My initial mindmap was an exploration of the poem and what it evokes in my mind with respect to its title "Do not be Ashamed".
Wendell Berry is a farmer, activist and poet from America's mid-west with a particular love for stillness and nature, and horror at how technology has been recruited in ways that risk the earth and the land.
Berry uses the symbol of the heron in other poetry as a metaphor for freedom from the habits of mind that can cause us humans to do so much damage to ourselves and others through the stories we tell and the things we do
In this mindmap, I was struck at the extent to which the poem evokes for me themes of sexual shame (possibly because of the phrase, "ears wired to your bed". The poem was written in the late 1960's, a time of sexual revolution for women, and of questioning of harmful narratives that had caused the marginalisaton and otherisation of multiple groups.
I played with the idea here of open mindedness and narrowmindedness, sexuality and surveilance - good girls (the missing parts in the graphic say "don't tell -> enabling bullies and abusers" and fat phonbia, while iI include "childlike innocence" and "free" in the openminded categroy. Perhaps it's easiest for children to experience life from this open minded, beginner's mind place?
I wanted the montage to capture these polarities - light and dark, tightness and easy, freedom and repression.
I completed a second mindmap focused specifically on shame:
In another part of my life, I have been involved for a number of years with the Compassionate Mind Foundation, for whom shame is an important area of study with respect to supporting people in psychotherapy. Shame is considered a threat-based emotion within this paradigm, and particularly linked to sexuality and anger, and a fear of being "cast out of the group" that will drive people to mask or hide things about themselves that they fear might result in them being "downranked" within their groups. I played here with the idea of archetypal symbols of shame, sexuality and anger - flame, fire, passion, candles, underground caves, secret passages, the legend of Medusa etc, and also the links between our "ancient and animal" selves and some of the more difficult experiences that can result in a sense of shame and non-belonging e.g. domestic and sexual violence, dark experiences in life.
When I was thinking about innocence and wisdom here, I was thinking about life's journey from innocence to experience, and the wisdom we gain as we age in how we make sense of the good, the bad and the ugly of our lives. These polarities were bringing to mind the contrast of young, free, joyous children for whom (if they are born in fortunate circumstances) the world might seem golden, and older, wiser individuals who have seen life's good and bad and can breathe it all in and smile. I imagined an old woman, looking weathered and experienced but free, open and at ease: imagining someone who looks weathered, not picture-perfect, maybe on the heavier side, no longer ashamed but proud to be who they are in their own skin.
Finally I fleshed out some images for my photo search for the Storyboard - I was particularly interested here in capturing something that would represent life's struggles e.g. bullying and domestic violence along with the more metaphoric elements.
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