Recently, I submitted a journal article, hoping to add to the discourse around trauma and consciousness, only to see it returned. The critique was fair, but the process stirred an old frustration\u2014the perception that only knowledge measured and defined within specific parameters holds academic weight. The experience took me back to the teachings of Nietzsche and Spinoza, and even to my inner “madame” of resilience, Madame Lola Montez. This bold, defiant figure from history represents a spirit unwilling to be confined by societal norms, someone who pursued love and art without seeking validation, embodying an unapologetic pursuit of self-knowledge. <\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/481\/2024\/11\/image-5.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nTrust <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Feminine or animas as a Liberating Force in Love<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout history, the contributions of women thinkers have often been overshadowed, misattributed, or even erased\u2014a fate that befell figures like Diotima of Mantinea. Diotima, a philosopher and priestess mentioned in Plato’s Symposium<\/em>, profoundly influenced Western thought on love. In Socrates’ account, she presents the concept of love as a ladder of ascent, leading from physical attraction to the love of wisdom and, ultimately, to the love of the divine. Yet, as her teachings were filtered through male voices, her ideas and her very existence became a matter of speculation, leaving her philosophy vulnerable to obscurity. Diotima\u2019s vision of love as a transformative force laid the groundwork for later \u2018western\u2019 conceptions of eros and agape, yet she remains a ghostly presence in the lineage of philosophy, emblematic of how women\u2019s voices have often been redacted from history\u2019s official record <\/p>\n\n\n\n Love, from the ancient wisdom of Diotima to the intuitive reverence I express in my own work on my next children\u2019s book The Butterfly Farmer, <\/em>is not something to own or measure but to experience and grow with. Diotima taught Socrates to view love as a journey toward wisdom and unity\u2014a process of \u201cbecoming\u201d rather than \u201cowning\u201d (Plato, 1989). In Anam \u010aara<\/em>, John O’Donohue captures this expansive view, describing love as a connection that nurtures the soul, fostering belonging rather than mere possession (O’Donohue, 1997). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In developing The Butterfly Farmer<\/em>, I found inspiration in this vision of love as growth and change. The metaphor of a butterfly\u2019s metamorphosis offers children a way to understand love not as a possession but as a process of caring, patience, and transformation. In the gardens and butterfly sanctuaries we\u2019re creating with the help of local schools and Donna Truwhyte\u2019s \u2018Enchanted Garden\u2019<\/em> children will experience love as care, witnessing growth and change in the delicate lives they nurture. The project, supported by my publisher Firesky Books and our illustrator Caleb Simmons, symbolizes a shift toward understanding love as something to foster and protect rather than something to acquire. <\/p>\n\n\n Trauma\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Love, Truth, and the Academic Stumbling Block<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n This journey through love and knowledge highlights the tensions in academia, where truth is often defined by consensus rather than exploration. Nietzsche\u2019s critique of established norms in Beyond Good and Evil<\/em> resonates here. For Nietzsche, truth is neither a fixed point nor a universal, but rather a subjective experience shaped by perspective, one that evolves as we deepen our understanding (Nietzsche, 2002). When I think of love\u2014and the ways in which our society, particularly within academic contexts, seeks to control and validate it\u2014I\u2019m reminded that not every insight \u201ccast from the taut bow\u201d of intellect must be an \u201carrow of defined and proven truth.\u201d Love, like truth, is a living process, and to reduce it to rigid forms is to miss its true nature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a world increasingly polarized by social media and influenced by materialistic desires, this understanding of love as a dynamic process may feel even more crucial. Love\u2019s vulnerability, its unmeasurable depths, challenges the status quo, pushing us toward a knowing that cannot be simply acquired or categorized (Sheldrake, 2020). This call to deeper understanding aligns with my PhD work, where I seek to bridge the knowledge of trauma, love, and healing in ways that can support nurses and caregivers, valuing experience over rigid academic boundaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Holy Longing\u201d \u202fJohann Wolfgang von Goethe <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTell a wise person, or else keep silent, In the calm waters of the love-nights, Now you are no longer caught Distance does not make you falter. The Call to Know Love Differently<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n In The Butterfly Farmer<\/em>, children and caregivers alike are invited to see love through the lens of transformation and care. By nurturing butterflies, children could come to know love as a relationship with life itself\u2014a practice of patience and reverence that exists beyond metrics. The butterfly sanctuary at Donna\u2019s Enchanted Garden aims to be a fully immersive experience, where the \u201ctalking tree\u201d and hands-on interactions with butterflies and plants bring love into an experiential, living context, echoing Nietzsche\u2019s call to live one\u2019s truths rather than merely understanding them intellectually. