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| My beloved honeysuckle staff |
“For Earth to survive, she needs your heart. The songbirds and the salmon need your heart too, no matter how weary, because even a broken heart is still made of love. They need your heart because they are disappearing, slipping into that longest night of extinction, and the resistance is nowhere in sight. We will have to build that resistance from whatever comes to hand: whispers and prayers, history and dreams, from our bravest words and braver actions. It will be hard, there will be a cost, and in too many implacable dawns it will seem impossible. But we will have to do it anyway. So gather your heart and join with every living being.” (Deep Green Resistance)
Walking matters to
me. There are days when I feel broken, when the sea monsters that
move beneath the skin of my everyday rise with the tide and no number
of pots of tea will soothe them. And, often, that is when I walk; to
remind myself of what is solid, thriving, and bigger than just my own
wobbly inner worlds, to feel the edge between me and the wild, and to
know that that edge is nothing more than a width of a gossamer
thread, to brush a nettle leaf to feel the sting, to drink in the
vibrant green of moss in the frost-bright of winter. To breathe. And
yet, just the other day, I went walking and returned with my heart
broken. That matters too.
In recent days I
have come to know and love the little wilding apple tree not far from
my home. I always stop to say hello to her, touch her branches,
marvel at the saffron and silver of her lichen, congratulate her on
her crop of small apples, greet them as her children. On my last few
walks I have plucked an apple with much reverence and gratitude,
taken the sweet flesh into my body as a gift and a sacrament. And, in
this way, I begin to build relationship. It is a blessing. When I
stand with her I feel that there is no one but us in the world, such
is our connection of heart. I don't see the road or the cars going
by, the chainlink fence by her side. I barely notice if someone walks
by, which they rarely do. I am caught up in ancient threads. I am in
love. And yet when I drove by her for the first time since meeting of
her I suddenly became aware of how small and vulnerable she is. How
many would not see a wise, tenacious being with her golden apple
children but, instead, an old, unimportant tree with 'blighted fruit'
on a piece of waste ground that could be better used for something
else. And part of me wanted to cut those ancient threads of
connection before my heart gets broken. Only a few days later the
wildly growing hawthorn hedge just around the curve of the road from
her, and which had been laden with almost-ripe berries was cut back,
made neat and tidy. The almost-ripe berries lost. I lamented their
loss for their own sake and for the sake of the birds who have lost
their autumn harvest, and for mine. And so, yes part of me wants to
cut the ancient threads that have begun to bind me to the wilding
tree, but I won't.
In his 'Duino
Elegies', Rilke writes, “Yes, the springtime needed you. Often a
star was waiting for you to notice it.”We
cut the threads at a cost; to ourselves and to the 'stars' that are
waiting for us to notice them. If we believe that we matter, that we
are an integral part of this world, then we must notice and we must
allow our hearts to be broken...often a star is waiting for us not
just to notice it, but to cry
over it.
Not
long ago, in a little lane close by, I came across the
body of a blackbird
fledgling. I was in awe of her delicate beauty, I grieved softly for
the loss of her life, I felt empathy for the mother and father who
had hatched, protected, and fed her. I gave thanks that she might
provide food for the babies of another mother. I imagined a fox
taking her, being grateful for food without the hunt. I
felt connected in that moment to the dreaming of life where threads
weave and break and reweave in deep relationship, where one small
death supports another life, where
Life~Death~Life is all part of the same flow.
Truly, there is such great
beauty in that and I felt honoured to have become
a small part of that tender
happening which sang so
deeply of the root of things.
But I wanted Life to know that this almost-blackbird mattered to
someone, and I wanted people who passed by to know that too. And so I
picked some honeysuckle blossoms and
placed them carefully on her small body, crooning
softly to her spirit. The next day only a few honeysuckle flowers
remained. I thought of the maybe-fox mother and was grateful.
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| Singing the small sacred in |
This
reminded me of a time when I was on a retreat with a group of women.
