Walking with Grenfell, November’s Silent Walk ~ When Everything Just Feels Wrong

Last month I shared my first experience of ‘Walking with Grenfell; a Silence Louder than Words’. I have just had my second. There are times when you would rather be anywhere than where you are, and yet couldn’t possibly be anywhere else and, for me at least, the monthly Grenfell Silent Walk feels like that. The Grenfell community have asked for as many people who can to be there and so I feel invited and welcome, and yet at the same time that I am intruding on private grief and imposing my own thoughts on something that I can’t possibly understand. And I think that I am probably right to feel both. It is the same as seeing film cameras and photographers there. It matters so much that the Grenfell fire isn’t forgotten, that those in authority know powerfully that people still care, that the walk and the ever-growing number of attendees is reported, especially whilst the Public Inquiry is taking place, and yet what could be more wrong than to film people taking part in such a raw act of remembrance. Often there are people hugging and crying on the pavement as the walk passes by. These are intimate moments not to be shared by a scavenging media which seems often only trying to sell newspapers or get clicks on a website, or with a voyeuristic public addicted to watching suffering but often little engaged in what caused it. And the banners. On this walk there were two types of banners being shared amongst the walkers; one, white with simple black lettering, calling for ‘Justice for Grenfell’, but another, more colourful, declaring that ‘The Tories have Blood on Their Hands’ and including the Socialist Workers’ Party address. It just feels not the time for such statements or self-regard. And I wanted to take photos, so that others might be encouraged to go along or see what can be achieved by human beings standing together in support and solidarity, but taking photos feels like a brutalisation. I did take a few after the walk had ended, because it matters to make it real for others who haven’t been there but the thing is that none of us should have to be, and that we are is an endlessly open wound. Everything just seems to come back to that. Over and over again.

But there is such sweetness too. This time, because I arrived before the walk set out, I was given a jar with a t-light inside to take with me on the walk. I saw that all the jars had been beautifully painted, mine with delicate daisies. There is such an atmosphere of being kind too, allowing for different responses to all that has happened, allowing those who live in the community to have different ways of thinking about what might happen now. And so many people come along, even on a dark and rainy edge-of-winter Tuesday night in November. It is heartening.

I have never seen the remains of Grenfell Tower in daylight, which I am quietly thankful for, but it has a magnetic pull no matters which way you face in North Kensington. Somehow it has become the blackened star that everything else orbits around and it felt so as we walked. We walk slowly, stopping every few minutes and just standing in quiet reflection and personal thought. You could hear a pin drop. The silence is something powerful, especially in the midst of busy London. It feels bigger than this small group of people, as though it becomes its own creature; something breathing for those who no longer can. And I feel that we have become ghosts. Towards the end of the walk we passed under a railway bridge close to the tube station. There were two fire trucks parked there, one on either side of the road. The leaders of the walk had stopped by them, remaining in silence. I was too far back to know what happened but the flashing blue lights on the fire trucks suddenly sprang into life and any firefighters who had been out of the vehicles got back in. I suppose that there had been a call. Imagine in that moment being perhaps called to another fire. I don’t know how they have the strength to do what they do but, of course, they do it for us. We were accompanied by police throughout the walk but they had little need to do anything and, as the fire trucks began to move off, we stepped silently aside to let them through. As they passed we applauded, just as I saw the community do after the fire. The silence held even then. It was deeply affecting.

