Why write?

: alchemy and real-ationship

This is the question I was asking myself as I stirred my porridge on the stove this morning. As the oatmeal with its salt and almond milk relaxed with the heat and gently insistent, slow spiraling of the spirtle and released its starches and fibre to become edible, digestible and nutritious a similar process was taking shape in my mind.

Writing - why do I/we do it?

Writing - I take the raw ingredients (experience, memory, language in the form of words) and I place them in a container - the elusive ‘mind’ which I experience as a meeting of body intelligences - brain, heart, belly, skin - and I stir. I let it all swirl.

And then something begins to take form - the alchemy of meaning.

Meaning grounds me, strengthens my roots, reminds me - in a world that offers chaos with no compass - just who I am, and what I came here for.

I am here to make sense and to help others make sense. Without sense-making humans can be dangerous to themselves and others. Without asking ‘why?’ the human surrenders herself to the meaning of others, immediately offering herself to external validation - which comes (or not) at a price.

I write to taste freedom. And I offer my writing classes, workshops and circles as tasting sessions of this freedom.

My work has been story-based from the outset. Anyone in heart-led business soon learns that story - a patterning instinct that humans carry in their DNA - connects us - heart to heart. I have been sharing my stories publicly for almost a decade. I have learned about story from the greatest teachers, and I use story as an instrument. It is a transformational tool, both in the telling and the receiving.

Story creates bonds of recognition between people, which is why it has been crucial in our evolution and why it has become important again.

But Poetry holds a special place for me. Poetry is the ultimate freedom vehicle. Poetry seeks me out and often finds me, urging me to open windows and doors to let in the new. Each poem is like a new room (in fact ‘stanza’ is Italian for ‘room’) of furniture, shapes, functions and textures. And in these rooms magic occurs. We see the world anew, every time. We get out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary and sublime. Poetry is my temple. It has its rituals of word shaping and arranging, of cutting and snipping - inside the flow of meeting and receiving - so that the glorious words can take their places in relationship.

And the most magical ingredient of all that binds poetry and story is metaphor - the principle practice of journeying to the realms of limitless possibility. Metaphor is the language of the imagination. In alchemical terms it is the bridge between matter and spirit. It is the language of the body.

If Potency had a formula it might go something like:

Flow {(Imagination + Sense memory) x (Language + Receiving)} = Potency

And what is Potency? It is the sum of its parts. It is pure potentiality. It is the new kind of power that the world needs - the power to influence change through connection and bonds.

Two key offerings of Potency are the book ‘Food for Roots’, and the ‘Writing to Heal’ circle for women which is currently spiraling through the 13 moons of 2026. Tomorrow - Tuesday February 3rd is our Snow Moon circle.

My experience last night of this full moon was one of revelation - something coming to light. Remembering that the moon’s light is also the light of the sun and that the two celestial bodies that humans have been guided by for a very long time are in a dynamic relationship. They manage the light, hold us on planet Earth. The moon creates cyclic rhythms - the tides of the earth’s oceans and the menstrual cycle of pre-menopause women with wombs.

Here in our part of the UK the sun has been hidden for weeks by dark low clouds, and last night the glow of the Snow Moon was diffused by the mist making it strangely brighter and more shared. I have a sense that we are all still in preparation mode, unable to implement only able to be astonished and even shocked (some more) out of our collective sleep.

Humanity is learning how to be in realationship.

Okay, I have made this ‘typo’ so often now that I now know that I am being nudged repeatedly towards the creation of a new word - and this word is REAL-ATIONSHIP.

It means to be in relationship while being real. Being real let us remember is not the same as being ‘honest’ or speaking with no censor. It actually means to be present without masks or facades. It means to have all of our felt sensations - even the uncomfortable ones - available to our awareness. If we can INTUIT when to express what we are feeling, this can be highly potent in real-ationships, which rely on the development of TRUST. This is why humans are still ‘adulting’ - or as I prefer to say ‘integrating’ - trust is at an all time low. It must come back into play.

And this is why intimate, safe, non-hierarchical spaces where trust can develop - trust in yourself and trust between each other - are needed.

To conclude:

Why do you write?

This is a question we will explore and share in tomorrow’s circle before allowing ourselves to be guided by our the memories storied in our bodies to write and share a story - a story of how we are becoming who we truly are.

In a sense we are eternally becoming, eternally returning, cycling, spiraling, creating - if we are aligned with the life force. If we catch it and frame it in our own language (our real voice) we create a capsule which contains vital medicine not only for our own healing but that of the world.