Inspiration Island
How poetry soothed my soul in early motherhood and a shout out to a BRILLIANT friend and client...
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver
A little context
I original wrote the piece below for Mum Poet Press but they got busy and it didn’t go live on their website.
I gifted it to Zoe at
for her Postpartum Matters Membership Space along with some other resources I created as part of ‘Creativity Island for Mums’.I wouldn’t usually share such a vulnerable piece in front of the paywall.
I’ll give you that warning and if you’re not feeling up to a birth story (with a happy ending) mixed with some of my raw pandemic emotion maybe skip this one today?
Big Dreams begin with Me
Ahead of Zoe launching a BRAND new calm and beautifully creative (in person) space for mums and their little ones this weekend, I wanted to share it here and encourage you to tell others about Zoe and her brilliant work! You can find her on instagram here.
I started working with Zoe after we became friends carrying our baby girls in our wombs in tandem in the pandemic. Zoe and another friend of mine were both due to give birth in October 2020 and I was due two months later. To say we all had incredibly testing experiences being pregnant and giving birth in the pandemic is an understatement. It’s was hard yet incredibly precious!
Once the October babies were here there was just enough hope in me that it would all be ok when my turn came round.
I was beyond excited to meet my baby girl and hopeful all my work to swerve covid-19 would pay off and keep us both safe.
The postpartum phase was harder not because it was actually more challenging but probably because we’d all already gone through so much. Zoe and I connected a lot in that time through our mutual friend and yoga teacher Lucy Maresh.
There was some rage at the system, there was some in tandem healing and a calling - a really loud and noisy calling - one filled with possibility and rage and hope and sadness. Then there was a boat load of quiet activism.
Heart Centred work
Zoe had the seed of an idea to start something to better support women with postpartum care and information outside on the non typical medical routes. It was something we mums knew was lacking in society and the pandemic sadly highlighted that further. That seed turned into a HUGE tree with many branches and the word spread like wild fire. Given we have (and can make more) space for our voices as women in the online space right here and now and we are softly influenced by others doing the same, how do we do that safely and consciously when we are healing?
When things feel messy and misunderstood and difficult and raw?
As a mentor, I’ve supported Zoe for over 18 months through setting up an online presence, finding her creative voice, launching a membership and more holistically with spiritual development. She now has her own CIC - Postpartum Matters CIC and is fundraising and launching a besoke space in a building all alongside doing a PHD. I also NEED to let you know that Zoe bakes the best cake I’ve ever tasted!
It’s almost a year to the day that we hosted a Postpartum Healing retreat in my tipi space here in Northumberland for four other women. I remember the day she sent me a message asking if I’d hold that space with her - every bone in my being said YES!
So as you can tell, I just adore Zoe - I’m just incredibly honoured to know her and have been so grateful to support her heart centred work and cheerlead her path.
I’ll share the piece I wrote now but before I do HUGE congrats to Zoe and the team at The Hub. If you can support Zoe’s crowdfunder or give her a shout out on social media please do!
If you’re inspired to MAKE something happen and want some support - drop me a note here in the comments or press reply on email - I’d love to chat.
Meanwhile, my world goes on
(written March 2022)
I gave birth to my second baby Luna-Jean in December 2020.
Do you remember what you were doing then? What your world looked like? Both internal and external?
Amidst snap decisions to “lockdown London” and calls to “cancel Christmas” I stayed steady - none of it mattered.
Falling pregnant at the very start of a worldwide pandemic was a trip!
I had one goal – to bring my baby girl home in time for Christmas with my family.
And that’s ‘a version’ of the story I got to tell as we arrived home together collected at hospital by my husband and son on 22nd December 2020.
The immediate postpartum experience I had with Luna saw me immersed in Covid-19 lockdowns, home school for my 6-year-old and slowly unpicking birth and postpartum trauma.
The trauma existed because I birthed her alone.
My husband and I both tested positive for Covid in my 39th week of pregnancy which meant he wasn’t allowed to be at the birth. I tried every desperate bargaining chip I had, but it was me and baby Luna and an incredible NHS midwife and that was final. Luna’s dad would miss her coming into the world unless by some miracle (pun intended) she was born on Christmas Day.
Hopes of my local midwife led intimate birth experience disintegrated into floods of tears. I knew in my heart she would come on winter solstice.
In the moments that followed, I found strength somewhere and made peace with my journey. I was supported by friends and my yoga teachers who I’m ever grateful to.