When we got to the Westway where the walk ends a few words were said to us all by the walk leaders and other members of the community, mostly to call for more people to be there next time for the six month anniversary of the fire. In a high tower block I could see someone looking out of their window and a light flashing, probably a camera but it looked as though they were signalling for help. It feels that nothing happens there now that isn’t about the fire or a reminder of it, and I know that I have no personal connection with that place so I can scarcely imagine how it must really be ay after day. But the community cafe was still there twinkling with t-lights and a row of smiling women were serving free food. One day I might eat some but I still feel as though I shouldn’t be there. I am sure that many people feel the same. And it’s not that more people haven’t died all at once in bombings in Syria and Yemen, and in so many other places. Of course, a number of the people in Grenfell Tower that night had fled such wartorn places, which seems so deeply and horribly ironic. I don’t know why Grenfell feels so important but it is as though, on the night of 14th June 2017, the Earth slightly shifted on her axis and we have become trapped on the wrong side of things. I don’t know what will mend it and I’m not sure that I believe there will be justice, not really. How can there be? Because it isn’t just that people died. It’s the attitude that put them in such danger and which pervades every layers of our society. It’s that so many there warned of the likelihood of fire over many years. It’s that so many of us, without having ever heard of Grenfell, knew that what was unfolding in this country through the Government’s Austerity agenda would kill people and so it has and continues to do. My friend told me that she was weeding the other day and was clearing some of a particular plant from a patch of earth. She hadn’t realised that, unseen beneath the surface, the plant was putting out long roots, creating a thick web taking all the moisture from the plants around. She said that the roots were so strong that you could follow it through the soil as you pulled it up. Grenfell is like that; you pull at one of the ‘roots’ that might have caused it and then you see how far it goes, that it reaches into everything. But whether justice will ever come or not, it matters to be there. In solidarity and community.

On the way back to the Underground station I visited a walkway that has been turned into a place of remembrance, the walls covered in photos of the dead of Grenfell and a shrine filled with flowers, candles, and religious symbols at the end of it. As I stood there, I heard a tiny voice and looked around to see a little boy of around three with, I imagine, his dad. The little boy said to his dad in his sweet little voice, “Where is Hajiid?”* and his dad, sounding very calm and reassuring, led him into the walkway, pointed to a photo and said, “Here he is, here is Hajiid.” The little boy asked about another someone and his dad pointed to another photo, “Here he is. Look, he’s here too.” The boy was pleased, happy to know where his friends were and they left. As they did so, he turned and waved, “Bye bye, Hajiid. See you soon.” How could anyone’s heart not break? Sometimes I wonder how this country didn’t just crumble into the sea that night…

Silent walks to honour the dead and the survivors of the Grenfell fire, to express solidarity for their families and their community, and to continue the fight for justice, will continue every 14^th of the month at 6.30pm. The walk gathers outside Notting Hill Methodist Church at 240 Lancaster Road, London, W11 4AH. The community have asked for as many people as possible to come and walk with them in silence, because the silence will be heard. Alone, they will become invisible. It is growing in numbers each month and I know that it would mean a lot to them if that growth continued. Please do think about joining them if you can. It matters. If you are unable to be there on the night please think about holding your own silent vigil, either publicly with others or at home, and send photos or messages to the Grenfell community on the silent walk Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Grenfell-Tower-Silent-Walk-122708985093572/ . It will show them, and the people responsible who need to know that we won't forget, that we care. 

No justice, no peace.

Walking With Grenfell ~ a Silence Louder Than Words

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

On the 14^th of every month since the Grenfell fire the community of North Kensington have been holding a silent walk to show unity in the face of tragedy and to ensure that the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, and those who loved them, aren’t forgotten. We do so easily forget. The news moves on and something else takes our attention. We think that someone else is ‘dealing with it’; the Inquiry has begun, much money was raised and so surely the survivors have been rehoused (they haven’t been and there is some question about where the money has gone). But we would do well not to forget, because Grenfell was the worst fire disaster on our soil since the Blitz, and the community around Grenfell isn’t going to go away until they see justice done. They invite anyone of good heart to join with them, knowing that they can’t do it alone. Community. Come Unity.

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

They say…

“As the months go on, we grow stronger and stronger. This will not stop and we will carry on being united by such tragic events. Please come and join us on the 14th of every month and walk in silence to remember those who are sadly no longer with us.

We can not fight this alone, we are more powerful together.”

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

And so, on the day that our nine days of Novena prayers for Grenfell ended, my friend Jennifer and I went to join the silent walk in community and solidarity. This month the 14^th fell on a Saturday so there was a real push to encourage people to come along. It is hard to. I felt that we were intruding on people who have been so brutalised by intrusion already, not just by uncaring bureaucracy before the fire happened, and then by the fire itself, but also by the large numbers of ‘grief tourists’ who have gone to Grenfell to take photographs and, even worse, ‘selfies’; so much so that local residents have attached signs to the barriers surrounding the tower asking them to stop. At the end of September a Chinese tourguide was sent back to China and a driver suspended when they took a coach full of Chinese tourists to Grenfell to take photographs of the tower. I found it very hard to go there without feeling that I was doing the same, especially as we got lost on the London Underground on the way there, and again when we arrived at Latimer Road. And so we had to keep stopping people and asking, “Do you know the way to Grenfell Tower?” Only one person was obviously suspicious of our motives; a young man who, when we asked, gave an exasperated sort of a smile, “Why are you asking? Are you residents?” When we had explained he was lovely but it can’t be easy living in the shadow of a tragedy that people have made into a holiday destination before all of the dead are even buried.

