when I do start to go through it all I disturb layers of history and memory that seems to be trapped inside everything, and get stuck.
So I have to go into the garden to be back in the present.



A few days ago I got some good advice, and I followed it.  Here is an update of what's growing in the garden just now:

Astrantia and honey lilies, beloved by bees

Heuchera, a brassy splash of red-gold in sunlight

Euphorbia, a riot

Camellia, no longer flowering but couldn't leave her out

Fleabane, there's no stopping this baby, it flowers until the frost

Jude the Obscure, first seen at Alnwick & fell in love with the scent

Hosta & ferns, great combo

Poppy & allium

Ravenswing, a gorgeous ornamental cow parsley

Solomon's Seal

Red Hobbit Aquilegia

Sweet peas & sugar snaps

Tulip & wallflowers - ok this was last month, but look at it!

 

Movement

It's not always the case that another day feels like a new day.  The past few inparticular have seemed more of an extension of the same - one long, slow day.

I am at my most weird-headed in the morning, no matter what time that happens to be, but this morning I took my tea into the garden and it was a living thing again. 
There has been some sort of shift.  I'm not sure how but that doesn't matter to me as much as the fact that I have moved towards something resembling daylight.


I've been looking at a book of Turner's paintings.  Thinking about him being lashed to a ship's mast to fully experience a storm at sea in order to paint the truth of it.  How in company at dinner he would rather watch the light on the Thames than listen to conversation.


Then I found some photos I took of Lindisfarne, which lead to Gertrude Jekyll - the wonderfully eccentric garden designer and horticulturalist, who took me straight back to Turner since she was a massive fan of his work.
He had a direct influence on how she would plant bold clumps of plants to create large areas of colour, for naturalness and expression.

There are always these threads running through your inner life, only you can't always see them or pick them up.  Sometimes they become a tangled mess in your head, which is never good, but things connect in the unconscious and conscious minds.  We are so much more than mere physical beings, yet seem to prize the physical and outer world over everything.


But back to Gertrude, who was a gal worth more than a mention.  A gardening legend, no less.

"Planting ground is painting a landscape with living things."

Gertrude Jekyll, painting by Sir William Nicholson

 

The Gertrude Jekyll Garden at Lindisfarne Castle

Gertrude Jekyll stayed at Lindisfarne Castle in May and November of 1906.  She travelled there by train with 3 shillings worth of Bulls Eyes, the architect and friend Edwin Lutyens and his raven Black Jack.
Lutyens spent most of his time making a cage for the raven whilst Gertrude explored the island, sketching and planting.  Evenings were spent entertaining her host and his guests by singing French songs, accompanied on the violin by the provost of Jedburgh.

Edwin Lutyens designed the paths and garden walls in January 1911.  Shortly afterwards Gertrude had added two planting plans, the first for the initial year, a mix of vegetables and annual flowers.  The second was for a permanent planting of shrubs, herbaceous perennials and a single border for veg.

 

A Hobbit-sized shed

A huge, healthy fennel

 

 

spot of sea mist

the beach in full Gothic mode

Gertrude Jekyll wrote many wise and wonderful words, but these are some one of her best - 

"The love of gardening is a seed, once sown never dies."

portrait of Lutyens

Bad place, again

There's a deep blue-grey shade in the garden where I have been trapped for days.  Can't seem to step out of it.
Inside it is flat, claustrophobic, lonely.  Can't think in a way that is helpful or might keep me safe.  It is too much to expect to be able to talk or write my way out.

All perspective has changed.  I've become small, with a dark angry 'self' heavy on my back.  Anger either turns to guilt or is only ever directed at myself. It is wounding, opens scars, makes holes inside I'm scared to fall into.

I feel toxic, which means I want to stay away from people.  It's not something anyone wants to see or know or be around.  I have to present a different and more acceptable 'self' but can't always do it and anyway, she's false.

If I pick up my violin it won't work.  If I open a book the words just slide off the surface of my medicated brain.  If I try and talk I'll draw a blank.  An unwell mind + a well mind = panic.  An inablity to know.

I am trying, but holy crap there's always another damn snake on the board whenever I move and not enough ladders - or they don't take me as far as I'd like. I go back all the time, but never to square one, which is something to keep in mind.  I have moved further than I think sometimes and moving slowly is surely better than not moving at all.

 

It's good to walk

For many reasons, and not just the obvious health and fitness blah blah.  Not necessarily out in open country, up a fell or on moorland - tarmac, pavements, parks, as long as you keep moving.

Walking was something I just did, without thinking of it as therapy or mindfulness.  From an early age if ever I got stuck in a particular mood I walked it off.
I was lucky to live where I did, there were plenty of places to go where there wouldn't be people.  My feet seemed to know where they were taking me while my head was otherwise engaged.

Sometimes walking makes you aware of what's around you, all the sights and sounds, other times less so - you're looking inward.
Sometimes it's political, sometimes (as in the case of Richard Long) it's art.

Some years ago I walked one of my favourite routes with an artist who used GPS to map where we went.  Why are we going here? This is a tree I like to visit 'cos it's huge and old and looks like an Ent etc.
The artist did lots of walks with lots of people and produced a book to record them all, the GPS providing intricate drawings of each walk.  Mine looked like a very chaotic net.

Back to the here and now... I have lost my connection to this much-used and much-loved activity.

Anxiety is a bitch.  It brings primal instincts to the fore, especially fight or flight, which changes everything.
Outside feels different, and so do you, your senses on full alert.  Everything sounds louder.  You feel acutely self-conscious and vulnerable, as if you are in a hostile environment - instinctively checking for exits.  This would have been useful to our ancestors who had to keep an eye out for predators, but these days is somewhat irrational.

You tire easily, have less stamina.  You find yourself looking down at the ground and after a while it seems to rise up, making you feel smaller.  You forget to look up.  You want to be invisible.  You have to think about your feet making contact with the ground and start counting in your head, thinking about breathing to manage the nausea and panic.

Something you were so used to doing has become hard, and you no longer want to do it.  And then you get stuck.

On the radio , a man with Depression  decides he'll walk around the country with his dog.  Being on his own seems to help, to keep moving also.  It takes him out of himself mostly, there's so much to see and hear and this fills him up.
He is able to sleep since the fresh air, weather, and the many miles he's covered are exhausting.
He bonds with his dog over the weeks as they form an attachment as companions.  He realises he can live with a lot less 'stuff'.  He smiles and talks to strangers, which is a thing he'd usually avoid. 

Yet despite all these positives, at the back of his mind he is thinking about the fact that the walk will come to an end.  He'll have to go home.  He can't just keep walking.  Then what?  Back to sitting on the sofa for hours saying and doing nothing?
I sincerely hope not.

"Walking is not just political - walking is the natural rhythm of thinking.
When we stop this essential activity we really do become the sitting ducks corporations want us to be."