To capture a seasonal love affair

It is time.

Writing has always played such a large part in my life. All my jobs have required me to write. I then taught my own children to write in home school and now I have reached a new space. This new space is, quite possibly, my final few years of my working life and I find myself reflecting on just how I go here. Like all lives it has been a punctuated with joy and moments that have been tricky to navigate. However, one thing has stayed by my side the entire time - my love of seasons. That particular love affair began when I was quite small and used to spend quite a lot of time on my own. I was fortunate to have my own bedroom when I was a child and my windowsill was always covered with wee natural finds I had gathered when out and about. My favourite walk was through a field beyond my school where I could pick wildflowers to take home.

Over time, I began to notice the different seasons and the impact they had on that particular field. I can still remember the excitement when I saw my first buttercup of the year and buttercups have been a perennial favourite ever since. Fast forward 30 odd years and I found myself uplifting my own wee family and moving to a small Scottish island. Here I found places to walk, gather and bring home on a daily basis and the children began to join in. Ever since those early days on the island, my entire home has been one large nature table. I retrained from performing arts to visual arts in my late 30s and was not surprised to see seasonality dominate my early offerings to the world. Now, in my late 50s, I have far more time to spend on my creativity and draw on a life time of noticing, recording, gathering and making art inspired by the shifting seasons.

My Patreon is all about seasonal creativity and I am blessed to have a lovely wee community where we fall down creative seasonal rabbit holes and share the experiences. The time felt right to extend my reach just a wee bit so I designed some books that I hope will begin to share my seasonal creativity in a different format. The first was a simple lined journal with some design details and the occasional prompt to keep folk on track in their journaling through autumn.

The second is a four season study of creative affirmations. A workbook that leads folk through the process of making seasonal affirmations capable of shaping our unique creative voices. The final one ‘Seasonal Creative Moments’ is an autumn activity booked jam packed with wee creative exercises design to both connect us to the season and allow the season to unfold deep in our creative souls. Inhabiting the seasons creatively is joyful and a huge part of my eternal contentedness in life. In a heartbeat I can be back as a small girl gathering wildflowers before taking them home to press or pop in a jam jar of water. I hope, in time, that my seasonal books (3 seasons still to publish) will find their own small corner of the world and inspire others to create within each and every season.

Note

Link to my author page is HERE.