This was just going to be a blog about my soon to be released new book ‘Finding Beauty – A Year of Nature Outside Your Door.’ I was going to be showing you pictures of the boxes of books, photos from inside it, telling you where you could buy it, it was all going to be so exciting, ready with plenty of time for Christmas, how it had been so much easier to gauge the timings involved this time after learning from my first book’s release, you get the picture …however, the year has not gone quite to plan, it rarely does. It’s been a difficult year for many people, myself included. I’ve been quieter than normal with my blogs. Various family health issues have taken up a lot of my time recently and I’ve had to cancel some book talks, work on retreats, craft fairs and holidays. It’s been a challenging time and to be honest, there have been points where I felt I was going under but the thing that has kept me afloat, that always keeps me afloat, is my creativity. This for me has been my outlet, a necessity in fact, for keeping me balanced and it has been my go-to lifeline for many years. Being ‘creative’ was something I felt compelled to do when recovering from cancer in my twenties. It’s why I worked as a creativity tutor for many years, as I believe in its healing and beneficial powers. Earlier this year I was interviewed for a podcast called ‘Grow Through What You Go Through‘ in which artists shared their creative journeys through difficult challenges in life. In it I explain my journey in more detail and some of the influences on my work, from very early days to the present, the link is here; https://www.buzzsprout.com/2084976/12089251-sal-tonge-talks-to-jo-jukes-author-musician-artist-all-round-creative
I’m going to tell you a little about that journey here, before I go on to talk about my new book, as it explains how my current life as a writer and song writer came to be. I am something of a hare. I have periods of stillness, going to ground to allow time for ideas to percolate and grow, but when I move again, I leap and bound in different directions, following my instincts as opportunities arise if I feel in my gut that this is the direction to go. I dare to trust them even if they feel scary and dare to take a leap of faith, which in many ways they are. I think that after having faced death close up in my twenties, I became braver at changing my path into new ways of being. Each step leads me onto something else, which in turn, feeds the momentum. Perhaps this is why I’ve transitioned through many different skins. It’s never been a logical career progression but more of a metamorphosis into another skin. Over the years I’ve been a teacher, outdoor instructor, jewellery maker, artist, creative tutor, shiatsu practitioner, healer, herbal practitioner, writer and musician. These identities may seem at odds to some, but for me they have all felt ‘right at the time’ and the common theme running throughout has been exploring creative expression, a feeling of healing and a deeper connection to the natural world.
Initially, creativity for me as ‘work’ came in the form of metal working. A book of jewellery designs emerged, drawn from somewhere I didn’t know existed in me after I had signed up for a silversmithing course at Stourbridge College in 1994. I was teaching full time again after recovering from cancer but wanted something just for me as a hobby. The hobby then became my work. Creating pieces in copper and silver and later enamels, pewter and glass led me onto painting, initially as ways of displaying the textured pieces I’d made and mixing materials in an interesting way. But soon I was wanting to paint freestyle, to see what came out on the canvas, and it came fast in an outpouring of expression. On a whim, I bought a three foot canvas and a selection of acrylic paints, I suddenly filled that and three more in a rush of creation on my kitchen table after I’d dropped my small son off at school. At the time, I was living in the Ironbridge Gorge and teaching drama workshops to children about the Industrial Revolution. The paintings were of pit winding wheels and wind turbines set against an abstract landscape of textured colours. These pieces formed part of my first solo art exhibition in 2003. The landscape in which I was living, my own ancestral industrial heritage coming from a family of miners and steel workers in Sheffield and hopes for a greener world were my inspiration. The natural world and our relationship with it continues to be the dominating theme of all my work. The paintings all sold and knowing they are out there on someone’s walls fills me with gratitude and amazement.
My creative output took many forms after that. Enamelling, pewter casting, anodised aluminium, metal sculpture, silver clay, free stitch machine embroidery, felting, printing, weaving, raku ceramics, drum beaters, wooden blocks…anything in fact, that I could experiment with. I embraced any new form of expression. But my real joy was in inspiring others to release their own creativity too and so I began teaching workshops in them all in colleges, schools and with a variety of groups, abilities and ages, exciting others to try their hand at ‘playing’, encouraging them to see what emerged. Helping other people to realise their potential is rewarding in so many ways and the results were wonderful!
