This is part two of a two-part reflection on the Fool and Somatic IFS week that took place in Bristol on 16-20 February this year. 

For context, start with part one.

This blog features writing from two of the participants.

The first piece, 'Frogspawn,' was written by Helyn Wilder, after spending time by the pond in the Easter Gardens, up the road from our training space. Photos of the Easter Gardens are by fellow participant, Lucie Wild.

The second piece, written by Bess Spencer, features a poem that Bess wrote after attending my 5-day Fools School in 2019. Bess read the poem, titled 'To be seen is not a passive act,' in our closing circle at the end of our Fooling + Somatic IFS lab in 2026. They've written a short introduction to the poem for this blog, which includes some of their experiences through the Fool + Somatic IFS week.

FROGSPAWN DAYS 

By Helyn Wilder / photos by Lucie Wild

In the pool the debris of winter is underlayered by spring growth 

The cold water of the pond reaches up to my wrist a cool caress.
I dare to tenderly touch the mass of frogspawn and wonder where its dark eyed, lean legged birther has gone.
The garden feels forgotten 

A Rain bedraggled, sleeping beauty
Becoming wilder
The sign says it is cared for by volunteers 
I am glad they are erratic in their tending.
Inside the fooling buzzes with people wearing their parts inside out on their faces and on their sleeves and in their uncoordinated unpracticed movements.

I can begin to see what it looks like to be someone else unfolding

Not just my usual people watching, looking and wondering what illegible thought is that scudding across their face … but a full display in my own idiom.
The script for the book of our lives with all its alterations and crossings out is open

Sheets scattered across the floor 
Some pages are missing or stained by water, 
Possibly tears.
In here it is ok to turn them over and rearrange them to make more sense
Scraping back the years 
Excavating dikes, ditches and cesspits of personality.
The original manuscript is so delicate and valuable it is locked in a glass case in a museum with only 2 pages visible  ..

That is the I the outside world sees .. 

Having my pages turned and poured over by fools feels like breathing deep gasps of air. 

Surfacing after a deep dive into a dark seaweed gully where a long strand of memory weed caught me and held me beneath for a moment too long.


Sometimes I am still gripped by the fear of being seen.. that residual sour, creeping dread as if woken from a nightmare by an alarm blaring Shame!  Shame! 

It is quieter now. Protected.
Walking back to my car at night the bright lights of welcoming cafes and bars distract my parts, reform my shell for now but deep inside I know tomorrow the self will unfurl and my parts will take flight and dance.

From Fooling in 2019 to Now 

By Bess Spencer

I attended a five day intro to fooling in 2019, an ‘all star’ group - though I suspect all the groups are all star groups to Holly! The five days generated a shared language and bond which jumpstarted my friendship with Sovereign. After we walked along the river together, the day after the course, I wrote this poem and sent it to them, they received it as ‘a warm hug of yesterday’. It was an honour to share it at the ending of the Somatic Internal Family Systems advanced fooling course.

Seeing the strangers on the first day of the course, I wondered whether anything could compare to my previous experience - and was relieved to find this sentiment mirrored by others in the first check in. I named Sovereign’s absence as present. They yearned to integrate  the different worlds they moved in: playfulness, therapy, queerness, movement … and each time I am in a space that bridges worlds I wish to share it with them. Their memory is a blessing.

My process during the SIFS course moved from grief to connection. Celebrating the wealth of connections that tether me to the world: present and absent; tended and left to grow. I was unsure if I had the bandwidth to engage with the course, but was so grateful that I did choose to make time for it. 

Fooling has had a lasting impact on my sense of myself and how I share myself with others and recognise others’ sharings of their selves. The SIFS course added a layer on to that, and an expansive language of parts that I now have as an internal conceptual framework. This poem speaks to the therapeutic relationality of fooling, and relationships with access to the language of fooling.

To be seen is not a passive act

By Bess Spencer

what do I expose,
where do I direct the gaze,
what shall I place in plain view,
what will lurk beneath the surface
and what will stay frozen like a dappled fawn in the landscape
invisible until nudged by a mother?
if the gaze penetrates
is the gaze circluded?

I circluded the gazes of the audience
as I exposed my vulnerability
not naked but draped in a scarf to shield her from being burned
and I exposed my aspirations, armoured in hyperbole
and my fear for the world, buttoned up in cynicism
diverting attention from my daring, fragile hope.

Walking along the river
I spoke of turbulences
and my new friend extrapolated the existence
of the submerged landscape that shaped them,
and their warm gaze reached deep into murky waters,
stirring sediments, releasing stagnant smells.

We shared impressions
building up images of each other
wanting the other to locate
what they saw in glimpses
in its place among woodlands and wastelands.

And my attention turned to the dandelions in the old concrete,
and to scavenging the warehouses for resources,
and small fish started to feed on mosquito larvae,
and then a duck landed to make her nest.

seeing in reflection
looking within
exposing to the other
reflecting the other

This dance of permission and exchange
so different from the violence of surveillance
it weaves a web around and between
gradually supporting our shapeshifting bodies
to rise from the boxes they had settled in
or been pushed into
and enabling them
to grow
and dance.

Big thanks to Helyn, Lucie and Bess for sharing their experiences.

Check out Part 1 of this blog for descriptions of what we got up to in the Fool + Somatic IFS lab, as well as photos, poetry and creative journalling.