Shortly after Luna’s birth, I signed up for NHS postpartum therapy because I knew I would need to hold space for the cascade of emotions associated with being alone in childbirth.
Birthing a baby vaginally who weighed 10lb 3oz exhausted every ounce of my being and being alone through the experience shattered me. The wait list was 5 months.
Waiting is waiting isn’t it.
I didn’t want to wait but I had to. Deep in winter and waiting for Spring. Pushing the yellow pram day after day around our terraced streets in a backdrop of winter.
Observing first shoots, then second then yellow flowers to match the colours I’d stayed focussed on. Clocking the letter pinned to the pinboard now and again, waiting for yet more, then more flowers to arrive.
I had one option and one only. To stay as present and ‘in-the-moment’ as possible and to snuggle up to the one tool I already knew worked for me; being creative and absorbing the poetic words of others.
“Tell me your despairs and I’ll tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.”
When my daughter was four months old, I joined Emylia Hall’s Mothership Writers online writing course. I adore creative writing and was looking forward to soaking up inspirations with new mums and fellow creatives. The sessions were so incredibly healing within the safe container Emylia held. There was space for us to be open, vulnerable and curiously creative with our writing. There were tears, rage and humour. We felt held and incredibly open and raw. It’s a certain space of magic in early motherhood to be held by another mother.
As a group, we birthed so many new creative works. Some made it out of notebook pages and into online spaces. Lots just stayed with us as a group and helped transform our difficult experiences at a cellular level.
“Don’t stave your soul like a grey Church mouse”
Spending time, energy and money on creativity just makes sense to me because I understand the positive impact it can have on my wellbeing.
Flow state, writing, art and the start and finish of a creative project have always made me feel centred and accomplished. With the decision to clear space and choose beautiful materials then make time comes the flood of dopamine and “feel-good” glow.
There’s really nothing else like it.
“Give me your tears. They will be my rushing rivers and roaring oceans. Give me your tired spirit. I will lay it to rest in my soft meadows”
In reading and connecting to words and poetry we are invited to escape. We are granted permission (if only for fleeting moments) in the thick of motherhood to be somewhere else.
To put down the weight of our collective pandemic anxiety and the sense of responsibility we have innately as mothers and just be held in words, in beauty, in the way someone else experiences the world.
To me absorbing someone else’s words in a practise of comfort felt like the biggest potter thrown mug of hot milky hot chocolate (with cream) on a rainy afternoon.
As part of my healing process, I read Linda Reuther’s words in her poem ‘And The Great Mother Said’ almost every single day.
The words gave me hope, a connect to support much steadier and more stable than the waiting list I was on.
Words wove patterns in helping steady my emotions as mum to a new born daughter, a neurodivergent son with emerging mental health wobbles and my own healing.
They were an anchor.
I didn’t need anything more than hope and I found it in poetry, walks and in my own reflections of my daily connection to words. Eventually the words of a heaven sent NHS therapist found me along with the wildflowers of late Spring and I’m forever grateful.
When Mum Poem Press published their first book Songs of Love and Strength, I bought it and gave it to the first new mum friend I met up with.
How have words comforted you in difficult times? I’m curious to know…
Claire x
***
My first book ‘Creativity Island for Mums – The Journal’ was self-published as part of an Arts Council Grant in 2021 as my daughter turned 10 months old. (I think there are two copies left)
She’s two now and I published a second journal in her first year. This one is out of stock at the moment but if you’d like one I’m keeping a list of emails for when I restock.
I offer a person centred mentoring programme called Inspiration Island for women who want to make more space for their creativity, wellbeing and heart centred work.
Wild Geese - Mary Oliver
Christina Rossetti Scribbles a memo to a young friend - Michelle Roberts
I’m so moved reading your story of giving birth alone, mid-pandemic. I too had a baby on the winter solstice, but 2 years earlier, when the world was a very different place. Words and walks have always been my saving grace, too, at times of challenge and crisis. Whether it’s the healing balm of poetry, a memoir to make me feel less alone, or a novel to escape elsewhere ❤️
Hi Claire,
I've been saving this post for a quiet moment which finally arrived. I think we still carry so much from those pandemic years, and our storytelling can be deeply healing. So much of your story resonates with me: I had twins in June 2020, I found the mum poem press a comforting community, and I hosted a couple of birth story retreats in 2021. Safe, warm spaces are always needed for new mums, but especially when the world is going haywire! I also bought myself a yellow cardi when the twins were tiny, I smiled that you were also choosing yellow to try to lift yourself. I came here via Gill O'Mara and am appreciating your work ❤️