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Diotima\u2019s wisdom reminds us that love is a journey, one that values gentleness, intuition, and nurturing. Here, love aligns more with freedom and connection than with control or ownership, fostering a sense of knowing that encompasses all aspects of our being (Plato, 1989). The guiding force in love challenges the commodified, patriarchal portrayals of love, urging us to embrace it as something expansive, transforming, and deeply rooted in care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In my own work, happiness and love come from spaces of safety, from finding a \u201cquiet view\u201d that allows peace and silence to flourish. Working with Canterbury creatives<\/em> at a recent event for dementia support, I saw love not as an abstract concept but as a tangible presence in connection, creativity, and shared vulnerability. As we discussed happiness, I found myself saying that true happiness, for me, lies within places of security, where I can find solace, peace, and the freedom to be. Here, love is a foundation, a space of refuge and resilience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this journey, I am reminded of the expansive nature of love, rooted in both masculine drive and feminine nurturing. As Goethe\u2019s poem \u201choly longing\u201d suggests, love is a process of surrender and transformation, a journey that \u201cblesses\u201d us with understanding even as it challenges our comfort (Goethe, 2000). By reimagining love as a force for healing, unity, and growth, we can step beyond the limits of patriarchal possession and find a space where love connects us to all things, moving us toward wholeness and freedom. <\/p>\n\n\n Love\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my gallery, I displayed three pieces titled \u201cTrust,\u201d \u201cTrauma,\u201d and \u201cLove\u201d\u2014central themes emerging from my research and the deeper layers of my own journey. These works are grounded in the cathartic process that began with my dyslexia assessment paper. Each piece embodies a unique aspect of what it means to release, to heal, and to transform. These are not truths in any conventional, provable sense, yet they resonate with a knowing that feels beyond words, shared by those around me. Through this creative work, the shadows I once carried have been cast and cured in the art. What was once hidden now stands openly, like a collective memory expressed on canvas.<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Carolyn Oulton\u2019s co production of this dance of loves meaning feels like an invitation to honour the feminine voice within the work, a collaboration that will allow us to sit with and listen to the anima\u2019s quiet wisdom. Writing together, we can dive deeper into those aspects of love, trust, and healing that resist easy articulation\u2014especially as they emerge from our personal and collective shadows. Her poetic voice will bring a sense of balance and resonance, helping to shape this journey in a way that doesn\u2019t just skim the surface but roots itself in the lived, layered experience of being and becoming. Together, societally we could create a fuller, more textured expression of love\u2019s truth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This collaboration is about more than writing; it\u2019s about tuning in to those aspects of love and knowing that are not easily confined to the intellect but instead require a trust in intuition, vulnerability, and shared presence. Through Carolyn\u2019s insights, the art, the poetry, and the philosophy will weave together to express a truth that feels deeply grounded, as if responding directly to the anima\u2019s whisper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carolyn Oulton: response<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n When I think of love (or my own identity, come to that), gender isn\u2019t the first thing that comes to mind. Which probably explains at least some of the incidents that continue to mystify me. I tell a close male friend that I love him. He should already know this, but still, in using the words I\u2019m giving something extraordinary. What happens next is cultural code for horror: nothing at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I suspect most women don\u2019t risk it, and I can see why. The same may go double for men, I\u2019ve never been one and I wouldn\u2019t know. Certainly, I have one male friend who professes love once a week for anyone who happens to turn up \u2013 but then he\u2019s a vicar and it\u2019s in his job description. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Between women, it\u2019s supposed to be easier. Casual even. Many years ago I was talking to a woman with whom I\u2019d recently become friendly. Rather unnecessarily, she told me she loved me. And it was sheer panic that made me respond, \u2018I love you too.\u2019 Was I embarrassed or relieved when she said immediately, \u2018Oh, I didn\u2019t mean it. I just ran out of things to say\u2019? To be honest, probably both. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Notwithstanding this surreal exchange, I find it difficult to tell my female friends in particular that I love them. No I don\u2019t know why either, but in one case it took me forty years. I mumbled something down the phone (I struggle with phone calls at the best of times), she proffered a cheerful goodbye and hung up. And here’s the thing \u2013 I laughed like a cat, because I took it as read that she loved me too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps we\u2019re not reclaiming the word \u2018love\u2019 because it doesn\u2019t seem to be in trouble. But if \u2018I love you\u2019 is a clich\u00e9, why is it apparently so dangerous? Why \u2013 this is what I really want to know \u2013 am I not allowed to use the words outside specific, approved contexts? As a Christian, I hear a lot of sermons. I mean official talks in church, not unsolicited critiques of my behaviour. And one of the best I remember cited Christ\u2019s \u2018extravagant love\u2019. I\u2019m not suggesting we can get close to all this implies. But when I think of Jesus walking around on earth, I can\u2019t help thinking how refreshingly inappropriate he must have been. In our culture, the word \u2018love\u2019 is to be used in discussing chocolate, fluffy animals, potentially family members, or otherwise a person \u2013 and ONLY a person \u2013 with whom one is in love. It\u2019s not something to throw in the general direction of someone who looks in need of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Except. Perhaps. If it\u2019s not just something we say when we\u2019re off our heads on alcohol, or hormones or insecurity. If