The Retreat: how reconnecting with the wild helps you create better work

“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don’t go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

It was a strange set of circumstances that brought me to the shores of Sherkin. An unexpected invitation. A curious title. A split-second decision to return to the wild to write.

After a series of convoluted email chains, shifting flight plans and complex car seat negotiations, I found myself on a creaky ferry, sailing across choppy seas to the outermost edge of Ireland.

History cleaves to the hills and crags of Sherkin Island. Once the seat of the powerful O’Driscoll clan and welcome refuge for smugglers, the island population was decimated by the great famine.

Now, locals welcome gatherings of ragtag wanderers with open arms and heaving tables of hot tea and soda bread. We were a group of adventurers, artists and writers, seeking words and connection on the northern shore.

Over the next few days, we wandered and wrote under the watchful gaze of wild things, guided by author Paul Kingsnorth. Late into the night, in the haze of log fires and local whiskey, we shared our secrets about love, life and everything in between. The days were dedicated to roaming and writing in communion with the wild.

I didn’t produce any great works of literature in that time. I’m not sure I had profound revelations. For a few days though, I did remember. I remembered a girl who would run through woods barefoot, ride cows and take sheep for a walk. The girl who didn’t care for fashion or fences, but loved rock climbing and the feel of wet clover underfoot.

I remembered old lessons about writing. Lessons that I learned through hours of scribbling in fields, swiftly unlearned in classrooms and workshops.

Lessons like the importance of paying attention. There’s a joy in devoting focus to a single object — a pebble, a blade of grass, a tuft of moss — and trying to convey the essence of the thing through words. Somewhere between the word and the thing, there’s a truth and a story.

We don’t have to strive for our writing to be something all the time. We don’t have to struggle to make our words fit a certain shape. Our best work isn’t created when we write for validation. When we let go, stop trying, and just pay attention, then we begin to write something worth reading. It won’t be good yet. But it will be interesting. And that’s infinitely better.

I remembered the magic of storytelling. Stories are alive. They enter through our eyes and ears, and take root deep within. They shape our aspirations. They devour us whole. And we hunger for them, because it’s only through stories that we make sense of our place within the world.

There is an art to proper storytelling. Sitting around a fire and listening to a storyteller weave a world around you is an intimately human experience. Vital to stories are the images we create. Our wild minds transcend language and make sense of the world through striking visuals. Dark forests speak to us in a way that anecdotal conversation does not. When writing stories, for real power, build them around striking visuals that you carry all the way through.

The act of crafting stories is a service. It heals the parts of us that social media, therapy and infinite self-help books will never reach.

The world is always ready to receive a new story.

Most importantly, I remembered the wild. Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes:

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”

The modern world may dull our instincts, but the doors are still there. We know when we’ve reached the right spot to write, or draw. We know that words are coming, and if we don’t scribble them down on the nearest piece of paper, they’ll be lost to us forever. We know when we’re working in a way that is right for us, free from judgement and the need for validation for our work. We know when situations and people aren’t right for us. Our wild selves know. We know.

I remember the wild. I remember the way I would create when nothing hinged on it and no one cared. I remember the way a story flows from my dreams onto the page. And I remember the power of being an incorrigible, defiant woman who made good decisions on gut instinct.

I didn’t leave Sherkin with a notebook full of bright words or a story bursting to come through me. I left with clarity. I remember why I even picked up a pencil to write in the first place. I remember why I love creating, and why I never gave two shits about validation. And I remember the lightness of being my wild, fiery, defiant self.

If you are struggling to remember why you create, go back to the wild. You may not find what you want, but if you pay attention, you may find exactly what you need to keep going.

Shameless Plug Klaxon

If you require wild words for your brand then let’s chat! Find me at Rebecca@rebeccamagnus.co or @beccamagnus on Twitter and Instagram.