Although I’ve written poetry since my teens, it stayed in a box under my bed and the ‘public’ writing only really started for me when I created my own wordpress site (jojukes.wordpress.com) in 2016. At first it was merely a means by which I could explain about five element theory and my work as a shiatsu practitioner. Then I made a series of ‘Herb of the Month’ posts over the year I began studying herbal medicine to compliment my shiatsu work, sharing old family recipes and newly learned knowledge. I was excited to be carrying on this herbal revolution and my song ‘Weaving The World’ was partly about this. Although my shiatsu practice is no longer my main work, I still do the occasional treatment for friends and it always feels a privilege to be able to ‘give’ a treatment in this way.
Teaching workshops to carers, adults with additional needs, looked after children, young mums and teenagers at risk took over for a few years and I had to juggle giving shiatsu treatments, running workshops and producing jewellery and artwork until the COVID lockdown came along. This was a significant turning point for me in how I worked and was in fact, the transition and catalyst for my book and song writing. After delivering weekly creative therapy workshops for carers for over four and a half years my work was about to change again.
For me, lockdown gave the opportunity and space to write. I had started to research all the Iron Age hillforts and settlements in Shropshire with a view to making paintings and prints of them after a friend had suggested I make a set of hillfort oracle cards. But very quickly I realised that my visits and experiences on these sites were leading me towards writing a book instead. It was a daunting and unexpected task, but hare-like again, I followed my instincts and went along with the journey as it unfolded. It turned into a kind of pilgrimage to the land and to the ancestors here. I was searching for my place in this landscape, as despite nearly thirty years of living in Shropshire, I still felt like an outsider and had a strong pull back to my northern roots. I realised as I built a relationship with this ancient landscape on my doorstep that I was making a much deeper connection here and finally finding my home and so the book title became ‘Finding Home – Journeys with the Hillforts of Shropshire’ and my love affair with the land here was born.
During the two years of writing the book and getting it to print, I also found myself writing songs, or rather surprisingly hearing them in my head whilst out walking the land and visiting the ancient sites. The land was talking to me and I was ready to listen. I played my songs tentatively at first around fires with friends, then on the retreats where I worked and people soon began to ask how they could hear them again, had I recorded them and if so why not? I had no idea how to go about doing that but fortunately I had a good friend with experience who did…the multi- talented, multi- instrumentalist, drummer, percussionist, song writer, Rick Wilson. Having worked in the music and storytelling world all his life and also having accompanied me around our friends monthly fire gatherings, I knew we could work well together and so last August we started recording my songs. Soon Rick was not just producing my songs but singing and playing on them and an exciting, creative and collaborative partnership was born. Our first album ‘Weaving the World’ was released on May 1st and sold out by 6th August. It’s still available though as a download on the bandcamp link below.. https://jojukes.bandcamp.com/album/weaving-the-world
Making music has been an unexpected gift and joy for me. It’s just another form in which my creativity finds a way of being expressed, but as I am used to working on my own, working collaboratively now has brought another layer of enjoyment to the creative process. At school I played piano, guitar, clarinet and double bass and loved making music and singing, but somehow life got in the way, led me down other paths and other things took my focus. Finding my way back to creating music in a reciprocally supportive way is wonderful. I am very grateful to Rick and his studio of musical toys to play with. Indeed, I feel like a kid let loose in a sweet shop.