But it was in the getting lost that, for me, the blessing and the kindness came. We wandered for an hour, unable to find the walk (it was silent after all) or Grenfell Tower. When we did ask someone it happened to be someone who worked there as a security guard. He gave us directions. We immediately went wrong in the dark. We explained to a teenager that we were lost and he told us that we had gone in completely the wrong direction and kindly took us across the road where we could see the tower back the way that we’d come and he could give us further directions. He didn’t have to do that. I thought that he was an angel, but there were many angels around Grenfell that night.

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

And, even though we were lost in the dark, I was glad that we weren’t there on a day with sunshine and a blue sky. I can’t imagine how it must be to see that blackened husk of a building in the light, day after day, how it must be for a community of people to see the place where their friends and loved ones died because no one cared quite enough to make them safe. In the dark it was just a shape against the night; you couldn't see that it had burned, and even then every time I have seen a block of flats since I superimpose Grenfell onto it. And the dark did another thing. It let us see those leafy, quiet little streets as they would have been that night. It is Kensington, even if it is North Kensington, and, apart from the few tower blocks and the maze of little estates, it feels as though people who are well off live there or near by. A woman driving a new looking Range Rover stopped for us so that we could cross the road. That was kind but it made me feel just a little bit ill. And the narrow, curving, streets that seem to all come back in on each other until you don’t know where you are, are lined with parked cars. Grenfell seems to be in the middle of all that. How would the fire engines have gotten through?

And the other effect of walking round and round in the dark, later finding that we were circling both the silent walk and the tower, is that thinking of it now I have the feeling that we were spiraling into sacred space, as you do when you enter a Hindu temple, or our own stone circles, or the caves that our ancestors would crawl in to leave hand prints in the dark as a prayer. You aren’t meant to see the centre until you have made your journey, paid your respects, earned it. It isn’t supposed to be easy. This is a holy and hallowed place. The dead awaiting justice are there and there are people on the street weeping.

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

We had almost given up when another angel appeared out of the dark, and we knew that she was one because she was holding a sign with a pair of shiny red angel wings pasted onto it, lit by fairy lights. And she was wearing denim hot pants at, what some foolish people would say, was an unseemly age for such clothing. Only angels do that. She saw my friend’s pink rose, brought from her South London garden to leave as an offering, and asked whether we were on the walk. We said no but we had been trying to find it. She told us that her friends were on it and seemed to have hope that she could find them. She scampered away at some speed, turning at one point to call, “I only stopped you because you had the flower!”, and we tumbled after her as best we could, despite our by then aching legs. At the end of the next road she saw some policemen and it turned out that they were blocking the junction because the silent walk was slowly moving along it. We had been walking with them but one street along. Our angel disappeared before I even had a chance to see her go, and my friend and I joined the end of the walk for the last fifteen minutes or so. The silence was full of meaning, speaking louder than words ever could.

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

We made our way very slowly in silence to the Westway, an urban flyover carrying the A40 into London. On the way we passed memorial after memorial, names, faces that I recognised from media reports; real enough before but now so much more so. There were Bible verses written on the concrete, “Blessed are those who mourn”, and, I think, verses from the Quran, which I was sad not to be able to understand. There were candles burning everywhere and, on a concrete pillar, the most beautiful and intricate image of Mary in prayer. If Our Lady of Sorrows is needed anywhere it is there. There seemed to be memorials along every fence, every lamppost topped with a huge green heart with ‘Grenfell’ written in the centre. Signs of bent willow and paper; ‘Come Unity’. We walked with people on crutches and in wheelchairs, people carrying children, and all completely silent. In solidarity.

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

And then the Westway. Under the flyover the community have created a wonder; somewhere for the displaced of Grenfell to go, when the authorities would have them scattered. On the huge concrete 'Wall of Truth', the ‘People’s Public Inquest’; a place to gather evidence, write testimonies, share what happened on that terrible night, piece it together. 