Our time was spent on a
Somerset farm
in a small valley and, whilst we were there, some of the cows were
birthing their babies. It was Lammas, we were celebrating the Mother,
and we were grateful for the new life coming into being all around
us. But one young cow, pregnant with her first calf, could not give
birth. Her baby became trapped and nothing could break him free. She
died and her baby with her. The farmer took her up the track out of
the valley and left her by the gate to be picked up by a van from the
abattoir. And yet even in the
midst of such tragedy there was magic. Without speaking to one
another about it, without ceremony, over the next few hours and into
the next morning, the women began to walk up the track in ones and
twos, feeling deep connection to this mother who could not be. They
began to sing to her, give blessings for her life and that of her
baby, and to decorate her body with flowers. Someone who saw the men
come for her with their van said that they could not have been
gentler or more reverent. I
believe that they saw and they felt that she had become holy. We
might wish that her final journey had been a different one and yet it
mattered that we didn't cut off from what was happening, that we sang
the small sacred in in the only ways that we knew how. It mattered to
us. It mattered to the spirit of the mother
cow and her baby. And I like to believe that it mattered to the men
who came to take her away. I do believe that it mattered to Life.
"There is sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love" (Rumi)
And
so, just the other day, I went walking and returned with my heart
broken. I am grateful that I
have a heart to break. As I
walk on from the wilding tree, I take a path through a small wood
which leads into a lane behind some sprawling old
houses overlooking the sea.
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| A tree with cooking apples high above the sea |
In this lane I have found a tree laden
with cooking apples, have
gathered blackberries,
elderberries, and nettle
seeds, basked in the presence of plantain,
green alkanet, cuckoopint, and pendulous sedge, have
sung love songs to bees. When
I walk there I feel that I am walking with my Grandmothers. I forget
cars and televisions and shops and money and all the things that take
us out of ourselves and I am happy. Just after the apple tree there
is a curve in the road and there I found the most lush and magical
patch of wild medicine, for the body and for the spirit; a small bank
green and growing with nettles, hedge woundwort, wild basil, thistles
and, most recently, the first flowering of mullein, which to my
delight I discovered is also known as hag's
taper, hare's beard,
and beggar's blanket for the
downy softness of its large leaves. What
wistful acknowledgement of the vulnerability of those pushed
to the edges of our society
can be found in the folknames of our
wildflowers who know those edges so well. It is there that those of
us who reject the centre of things, and who often feel that we don't
belong, can find good company.
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| Green alkanet |
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| Hedge woundwort |
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| Nettle seeds |
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| Mullein ~ hag's taper, hare's beard, beggar's blanket |
And
so I have woven a deep relationship with this wildly growing bank,
have spent time there almost every day, delighted in it for its own
sake, for the abundant
bees and butterflies that gathered sweet pollen and nectar, and for
the wild medicines that I have harvested, taking pleasure in the
thought of maintaining my
connection with
that land through those
medicines as winter unfolds. It has been one of my greatest joys
since I moved here. It made me feel that I was home. I
have come to see foraging as the ultimate in mindfulness, for me at
least. It is a responsibility to take the fruit and seeds of a mother
plant, to feel worthy of claiming some
of her children as my own. It
is not something that I take lightly.
Glenn Albrecht, an Australian
Professor of Sustainability, has coined the phrase 'soliphilia',
which he describes as 'love and
responsibility for a place, bioregion, planet, and the unity of
interrelated interests within it', 'soli'
coming from 'solidarity';
fellowship of responsibilities and interests, from the French
solidarité,
from solidaire, interdependent, from Old French, in common, from
Latin solidus, solid, whole.'
So
it was and
is
with me and this little bank; I walked to get out of myself. I walked
and this little bank of wild magic brought me home.
And
now the green beings of that little bank are gone. Two days ago I
walked around that curve in the road and all
that was green and growing had been hacked down, just a few leaves
strewn across the brown and dying grass, confused bees still
searching for pollen where they had found it so often before and
where there was now none.
My first reaction was disbelief, shock, then realisation, the feeling
that I had been kicked in the stomach, anger, grief. It was just a
little bank in a world where so much is changing and dying, where so
much is brutalised, and yet it had been so very ALIVE.
Glenn
Albrecht also
has
another phrase, 'solastaligia',
the feelings of grief, dislocation, and loss we experience when the
environment where we live is damaged, changed, or taken from us. This
can apply to the planet that we live on, or it can apply to a little
bank of wildly growing things and happily
foraging bees.