Since the album was released I have been writing songs constantly and a whole new album called ‘The Ancestor in Me’ is now being recorded. This time, I’m playing on the Hungarian zither, lyre, drums, slates and clap sticks, as well as my guitar. The new album features true stories from my family and life experiences. ‘Common Land’ tells of my ancestor George Gibbons, who had to leave his life as a rural worker after the Enclosure Acts took the commons and most of his livelihood. He ended up moving from Suffolk to Sheffield to work in the coal mines. ‘A Life time of Digging’ tells my great, granddad, John Henry Gillott’s story of working down the pit from the age of nine. He then became a champion vegetable grower and lived to the ripe old age of ninety-three. One of my earliest memories is of him showing me how to tell the time with his ornate, carved Swiss wall clock. ‘She Moves Through Her Phases’ tells the story of a selkie-like woman who…’ every night under the moon, checking that she is alone, unzips all her skins, placing them on the ground, letting them go and flow like a weight slipping off…’ The songs dig deep into ancestral memories and ways of being on the land such as in ‘The Ancestor in Me’, ‘Water’, ‘In Suspension’ and ‘Up on the Edge’, whilst ‘Stories on Your Skin’ looks at how we all carry our unique life stories with us in our bodies. We’ll be performing some of these new songs at our next gig in Oswestry in a couple of weeks and have dates for festivals and performances next year already lined up.
All of this work and creative output has been percolating slowly this year as I have juggled family and work commitments with the long process of editing my new book which I am now, finally getting around to telling you about. ‘Finding Beauty – A Year of Nature Outside Your Door’ follows on in many ways from ‘Finding Home ‘. It actually started off in January 2021 when I was asked to write a monthly column for the Wenlock Herald on the Old Cemetery here. It was I confess, a place I wasn’t familiar with, but all that was going to change as my regular visits to the site began. I liked the monthly ritual of being in one place and noting the changes. A bit like my daily dog walks wandering up on Wenlock Edge and along the many footpaths and old drovers roads around the town. Staying local, just walking and visiting places on my doorstep came naturally. Lockdown had restricted us but I felt very lucky to live where I did, and as I said earlier, my husband’s health meant we couldn’t go far anyway. Noticing, observing, paying close attention, building a relationship with my immediate surroundings gave me richness in many ways. It’s amazing what you start to notice when you give things your full attention.
The monthly pieces for the Herald had a word restriction but I often found myself writing much more, extending them into blogs to talk about other things I’d noticed each month whilst out walking. Little things. Small details that added up to big things about getting to know a place and recognising a pattern of happenings in the turn of a year. Little nuggets like where the first wild garlic grew; where the first wood anemones would open, where to find the rare bee orchids on Windmill Hill, where the fallow deer like to take shade under Edge Woods or where the roe deer and badgers leave prints in the mud across the paths up on the Edge….
Other little things like where the deer sleep and leave flattened patches in the field by the brook or how deer graze and stand up on their back legs like giraffes to reach the new birch leaves in spring. How ragwort, although considered toxic and poisonous to livestock is avoided by the cattle near Downs Mill and given a wide birth because of its smell (it isn’t known as mare’s fart and stinking willy for nothing) and is literally covered in insects; hoverflies, wasps, bees, moths and bright red soldier ‘bonking beetles’ like the ones I saw up in the Old Cemetery, all feasting on its nectar rich flowers ….
Things like knowing when the hares begin their courtship in the fields by the old Roman villa and what time of day the leverets are visited by mum to be fed. Or how the autumn sunsets light up the sky from the height of Windmill Hill overlooking the town and fill me with joy as if I’m seeing the northern lights for the first time. Or the place where I now know to stand under cover to watch the green woodpeckers flit across the trees from the quarry copse to the old railway line. Then there is the Scot’s pine tree where I watched the peregrines noisily mating one spring near Shadwell Quarry, or the ash tree that has two holes, one with a blue tits nest, one with a treecreepers and underneath it, my special hawthorn tree with one shiny smooth branch, not covered in a glove of lichen like the others because of where I hold onto it each day in greeting.
Little things then, little things that build into big things about knowing our place in the world. And so over the years the book has filled out month by month into something where beauty could be found right outside my door. And now I’m ready to share it with you. This time the book features prose, coloured photos, a poem for each month and some seasonal herbal recipes. When the book is finally in print in a few weeks time and I can actually hold it, I’ll be shouting with joy!
