By Timara McCollum . . . My name is Timara McCollum and I live in Eastern Tennessee, in the Southeastern part of the United States. Today is Tuesday, July 21, 2020 and schools are starting to open in surrounding counties. The school district for our county is scheduled to open August 17th, 2020. Every parent soon learns the life lesson […]
By Joanna Law . . April My daughter came to me this morning. She will be 17 in May. I was watching The Andrew Marr Show and listening to Sir David Attenborough, then Michael Gove. It made for difficult listening. I put it on pause. I’m getting to know when my daughter wants to talk, but it takes a while […]
By Andreas Breden . . . Looking out across my hometown in mid Norway when the SARS-CoV-2 appeared I found the information about the virus and the situation presented by different sources difficult to grasp. I have at several points looked back and tried to understand my process of living with the virus without really having succeeded with that. I […]
By Monica Whyte, Alan McDonnell, Emer Loughrey and Elizabeth Ogunjimi . . . Introduction Who would have imagined that we would ever live and work during a global pandemic. Our lives have changed so much recently and drastically. The frightening Corona virus or Covid 19 virus has unfortunately become a very real issue in our everyday lives. In Ireland we […]
By Tamara Ashley and Alexis Weedon . . . We were writing and editing Developing a Sense of Place as the Covid-19 pandemic broke across the world. Travel was restricted and our geographical sense of place focused on local: our neighbourhood, our street, our house, our room. We had to renegotiate distinction as places for work and domestic living, schooling […]
By Nana Bonsu . . . Introduction This paper explores my experiences of an organisational response to the pandemic of COVID-19, whilst simultaneously on a systemic journey to transform practice. I use a number of systemic ideas as a means of helping me to make sense of my experiences. These ideas draw upon the domains model (Lang et al, 1990), […]
By Jasmine T. Chin . . . Illustration by Hayley Clarke . . . Knock knock “Who’s there?” Covid politics “Covid politics?…What? Who?” Ha! You’ll see… Oi you! Citizen! “Yes Covid Politics?” It’s your duty, not ours to save lives To hide lies Whatever your circumstances. You will clap to run the country Into a ground swell of positivity Heroism […]
By Elaine Grech . . . Sitting here in front of the confined space of my computer screen, I know that the story I would like to tell resides in my body. I am focusing on my breathing, and I am becoming aware of different sensations in my body. The gentle breeze on my cheek transports me back 40 years. […]
Siobhan Potter . . . …Poetry lacks the capacity to be cavalier and pass by It’s a drive by, connected to landscape in service to its collision potential The drive by shooting of the pandemic cyclist His spit weaponised, collides with bludgeon a word I never utter But I saw this and I thought of you and not in a […]
By Chiara Santin . . . I love jewellery. Inexpensive second-hand jewellery which I can carefully match with my daily outfit. They live in my bedroom in different pots according to colour. After carefully considering who I am going to meet, in which context, and what I am doing, I decide how to dress for the day. Then I chose […]
By Chiara Santin . . . It is strange to look out from my windows and realise that I can only see a tiny fraction of the world. Yet this is what I can now get to know so closely. It’s pretty much the same everyday, and yet I can start noticing small changes, little differences and previously unnoticed details. […]
Ray Becvar, Retired Distinguished Professor and Endowed Chair of Marital and Family Therapy, University of Louisiana, Monroe . . . Stan Amaladas, Baker College, Flint, MI . . . In this paper, we focus on the relationship between the pandemic (we shall treat it as a noun even though it is an adjective) disease called Covid-19, and people, through the […]
By Priyanka Savita . . . Illustration by Aparajita Shrivastava It’s everywhere, it whispers in my earsIt’s unsettling it’s eerie it’s uncannyI don’t want this ‘new normal’ to stayDespair is holding my hand but I want to break freeThese are difficult times. It never leaves me alone the voices of uncertainty enters the room to accompany meThey are everywhere. They […]
By Julia Jude . . . The invisible assailant Closed our Schools Workplace Universities Shops Places of worship Crushed movements As countries rushed to close their borders Catchy slogans cooked up by spin doctors Poured on to our screen Stay at home and protect the NHS Stay and home and self-isolate Stay at home and shield the vulnerable Stay at […]
By Gail Simon . . .
By Morna McDermott McNulty . . . Statement about the artwork These collages (each 4” x 6”) were made our of paper, magazine images, and original photographs taken by the artist and transformed into “art cards.” I made these “art cards” during the second week of quarantine as a way to cope with the stress of the unknown future for […]
By Paddy Palmer and Hugh Palmer . . . One side of the glass Paddy Palmer, 16th April 2020 Three weeks ago, I gave my son a big hug before he left me here in my residential are home. I thought I would see him the next day but it wasn’t to be. Lockdown arrived. Suddenly I found myself wondering […]
By Karen Partridge . . . I was forewarned of the events of this year when my young adult daughter returned home for Christmas, and suddenly and totally unexpectedly, was admitted to intensive care with life threatening sepsis. She began to recover just as the pandemic was taking hold. Hard to know how to process such a startling personal encounter […]
By Harriet Summerfield . . . Permissions obtained by contributor to share these photos of her parents and husband.
