Rooting down, unfurling, healing

With Natalie Eslick

Today, I’m bringing to you a guest column by Natalie Eslick, about a year of grief, resilience and healing through art and sketching.

Natalie is an Australian fine artist and writer. Her work revolves around creative acts of reciprocity to the natural world, to wildlife, and examines our relationship to place. She captures the lyrical narrative of the wild, combining the realism of individual elements into an imaginative celebration of nature, reminding us we are a part of it, not apart from it. She inspires in us a calm connection between our own wild heart, and the natural world around us, and her words never fail to soothe.

She has made a beautiful video of her sketchbook with a voice-over of the column — I really recommend you watch and listen to this one rather than read it! You can find more of her writing and artwork at The Wild Forgotten and The Sketchbook Sanctuary.

But first, some quick reminders…

• The Christmas card above (and other festive designs) is available to buy here — they’re all printed sustainably on eco-friendly paper

• Alternatively, you can upgrade your subscription to get a whole bunch of cards and postcards in the post as a thank-you gift. Sending these out and connecting with you this way has been an absolute delight ❤

  

And now, to Natalie’s video and words…

A space to root down and unfurl — healing with a humble sketchbook

This year, 2023.

Oh, I held such high hopes for it, after some big struggles with self doubt and direction in 2022. The universe held other plans though, and to be frank, it has been rather rubbish. 

I spent the first part of the year trying to convince myself I could find the bright side and push through, continue to show up in the same ways I always had. Even if it felt like an ill fitting suit, scratchy and tight in the wrong places — with a strange sort of smell. But it became clear that was not the case. 

There came an unravelling. In a way I see that as progress, this unravelling. The unpicking of a part of my tapestry that I had woven too tight, with too many thoughts of keeping others happy and feeling safe when inside, in my own heart, I felt the exact opposite. I see the ability to allow unravelling as progress. 

Somehow though, the second half of the year has been even worse, and most days I find myself wondering if this is some sort of sick and twisted Truman show, a celestial experiment gone awry, or at the very least a dream from which I’ll awake. 

So, as I walk through these hardest parts of the path, I am working on surrender, and presence. I cannot change any time in the past or future, I can only be right here, right now.

At the beginning of the year I started a sketchbook habit. Or rather, I guess I reignited it, because I worked in sketchbooks almost exclusively for the first part of my return to art some 6 years ago. I had to surrender to the care my kitty Sage required, keeping me on the floor of the lounge room beside her confinement for many hours of the day — she would wail in distress otherwise. I couldn’t work on building my oil painting skills like that, cross-legged, one hand in her pen, but I could work in my sketchbook in broken blocks, and oh, it was something that became a highlight of my day — both freeing and grounding. There are pages in that sketchbook that are honouring wild creatures, but in the strokes of pigment over the paper I see the love and connection of my relationship with Sage. They are a precious gift, now she’s not here to share my love with any-more. 

Later in the year, I was honoured to be with my grandfather during the very intimate time that he was transitioning from this mortal coil. I also carried my sketchbook to his bedside, and there are pages in there that belong to our cherished relationship, too. 

And after my Seraphina passed unexpectedly in October, my heart was so broken I could not find the energy, the will, to do much more than 15 or 20 minutes a day creating, and I did them in my sketchbook. Those pages carry my grief and the love I had for my sweet girl all while honouring a wild being with such compassion and curiosity. An act of reciprocity for the beauty I get to behold, to love, to grieve, to feel. 

That practice, spending time making beautiful art just for me, became my tether to the painful but exquisite beauty of this wild world that we get to walk through for such a short period of time. Between the pages of my sketchbook I am wholly present, I embody my emotions in ways that feel difficult to do otherwise. I embody the creatures I am studying — I can unfurl wings and run free through old forests on strong legs and padded feet. I have a connection to the pigments I am pushing around, and the earth from which they came. I am a creatrix, even as I am being created myself. 

So much of this year has been about surrender, and although you may think that working in a sketchbook is a way of retaining some control, and indeed I would have thought the same, it’s instead a practice that allows me to surrender even more deeply, whole heartedly, openly, with love. It is an exhale, a release of relief. I can unfurl, I can build resilience, I can be tender, I can be strong, I can be wise, and I can be a curious beginner.

I believe we are all inherently creative, us human beings, and that finding fulfilment and grounding and celebration comes from tapping into the creativity that makes our wild hearts sing. It may be painting and art, like me, or it could be sewing or gardening or cooking or writing or parenting or singing. Whatever it is, that space for surrender — for acknowledging our tender humanness — and the gift of presence are the very roots that support a gentle, resilient, life of curiosity, wonder, and reciprocity.

Finding that space is my wish for you, my friend.

Thanks so much to Natalie for this beautiful piece.

Until next week,

Tamzin xx