Red Flags & Poppy Fields
Walking The Tidal Zones In A Constantly Shifting Relationship
As she sat with my image, she said to me, “and now, as this tide is at full ebb, what is normally out of view, is exposed. And there is value in exploring these raw places. Some of us find beauty there as well.”
Making images is one way I choose to connect with, and move, my process. Sometimes, yes, I write. But it is the visual, as I walk, that sings to and calls and pulls me. Like breathing.
It is medicine.
The act of making photos whilst being in an experience — any experience — is what marinates that image in the strata and the energy of my emotional landscape in any given moment. It is immediacy, captured and rendered. When you, the “viewer”, look at the image, you don’t simply see the “picture”, you experience the layers of emotional landscape coded within it. This is the language of the Soul; the visual.
I agreed with my friend. The beauty of the littoral zone has been my Songline all my life. Six decades. Mostly along the Eastern Seaboard and Tasmania in my home land of Australia, though in recent years, through extended periods on the north shore of Oahu, the West Coast and Waiheke Island in New Zealand, with more brief forays along Mexican and far flung Icelandic and Finnish shores. Which sounds like a series of exotic journeys. But wasn’t.
For, it all depends on one’s state of mind. Or, more precisely; one’s consciousness.
It all depends on one’s emotional landscape.
As my relationship — my Marriage — was a continuous falling apart, paradise, right in front of my face on a daily basis, did not touch my bruised heart.
Often, I simply failed to register it. Growing up near the beach, with water, sand and sky a loving and joyful constant source of nourishment, this was profoundly disorienting. And, a loud ringing bell that something was very wrong. Frighteningly and stressfully, wrong.
Such is the nature of an emotionally abusive relationship. Its trauma.
A friend recently asked me, “did you see the red flags?”
“Mate, there were so many red flags it was a fucking field of poppies. With the odd white flower thrown in.”
Ahh. The white flowers. They kept me hooked. They kept me reaching in. They kept me fed just enough to . . . addict me.
Actually, it’s a longer and more nuanced story than that.
One of much gaslighting and shaming and deflection.
One of confusion generation as plans switched daily and committments dissolved as a way of breathing.
Mostly, I am learning now, one of deceit. Openly called “strategy”.
And, a Story of carefully concealed Fluid Identities . . .
For a long time I had to keep silent about this. Could not speak, as we had a collaborative venture in photography and writing. Sharing images and words that portrayed the fairytale travel-and-creative couple. I swallowed my truth.
Participated in the lie, as I reached into and hoped for the light. Ducked and wove as I navigated the swearing and shaming and shouting and rage.
Apologised for having the temerity to ask for clarification as this was repurposed as my “insecurities”. My need for “soothing”, or “reassurance”.
liminal places.
tidal zones.
a loss of myself that was my own cause.
a wash away.
Three years.
Three years of walking heart exploding joy, and tender beauty and love both rapturous and soft. Two and a half of those years walking trauma and abuse and loss and grief. Hand in hand. Sadly, not in equal measure.
Three years, where I removed my crown, to align with another.
This is a Songlined walk.
A singing of Sorry Business.
A reclaimation of inherent Sovereignty.
As I sit quietly, and look at the resultant pictures of my walks, right now I see “loss” and I see “lost”. I see the grief impreganted in the pixels. I see the tide full out, as it must go, for the now, truly.
I’d like to see other things. I know, well I trust, that they will come again.
But for now, the tide is at full ebb.
I’ll write more about this deep dive into the UnderLand in the coming weeks and months . . .
Saltwater Songlines is a series of visual, written, and danced expressions of the littoral zones of consciousness. Of embodiment.
It is series of journeys through the landscape, both as live Events and as Online offerings.
At times, it is also a personal Story of Walking the Country of Grief.
Always, in celebration of the human being as part of the living breathing land. An embodied ecology of Place.
Join me,
Narelle xo