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

We gathered and we were thanked for being there. There was a minute’s silence, and then a minute’s wild applause and cheering for the lost. The sound was shocking and more moving than I can explain. The sound got louder and louder in waves as we sent love and respect to the dead. And then it was over and that was right. It was the walking that was the prayer and the call for justice, the silence and the waves of sound. There was nothing more to say, not then.

The crowd began to move away and then we saw the extent of what has been made; not just a wall and a memorial but a home, or it felt like one to me; I saw the word ‘Phoenix’ written here and there, a community risen from the ashes of the fire, supporting one another. There are wooden benches and comfy sofas, all made into intimate little areas so that there can be sharing in, what might feel almost like, the living rooms that the survivors of Grenfell once sat in in their high tower. There is a book exchange, board games, people feeding the homeless and refusing to accept money. It is a testament to all that is good in humanity, what we can be, and what we can be for each other, when everything falls down. 

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

There must be justice for the people of Grenfell and for their community. There are fears that the Public Inquiry, which many feel isn’t truly independent from the Government whose policies are implicated in creating the conditions that allowed the Grenfell Fire to happen, will never reveal the truth of what happened that night, or what led up to it. That the rich and the powerful will win again, and that the poor, the invisible, will lose...again. But what the people of the Grenfell community perhaps can’t see yet is that, in their pheonix rising from the ashes, in their keeping together what was torn apart, in their refusing to stop caring and loving and seeing what’s real, in their inviting in when they would have every reason to close down, build walls, they have already won.

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Silent walks to honour the dead and the survivors of the Grenfell fire, to express solidarity for their families and their community, and to continue the fight for justice, will continue every 14^th of the month at 6.30pm. The walk gathers outside Notting Hill Methodist Church at 240 Lancaster Road, London, W11 4AH. The community have asked for as many people as possible to come and walk with them in silence, because the silence will be heard. Alone, they will become invisible. It is growing in numbers each month and I know that it would mean a lot to them if that growth continued. Please do think about joining them if you can. It matters. If you are unable to be there on the night please think about holding your own silent vigil, with others or alone, publicly or at home, and send photos and/or messages to the Grenfell community on the Silent Walk Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Grenfell-Tower-Silent-Walk-122708985093572/ . It will show them, and the people responsible who need to know that we won't forget, that we care. 

No justice, no peace. 

Thank you so much to Natasha Quarmby for allowing me to use here photos here. You can find more of her wonderful photographs here ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Photo: Natasha Quarmby Photography, used with kind permission ~ https://www.facebook.com/NQdocumentaryphotography?hc_location=ufi

Links:

https://rs21.org.uk/2017/10/15/a-silent-march-for-grenfell-in-pictures/

https://justice4grenfell.org/

Today's Small Beauties

The first sign of crocuses flowering on the Green; tiny petals of white and purple appearing like little dancers.

Speaking to a university student about an oral history project she is doing on women who love Goddess ~ any excuse to talk about my great and neverending love for She~Who~Is.

Three acrobatic green parakeets hanging from the bird feeders at school, watched by two affronted woodpigeons.

Fabulousness in the hospice charity shop, which I hardly ever visit; a lovely fabric rucksack, a shiny raincoat, and a wheely suitcase. I feel well set up for adventuring now. What a haul!

Vulnerable, truthful, and brave sharings on my piece of writing about my encounter with the bumblebee Queen, which stirred up deeper thoughts in me about the meaning of our meetings with other beings on the painful edges of life.

Himself's deep wisdom calling me back to myself time and time again. I am blessed to share my life with a man whose every breath and heartbeat is dedicated to the Mother of All. 

Waking to a lovely message, which once more affirmed the power and beauty of the threads of connection that we weave, and which contained a generous, exciting, and much appreciated, offer. People are lovely!

A man bravely telling me in the Old Ladies' Card Shop that he finds it hard to buy cards at Christmas because he is a Pagan, to which I replied, "And you can't get cards for Imbolc at all!", which he had not been expecting and almost made him fall over in the loveliest of ways. Ha!

A sweet man coming into the shop and choosing birthday presents for his partner with the greatest care and tenderness, and a little sprinkling of glittery hope that she will be pleased. Completely lovely and I told him so.