By Tanja Kuhnert . . . Praxis für Systemische Beratung, Köln . . . Do you hear this? Silence . . . . . . No cars No trains No airplanes No people speaking while going along the street . . . . . . like the earth is standing still and waiting – like the earth is breathing in […]
by Joanne Hipplewith . . . “… to be able to respond to the background ‘it’ differentially as we do, what must be in the nature of the ‘flowing stuff’ that we are immersed in?… what, actually, is our experience like initially, such that we seem to draw on a ‘common world’ in our efforts at communicating our experiences linguistically […]
By Rukiya Jemmott . . . Corona virus, corona virus, corona virus You cannot see it, or hear it or feel it, And then it has you, it holds you, it hugs you, it crushes you. My sister is dying. I wait I wait I wait I am a key worker, I must work, and help my families and I […]
By Paul Hibbert, University of St Andrews . . . Kyrie Between a moment unpursued,And an end that comes at last:Alone in empty longing, shatteredDays of sorrow will not pass. Kyrie, Kyrie Eleison And the bones that you have brokenIn these times will not rejoice.Chosen one, your tortured storyFinds each day another’s voice. Kyrie, Kyrie Eleison Futile, futile, repetitionDrags a […]
By Jenn McKinney . . . It was a month into lockdown when the brown papered parcel came in the post. As I unwrapped the package I grew more and more puzzled, firstly due to the soft feel of the contents and then by the vivid colours that began to emerge as I unpeeled the paper, small pieces of material […]
By Jenn McKinney . . . These are unprecedented times for all of us. What once was considered ‘normal’ is now what used to be (for the moment). We have entered a time of systemic flux (Murmurations Writing Project, 2020) where new ways of being are emerging and changing at quite a fast rate. We are finding that these changes […]
By Sarah Helps . . . Introduction The past 20 years have seen a gradual rise in research about and practice of video- or tele-psychotherapy. With the worldwide lockdown imposed in response to Covid-19, the practice of face-to-face systemic psychotherapy using the approaches, methods and techniques that have been carefully developed over the past five decades has become impossible. With […]
By Leah Salter . . . Submerged in the struggle to go on and on An earth’s-crust-deep echo of us Of community Grounds my flight Transforming anxious movement to soulful steadiness From which we may flow In readiness In fellowship with everything that lives And has lived We are simultaneously who we are Who we have been And who we […]
By Leah Salter . . . I have been thinking recently about storytelling and creative writing groups I facilitate and take part in with women who have been referred by (and are surviving) secondary care mental health services, in my work within the NHS in Wales. I have written about these groups previously (Salter and Newkirk, 2019). They are an […]
By Elena Tragou . . . In March, corona virus dictated significant life changes in all of us, all around the world. I, for instance, closed down my office and cut down dramatically on my outs and abouts. I started walking around the block keeping the 2-meter social distance for 30 minutes and when needed to stretch my legs a […]
By Clare Wenham . . . UK “lockdown” Day 47 . . . “You are your own stories….I see your life as already artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art”. Toni Morrison, Wellesley Commencement address 2004. I bought it weeks ago, anticipating a noisy, family Easter Sunday: salted caramel and vanilla, strawberries and cream. It’s clogging […]
By Lorna Edwards . . . I walk our shared paths without you, marvelling at the number of seasons we have shared. Now, the bluebells of Beltane cover the earth. I think of you and I know you are thinking of me. We notice budding oak leaf, bramble and fern, birdsong, tadpole and butterfly. The landscape is vibrant with life. […]
By Marilena Karamatsouki . . . Spot died on a Wednesday from congenital heart disease, which showed no symptoms. That morning he woke up having difficulty breathing. “I am taking him to the vet”, I told my husband over the phone. When we got there and the vet examined him, I saw his face becoming solemn. “How old is the […]
By Karin Hannes . . . Research Group SoMeTHin’K (Social, Methodological and Theoretical Innovation / Kreative), Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven . . . The lockdown will continue for another four weeks, so I have heard on the radio this morning. Quarantine. I am out of my public zone. My social, methodological and theoretical innovation lab is somewhere ‘out […]
By Szymon Chrzastowski . . . The Psychological Counselling Centre of The University of Warsaw, Poland . . . “Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the word Emily Dickinson I’m very busy in everyday life, dividing my time between academic duties and conducting psychotherapy. I also try to […]
By Freda McEwen . . . Chaos, fear, conspiracy and uncertainty The overwhelming chill of the unknown The fear of being attacked by the unknown The evidence overtook common sense The speculation, secrets, suspicions were more evidential than the evidence Impossible to reason with reason as there is no reason People held at ransom Imprisoned by safety and forced to […]
By Gaby Charing . . . I already have my death booked. After living for seven years with bowel cancer, I’m no longer having treatment. An end-of-life care package is a phone call away. I’m just stopped at the lights. Death doesn’t frighten me. I’m past all that. You, by contrast, weren’t expecting this. Yes, anyone can be cut down […]
By Michael McCarthy, Dublin . . . Two weeks in As the storm of micro cosmic entities hits The shores of our consciousness As a surge of feeling free From what I don’t know Makes me feel an excitement Not felt since childhood summer holidays Nothing to do And all day to do it A pandora box of unshackled imaginings […]
