Note from our Founder
A note from our Founder- Peter Watkins:
Hello everyone
Here we all are approaching week 12 of lock-down. Reports are beginning to percolate up through the national media about the increase in mental health issues around the country. This is no surprise. Prolonged Isolation, in this anxious time of contagion, can be hard bear for many. I want to say to all Inside Out members who might be suffering at this time of crisis, we are thinking of you; we are holding you in our hearts and minds until there can be a safe return to our face to face workshop programme. Meantime whatever your situation, try and stay creative; link with our workshops on- line if you can; allow your imaginations to roam freely in a way your physical self, just at the moment, cannot. The arts can be a great source of consolation and inspiration to you.
Keep a creative journal; write a poem; a piece of short fiction; a graphic story; write about nature; write a piece of creative nonfiction.
Put some music on and dance every day!
What I’m finding sustaining in this time of isolation, apart from writing & a daily bop around my sitting room, is to look more; usually we are too busy rushing on to the next piece of living to be mindful of the ‘ordinary’ beauty that surrounds us. I’m walking every day & enjoying the tree’s, the wild flowers, birds & their fledgling young, There’s a creative link between walking and writing – perhaps the other arts too? Walking seems to release us from everyday tensions & preoccupations; it frees the imagination. Wordsworth was a prodigious walker and found many of the images & ideas for his poetry during his wanderings through the landscape of the lake district.
There’s an interesting piece of Latin wisdom attributed to St Augustine – ‘solvitur ambulando’ which roughly means the solution is to be found in walking. Bruce Chatwin the traveller and writer believed passionately that ‘walking is the sovereign remedy for every mental travail’. So go out and walk if you can, if not fill your senses with the gifts of nature wherever & however that’s possible.
All good wishes & warmest thoughts
Peter
Co- Founder Inside Out Community
I love green tunnels. This one is to be found along the sailors path from Snape to Aldeburgh.