love is rather that commitment to valuing each other at the deepest level. I have always thought it was Matthew Arnold who said this, so apologies to Francis Thompson: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Love is an affection, its display an emotion: love is the air, its display is the wind. An affection may be constant; an emotion can no more be constant than the wind can constantly blow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My local vicar can\u2019t be in love with all of us (as I\u2019m friendly with his wife, that\u2019s probably just as well). And I have occasionally told someone I loved them without being entirely sure what I meant by it. Most poignantly, I knew someone with advanced dementia who told me she loved me. I\u2019m not convinced she knew who I was when she said this, and with half my brain I was responding on behalf of her daughter (whom I\u2019d never met). With the other half, I was feeling very privileged that she\u2019d said it, and deciding that I loved her too in some way and I\u2019d disentangle all this in the car. I think I did the right thing. But did I love her? I\u2019ve never been sure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When Tom asked me to write as a woman writing about love, I was delighted that someone I\u2019d met twice had the sheer gall to suggest it \u2013 and in a car park, to boot. But I remembered that I\u2019d once written a poem to try and think through some of these questions. And there it is in the very first line. I was 15 and excited about my first boyfriend of 3 weeks. All was going well until I went to see him while battling a seasonal cold. Illness makes me unduly emotional and for some reason I announced that l loved him. Inevitably he chucked me the next time we met. But wait. He went on to become one of the best and most insightful friends I had in those somewhat rocky teenage years. I don\u2019t remember asking, perhaps I didn\u2019t need to \u2013 but I\u2019m pretty sure he loved me then. I certainly loved him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How to Love Not Loving <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course I didn\u2019t mean it, <\/p>\n\n\n\n I just had flu <\/p>\n\n\n\n and it makes me a bit \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n if she loved me so much<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n she\u2019d had seven years <\/p>\n\n\n\n of school to say hello. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He was really a darling, <\/p>\n\n\n\n she was just <\/p>\n\n\n\n someone everyone liked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there\u2019s polite I love you.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n I love you<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n (I\u2019ve run out of things to say). <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m drunk I love you,<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n or this is exciting <\/p>\n\n\n\n I love you.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Somewhere, my God, <\/p>\n\n\n\n there must be advice <\/p>\n\n\n\n on how to deal with this: <\/p>\n\n\n\n She\u2019s worse than boring, <\/p>\n\n\n\n she\u2019s vicious when crossed \u2013 <\/p>\n\n\n\n and not less boring then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You know it. But now she\u2019s <\/p>\n\n\n\n blessing me with oil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And there\u2019s a word for that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n [first published in Burning House Press<\/em>, July 2019] <\/p>\n\n\n\n References<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Goethe, J.W. von. (2000) Selected Poems.<\/em> Translated by C. Middleton. Princeton: Princeton University Press. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nietzsche, F. (2002) Beyond Good and Evil.<\/em> Translated by J. Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. <\/p>\n\n\n\n O’Donohue, J. (1997) Anam \u010aara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.<\/em> New York: HarperCollins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Plato. (1989) The Symposium.<\/em> Translated by A. Nehamas and P. Woodruff. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sheldrake, M. (2020) Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures.<\/em> New York: Random House. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Tom Delahunt the #hobopoet and Carolyn Oulton In my PhD research, which navigates the complex intersections of love, consciousness, and trauma in nursing, I see love as something far […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111329,"featured_media":1341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[146],"class_list":["post-3766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetic-nursing-heart","tag-poetic-nursing-heart"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Jack Charter","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/481\/2018\/04\/PNH-Blog-Image.png","postExcerpt":"By Tom Delahunt the #hobopoet and Carolyn Oulton In my PhD research, which navigates the complex intersections of love, consciousness, and trauma in nursing, I see love as something far […]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111329"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3766"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3798,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions\/3798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/481\/2024\/11\/image-6.png\")
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For the mass man will mock it right away:
I praise what is truly alive,
What longs to be burned to death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
A strange feeling comes over you
When you see the silent candle burning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the obsession with darkness,
And a desire for higher love-making
Sweeps you upwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
And finally, insane for the light,
You are the butterfly and you are gone.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/partnersinlearning\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/481\/2024\/11\/image-7.png\")
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