The loveliest smile from a little girl.

A woman coming into the shop with a piece of research she has done on its history. It was built in 1885, has always been a 'posh stationers', and has only ever been owned by three families in all that time!

A lovely late Yule gift of a rosebud and wild barley printed Victorian teacup, filled with the palest of white candle wax, and side plates. They date from 1890 so are not only beautiful but I think about all the souls that have touched them and the lives that they lived. 

A man in the newsagents talking in impassioned tones about his pitbulls, how much he loves them, how gentle they are, and how people so often don't look after them well. His eyes were positively shining with love. I said, "Pitbulls are lovely, like Staffies" and he almost floated off the floor.

That my little newsagents is now selling takeaway coffee, which is yummy and gives me an excuse to go in and support them. Community shininess.

The first signs of lustrous bluebell leaves in the garden.

My tarot readings being recommended by another tarot reader; kind and affirming.

Understanding why I needed to go through the feelings I did with the bumblebee Queen, as I got two messages today that could have sent me into a tailspin but I was already so deeply in the energy of acceptance and letting go that I was able to just go with the flow of it. Thank you to the Queen. It is beautiful how Life lays out the invitation of a gentle path before us if we have the eyes to see it.

Himself shining quietly about getting things done at home which have been nagging at him for ages. I am proud of him.

Learning how beautiful earwigs are when they fly, and yet they hardly ever do; who knew!? And they are wonderful and attentive mothers. Newly-born earwig love has been achieved.

And gentle tales of chalk streams and winter-born rivers.

Today has been all about the beauty of people (and earwigs). It has been lovely.

Souptemple ~ Stirring Up Belly, Heart, and Spirit in the Midst of the UK Election 2015

This has been a terrible day. It became clear by 6am that the Conservatives had won another term as the Government of the United Kingdom and, worse still, that they have gained a majority in the House of Commons. That this has happened is almost beyond belief, the pre-election polls having suggested that, at worst, another coalition would be required. Many had hoped that, despite their shortcomings, this coalition would be led by the Labour party and although certainly not perfect that would have led to an end of the hated Bedroom Tax, an end to the badger cull, and the continuation of the Hunting Act which bans fox hunting. That we now have to endure a further five years of a Right Wing government who, without the softening presence of their coalition partners, will go full steam ahead with their austerity agenda is a devastating blow. I know very few people who have not been in tears all day. For myself, I am heartbroken and a little bit of my belief in people has died. I am ashamed of my country and ashamed to be English; two things that I never thought I would say. That this neoliberal ideology is running rampant across much of the Western world is of little comfort to me. This is my land, a land that I had thought was inhabited by people who were ultimately caring, compassionate, and tolerant. Today, I believe otherwise. Maybe tomorrow it will be different.

This increase in Conservative power will lead to the further persecution of all that is vulnerable and wild in this land. I fear for the poor, the disabled, the young, the old, the homeless, the low-waged, and the mentally ill. I fear for the forests, the badgers, the foxes, and the song birds. I fear for our hearts and I fear for our sanity. I fear that not all of us will survive. Many feel utterly broken, and yet perhaps in that brokenness we will find our power. We human beings are very good at cutting off from our emotions, from the reality of what is happening around us if that reality is too hard to deal with. No doubt this ability holds powerful evolutionary benefits and yet it seems that it is also susceptible to manipulation by those who want to have power over us; they distract us by turning us against one another, offer us shiny bribes that appeal to our baser instincts, and encourage us not to see what is really going on beneath the surface of the spell they have created. And who would want to see the truth when that truth is so obscene? We would have to see people driven to suicide, starving, weeping as they are forced to leave their homes, animals maimed and screaming, forests cut down for new housing estates that few can afford to live in...