And
the temptation is to disconnect, to
switch off, harden our hearts, because what can we do to save the
planet, or even a patch of wild just outside our front door. Why dare
to love when we know that our hearts will be broken. Better to lose
ourselves in the television, possessions, and addictions. Better not
to care. Sylvia Linsteadt has written that, “the line between self and the world is very thin. Perhaps it is almost non-existent. And yet we are taught to stay far from that edge –for isn't it insanity to consider yourself fluid with columbine flowers?”And yet, we have to be brave enough to risk that edge, to
dare being thought of as 'insane', the
'stars' are waiting for us to notice, without us perhaps they will be
a little less alive. Without
keeping our hearts open, without allowing them to break, we can so
easily become lost in disconnection, hopelessness, and depression,
collapsing into ourselves. We will no longer see the stars.
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| I sought solace in the sea |
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| And was gifted with a stone heart and the eyes of a bee |
Ecopsychologist
Mary Good has talked
about 'earth grief', writing
that these feelings are “intense, vast, and utterly overwhelming,
The common response is....to shut down, avoid, deny”. In attending
to her own earth grief, in staying open, she writes that she has
“tapped into a vast reservoir of my own resilience. I have learned
to withstand and open to my own pain, no longer turning away from it
in fear that it will destroy me. This enables me to allow for, and
hold, my own painful feelings, while at the same time remaining open
to the rest of life and the joy available in every moment”. This
is so important for those of us who understand that we were made for these times, that
we are the ones who are here to remember what 'home' truly means, and
find it in banks of wild medicine, in wilding trees, in family and
community, in the weeds that grow in the cracks in the pavement, in
the tiptoe of night foxes, and the scream of badgers, in the sting of
nettles and the comfort of nettle tea, in the bitterness of
elderberries and the sweetness of syrup, in the eyes of our loved
ones, and the clear
waters of chalk streams, even when we know that they all might be
taken from us. Even though we know that they might break our hearts.
How
can we learn to love through it all, to keep our hearts open, to be
willing to cry tears that others refuse, our have forgotten how, to
cry?
Mary
Good writes that, “whilst earth grief can be excruciating, it can
also be medicinal...it can soften our hearts to the preciousness of
life.” In
staying connected, breathing through the pain, we gain so much, so
much more than we lose. Lierre
Keith in her challenging and thought-provoking book, 'The Vegetarian Myth' writes about the Mayan concept of kas-limaal,
'mutual indebtedness, mutual insparkedness', the knowledge that
everything is connected to everything else. And I believe that that
is how we can continue to love; not by
disconnecting, by distancing ourselves from what pains us, but by
going deeper, coming closer, becoming a part of; truly we are 'fluid
with columbine flowers'.
I
hope to write more about my own understanding of kas-limaal
as the weeks go on, about how we are in deep co-operation with the
dreamlines of bees and the memory of reindeer tracks, how we are in
true
relationship
with the apple tree and the nettle people, not
as a concept but as a reality. For
now, it is enough to take in that we are in relationship. We are not
alone, or separate. Recent studies have shown that if we can connect to that which gives us a
sense of awe, be that almost too large or too small to contemplate;
the birth of a star, the slow movement of a water bear, or a million
other things both unusual and everyday, that it can lead us to be
more generous towards others, be that human, plant, or animal
community, towards all of life. We can begin to mend the
disconnections and have the resilience and the courage to challenge
the disconnection in others with respect and with love. These studies
have found that our sense of awe, of feeling connected to something
larger than ourselves, effects our behaviour more positively than
even compassion or love (although we could argue that they are all so
intimately connected that they cannot be separated). It is
disconnection that breaks us and it is disconnection that is breaking
the planet that is our home. It is disconnection that has brought us
austerity, the badger cull, suspicion towards refugees, bee decline,
deforestation. And it is disconnection that allowed someone to hack
down the wildly growing beings on my beloved little bank. They will
grow again and, in the meantime, I will hold the possibility and
knowing of their return in my heart through the winter, do all that I
can to stop it happening again, spread seeds, write letters, attend
to the 'hedgetemple' in the inner and the outer worlds, grieve. What
those who are disconnected perhaps don't know is that hearts that are
broken only become bigger and wilder and they notice far, far more
stars.
Further reading and links:
From Glenn Albrecht ~
Sylvia Lindsteadt: The Gleewoman's Notes ~
From Mary Good ~
How Awe Makes Us Generous ~
From Lierre Keith ~
