creative writing

The Orgasm Tree

Finca Buenvino amongst the sweet chestnuts. Photo by Jenni Bradbury.

Finca Buenvino amongst the sweet chestnuts. Photo by Jenni Bradbury.

Very often, we begin a conversation with a friend on one subject and progress rapidly to something completely different, discovering on the way the most illuminating information.

 This happened to me last week. I was describing the climate at Finca Buenvino in Andalucia, where we run our writing holidays. I explained that whatever the temperature in the summer months, we can always walk because of the shade of the cork oaks and sweet chestnut trees that cover the dehesa - the wooded landscape of the Sierra de Aracena National Park.

‘Oh!’ my friend exclaimed, ‘That’s why the atmosphere is so beneficial for writing and meditation up there! That’s why your writers find it so empowering to stay there. Sweet chestnut’s a well known Bach flower remedy for encouraging new beginnings, transformation into a new and much better life. It’s a treatment for the "dark night of the soul," the despair of those who feel they have reached the limit of their endurance, it’s for a time when old beliefs and patterns break apart and make room for new levels of consciousness. It is the perfect treatment for when you are ready to open up to the light at the end of the tunnel, the light before the new dawn.’ Buenvino certainly has a magical aire, everyone remarks upon this. When I told her that the flowers of the sweet chestnut purportedly smelt like semen, she laughed. ‘Ah yes, it’s known as the orgasm tree because it produces such a surge of transformative emotions!’

The trees blossom in June, we’re there from the 16 -23...do join us.

The Power of Writing

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Because I’m far too often attached to social media, because I sometimes have a rubbish diet, drink too much and exercise too little, because I live too much indoors on my own and not enough outdoors – especially at this time of year – my brain is often a muddled mess of incoherence with an inability to prioritise. But, writing it down is the only way I know how to sort it all out…

I don’t need a room of my own, the ‘right’ chair, desk, notebook, pen or  scented candle to achieve this.  I need room in my head; not in a house or flat or hotel. Years ago, I came to the blindingly obvious conclusion that I write best when I finally get ‘round to actually WRITING – on paper with a pen. Usually, I don’t evaluate my own writing, any attempt is good enough for me. I am like a hungry child chomping up white bread jam sandwiches, when I write down what’s inside my head.

The metaphor that sits most appropriately with me is, that when I write best I am like a wave surging over the horizon, crashing onto the shore, tossing forth pebbles, seaweed and dead fish. I am a wave that pulls you under but then, spits you out. I am the cold, angry seas of Cornwall that scare me rigid. I am the massive surf of Costa Rica that astounds, delights and entices. I am the clear waters of Greece that relax and revive. I see the birds that travel with me, dipping their wings in my dancing reflections. I see the birds that feed gratefully at my feet, the oystercatchers and curlews racing in my shallows. I am so much more powerful that I thought, so sure of who I am and why I’m here. When I have written it down.

But before I reach this place my stomach sinks, my eyes widen and my pen quickens, sliding and leaping across the page. It comes from my subconscious. From the feelings I had as a child on a beach in Hampshire, alone at the end of a day-trip, willing my parents to stay a little longer. All my life I have run away to the coast, maybe I should live there again – in Cadiz? In Palma? In Falmouth? In Hastings? Immediately I click on Skyscanner, on Rightmove. Is it possible? Can I do this in January? Can I do this alone?

Stop running, Elaine. It’s not the sea I need but more actual writing.  When I write I can conquer anyone, anything. I’m Boudicca, Cleopatra and Oprah rolled into one. I need to listen to my own advice, my own teaching that has empowered others on my workshops, holidays and retreats in Mallorca, Wales, Andalucia and London for more than six years…

Here’s some advice on how to start…

Brain dumping: The importance of free writing, the spill-out onto the page that relaxes you, frees your head, clears your brain. No worries about spelling, punctuation or grammar. As Anne Lamott describes in Bird By Bird, ‘The Shitty First Draft.’

Give yourself permission to write: In a notebook, any old notebook, on the bus, on the train, waiting for the Doc, the Dentist, kids to come out of school. Put that phone away and get out that pen. Even a one-liner is helpful.

The unpredictability of writing: Surprise yourself with what turns up on the page. Shock yourself now and then! You can always tear out that page and therapeutically burn it!

Personal writing is not being indulgent: We need creativity, imagination, flights of fancy, day dreaming in our lives and a rant on the page is far more constructive than a rant on Facebook.

 

Music & Dancing

Last night I went to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho with my 28-year-old daughter, 40 years after I was a Saturday-night regular with her father and got down to James Brown. Gone are the days of smoke filled rooms but the atmosphere was just as sul…

Last night I went to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho with my 28-year-old daughter, 40 years after I was a Saturday-night regular with her father and got down to James Brown. Gone are the days of smoke filled rooms but the atmosphere was just as sultry and seductive. On Mother’s Day this weekend, my three kids are taking me to a hip local eatery where, ‘our Sunday resident DJ will be playing all the Motown/Soul/Disco classics that’ll get your mum on her feet’. Like I need encouragement.

I fell in love in the 60s to the growly vocals of John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson and gave birth to my first child accompanied by a mix-tape of Al Green and Bill Withers. Four years later, it was Prince’s Purple Rain that greeted my second son and after another four years, my daughter arrived to The Gypsy Kings. From my early years in ballet classes, learning the mesmerising steps of the tarantella and mazurka, music and dancing have fortified my life - and every live gig  is a shot of adrenaline far more life enhancing than a vegan lifestyle or statins. My memory of dancing alone on a beach in Costa Rica, plugged into my iPod while my man of the moment tried to stand up on a surf board way out on the waves, is an moment for me that symbolises freedom, happiness and how to be truly alive.  Weddings, parties, friends ‘round for dinner - any excuse and I’m up on the floor.  Even my weekly meditation class has movement, a gentle two-step sway to accompany the preparatory chanting. I hate gyms and am never going to do a marathon but the 15 minutes of disco dancing that I do every morning in the privacy of my own apartment keeps me fit, fills me with utter joy and puts a smile on my face all day.

And this is why I’m taking my digital music library and my Bluetooth portable speaker on my writing retreats in Spain this year; so we can all have the opportunity if the music moves us, to dance with the sun on our faces and our hearts full of  celebration for simply being alive.