And yet, some of us do see and we keep on looking; some of us weep for those who can no longer cry, some love for those who can no longer love, and some see for those who keep their eyes firmly shut. It may break our hearts, we keep on looking. It may feel that it breaks us; we keep on looking. We can't help it. It is who we are. And so, for many of us who can see what has gone before and what lies ahead, this is a day of mourning. Many are still on shock. Many have lost hope. Soon will come the anger. These feelings matter. It is disconnection from what is sacred; from the land, the self, and community, that has allowed people to vote the Conservatives back into Government. Without that disconnection how could anyone bear to put their cross in the box marked 'austerity'. It is monstrous to even imagine that someone could have seen the reality and still done so. The tiny part of me that still believes in the good of my fellow human beings refuses to believe that that could happen. Those of us who have not succumbed to that disconnection are feeling the pain and the empathy that so many seem not to feel and in that we keep hope alive. We have to keep breathing deeply, allowing ourselves to be broken open and, in the days and months and years to come, we have to live from the heart and live fierce. What I have come to think of as the 'Tory death cult', which could just as easily be the capitalist or patriarchal death cult, suffers from a profound disconnection. It is led by people who persevere with policies towards the natural world that will ultimately kill us all, even though that includes them. What greater disconnection could there be than to continue with something that holds within it your own annihilation? And yet continue they do. Those of us with our hearts open are an answer to that. We are the pulse of Life, with a capital L, and for me that pulse of Life is Goddess.

And yet feeling isn't enough for times like these, sitting in prayer isn't enough. If today has been anything it has been a call to action, a call to sacred and connected activism in the face of unbelievable greed and indifference. A few years ago I was shocked to read in the newspaper that many food banks were reporting that food was being returned to them uneaten. Appallingly, this was food that needed to be cooked being returned by people who could not afford the gas or electricity to do so. I was moved to angry tears contemplating the feelings of those who, not only had to suffer the shame and indignity of going to a food bank in the first place, but then had to admit to not being able to cook their own food. I am sure that many took the food knowing that it would never be eaten, too ashamed to give it back. That this could happen in the sixth richest country in the world is almost impossible to understand. It is shameful and shames us all. I began to think of ways in which we could help one another; perhaps those who could cook could offer to do so for those who couldn't, perhaps we could create community kitchens? And yet all options left me feeling uneasy and despondent and, after some thought, I realised why; in trying to help, in offering a hand to the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us, as of course we must, we would be creating the 'Big Society' that David Cameron has eulogised on so often. This ideology, based on volunteers filling the gaps left by austerity, was a flagship policy of the 2010 Conservative manifesto and suggested that it would take power away from politicians and place it with communities. In reality, this was far from the case, with essential services being brutally cut and volunteers expected to fulfil the roles of those who had previously been paid. And so, in helping those in need, it felt that we would be not only absolving the Government of any responsibility for the care of the most vulnerable in society but also proving them right. This insidious turning of those with good intent against who they were trying to stand beside and offer a hand to is one of the reasons why I despise the Tories; they are treacherous and would like us to be just the same, or perhaps they assume that we are already.

And so I gave up my idea of somehow helping people to cook their food and tried to take action in other ways but the idea has kept coming back to me again and again. Today, devastated by the election results, I went for a walk, pressed my body against a tree and cried, gathered up some hawthorn blossom and buried my face in its creamy petals, breathed in the scent of what is real and of the earth, and the thought came back to me again. This is not a time for sitting and mourning what could have been. This is a time to take action like never before. I have no doubt that, just as I am writing this, there are people, worn down by the previous ConDem coalition, who are contemplating five years of an, even more heinous, Conservative majority and wishing that they were dead. No, this is not the time for those of us with open hearts and tears in our eyes to sit and mourn. We no longer have the luxury of that. People are dying. And perhaps those of us who can still feel and know that the world is broken are the ones who have to do something about that. Maybe we have to be the whisper of the wild in a world gone dead and cold. This is hospice Britain and someone has to care.

And so, something that I have spoken of with friends before came back to me, but this time with a name; Souptemple. It has often been suggested to me that I found a Goddess temple; something which I feel no enthusiasm for at all and yet the thought of something pulsating with the love of Goddess for us all, but with a practical purpose in reaching out to the most outcast, does seem bright with hope and promise. It seems to me that in times like these, when the vulnerable amongst us can't afford to make themselves a hot meal, that this is an idea whose time has come. I sat in the café and wrote everything that popped into my head and I am sharing it now just as it is and with, hopefully, some of the energy that I felt when I wrote it...

Souptemple ~ food for the belly, heart, and spirit

Provide free food, nutritious and made and served with love, containing as many wild and foraged foods as possible. Made to look beautiful and bright. Providing nutrition, dignity, love, and solidarity, together with connection to community and the natural world.

