I’ve just come to the end of a writing for wellbeing workshop series based around the four seasons. It’s been a lovely experience with a group of amazing women.  I’ve so enjoyed our time together. There’s been laughter, seriousness, cups of tea, shells, art cards, talking and, of course, plenty of writing.

The four seasons theme resonates for me with our own seasons of life – thinking about the world around us and the way things change in that external world is something I find reassuring when I am in the midst of a difficult cycle of my life.

The way the natural world responds to the seasons can be a comfort to us if we take time outside of ourselves to notice it. We may be feeling low and dark, the world a cold and heartless place, then suddenly we notice the trees at the end of the garden are sprouting with fernlike new growth.  They were there waiting there all along, ready to burst forth, to lift our spirits and ring in Spring once more. The heady days of Summer sun are soon upon us and we can play outdoors with ease. Then it is time for the harvests of Autumn, for reflection and letting go the old. Then Winter comes, with its plea to us to take time to rest and renew ourselves, to make ourselves ready again for the Spring, which we know will come again. These are nature’s messages to us.

Many poets have ruminated on the feelings associated with the seasons and with the cycle of life and death and rebirth. There is rich stuff there to be mined, in the poetry of others, and in our own thoughts and feelings about these topics and I’ve really enjoyed exploring them with the wonderful women in my Friday writing group over the course of the last month. I’m looking forward to starting again in September – perhaps with an ‘end of summer’ series. 

If you’re interested in trying this out for yourself, check out my events page where I’ll be listing the September workshop dates when they’re ready to go. In the meantime, I’m also running a drop-in social writing night at The Victoria Inn in Westbury on Trym on the last Wednesday of the month in May and June. It’s £4 for an hour of fun writes starting at 8PM.

And there’s a beautiful collection that poetryheals.com has put together of quotes about how poetry and writing are healing here.