Dearest Natural Medicine Friends,
This is page 10 of the handbound, hand-drawn book 'A Journey From Here To Here' - made during 2006-7, as I travelled by bicycle, train and ferry - from Scotland to Slovenia.
My intention originally was to share imagery every day here on Hive, as I documented the book: this is the first time since sewing the pages together, that I am looking in detail at each drawing and remembering the journey and experiences at that time.
Unfortunately, I have been laid out completely for almost 2 weeks, and thus unable to share anything online. The power of the pain was such that I could do nothing but experience it. This is the first time I have been significantly unwell in many years, and it seemed to come completely unexpectedly and with such a force, that I could only focus on breathing and getting through each minute and hour.
The roots of this unwellness felt very connected to my having revisited this journey, this time in my life, the traumas that were embedded and trying to express themselves at the time.
It has always fascinated me, how our emotional and holistic wellbeing is hindered by our not being able/ allowed/ welcomed to express what we are actually feeling in each moment that the feeling arises.
Looking back on this journey, I remembered how liberating it was, to at least have the space to feel what I was feeling. Making the drawings and accumulating the pages as I travelled, seemed to free up all kinds of stuck energies and emotions... Looking back with fresh eyes and mind now, other layers have been able to unlock.
Though pain and negative emotions are incredibly unpleasant to have living through us, the mind-body-spirit needs to live freely and spontaneously: to be healthy, we have to be able to express. Not expressing in that moment in which we felt a thing - locking it away - can lead to all kinds of accumulated pain and negativity later on, which may have to be released in a much more challenging way.