Could be in beautifully decorated vans but would be good to have a building to provide a place to be, together with workshops building self-esteem through creativity and connection to the natural world and one another.

Sacred activism ~ campaigning against food poverty and against loss of dignity and self-determination of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

Provide wild medicine/herbalism.

Create the beauty of the hedgetemple wherever we go.

And so there it is; the seed and the sowing of an idea. I don't know where it will go. It is an idea that never leaves me and, today of all days, it wanted to be made more real. I feel unequal to the task of making it happen; too scared, to shy, too wobbly, too inexperienced, but I am lifting a prayer for its growth and for the continuation of Life amongst all of this. If anyone has any thoughts please do let me know. There is much more to do and we will do it. I refuse to stop believing in the good of people. And, in the meantime, I spit on David Cameron's 'Big Society'. This isn't 'volunteering'. This is love.

Comfrey Fritters, made by Will Greenwood, April 2011.

Welcome to Radical Honey...

Welcome to Radical Honey, where in future months you might find all manner of things grounded in a call for sacred activism through connection, community, creativity, cultivating wonder, reclaiming, snuffling out the truth beneath the obvious, small beauties, dancing bravely in the edge places, foraging, mindfulness, seeing what is real, acknowledging what is broken and calls for mending, open hearts and soft bellies, kindness, the power of vulnerability, everyday acts of small subversion, wild acts of fierce courage, and the quiet magic of a whistling kettle and a nice cup of tea. It had not been my intention to begin sharing these writings on the autumn equinox and yet, as is so often the case when we just let things happen, it does feel perfect to let them go as we begin our turning towards the dreaming dark. Who knows what spells we will spin, and what wonders we might catch sight of in the autumnal mist?

'Radical' is such a maligned word and many of us have been taught to be afraid of it, carrying as it does within its few letters a whiff of what we have come to think of as harsh, strident, confrontational, and aggressive. And yet, when we look beyond these learned fears, we find that radical is a deep and beautiful word, meaning 'of, or related to, the root', or going to the origin and fundamental nature of something. It is all about digging deep and seeing beneath what we might see at first or have been told. It means asking 'why?' When I feel out what the word 'radical' means, I imagine curling into myself like a fox, snuffling through layers until I find what smells like good earth, and I sense the power of connection and community underneath all those things which seek to divide us. When we are radicalised, brought back to our roots, there is no hope of dividing us and this seems to me to be a powerful standpoint from which to challenge all that we wish to change. 

 

And what of honey? For me honey symbolises creativity, the gathering of beauty to nourish our spirits, to sustain us through times where we feel a lack of what is good and sweet, and to help us trust in healing and abundance. And the sister bees are dripping with the magic of community, connection with the song of the land, the value of the individual woven into the collective, and the rightness of placing what, and who, is the most vulnerable in the centre of all that we do in an ever-changing, ever-flowing movement of love and care. In bees I find She~Who~Is and the Source. It is significant that they are struggling in the world, just as many of us are. Our relationship is old and there are many threads of kinship woven between us.

                                             
                                                                                                                               
 And so Radical Honey is to call for sacred activism and change, through connecting to our roots and drawing on deep wells of creative and joyful honey. In a world like this one, any act of connection or happiness is a radical act, and a rebellious one. I encourage each one of us to acknowledge our rebellion, from standing in front of line of riot police on a fracking protest, to speaking out for those who have no voices, from joining a march, to seeing the beauty in a magpie's wing. And, after it all, knowing that often we all just need some kindness and a hot cup of tea in order to stir up something that might change the world. This is Radical Honey; nothing, and no one, is insignificant. Everything matters.

In the next few weeks, I hope to write about my own small acts of rebellion and the ways in which I support myself in community with all beings. In my own small community in London this might mean introducing fly agaric mushrooms and harebells, blue alkhanet and the local squirrels, ashy mining and hairy flower-footed bees, the man from the kebab shop, foxes and cats, my human neighbours, soil microbes, moss, the crows on the Heath, the pigeons on the Green, hidden rivers and wildly growing weeds, and, moving further afield, the Kent sea, and Sandstone Hill Woman and Silver Spring Valley Woman; spirits of the land where I spend my free days wrapped up in love. All are part of the community that sustains me. This is where I find my radical honey and from that ground there shall be adventures. Who knows what the autumn will bring...