Samhain, squash soup & Substack

My dear friends, I began this blog in 2010. I've loved writing it, and I've loved knowing how many of you read it.

Over the years, partly for life reasons, partly because my computer and its operating system are old and there are glitches, and partly as a result of some material being 'borrowed' several years ago, the content and depth of what I wrote diminished. You will have of course have noticed, if you are one of my lovely 'regulars', that since my life changed and we moved to our Brittany smallholding, I've barely written here, except at significant points in the turning year.

But I've missed it.

So I would like to invite you to join me over on Substack. At the moment all my posts are free, and focus mostly on our relationship with the land, what and how we're growing food, and the other-than-human.

Many of you have asked about life out here, and our sustainable approach to land and growing. Come and visit my new blog, and read the stories. I miss you!
 

Later, I will be adding a FIRE IN THE HEAD section, where I will offer tips, exercises and other suggestions for writers. (This will be part-free and part-paid.)


https://substack.com/@roselle1

poem for the autumn equinox 2023

 

At the Year’s Autumn Turning

 

1

Penn ar Bed

 

This morning the sun lifts

right behind the silver birch

who’s been dropping her leaves

a few day by day, the first tree,

as she was to clothe herself

in spring. The more she lets go

the more the rest glow gold.

 

 

11

Ste Anne la Palud

 

Later the sea gentles at our feet,

breathes in and out, her tides

swell and subside; a constant,

just as the moon rises and fades,

each night a little different,

but always present.

 

There’s a constancy we crave

in our uncertain lives in these

uncertain times. Here on this

long Atlantic strand, we’re given it.


Roselle Angwin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(belated) poem for the summer solstice: Sometimes the Mind

PLEASE REFRESH THE PAGE FOR THE MARGINALLY-BETTER REDRAFT!

Sometimes the Mind

This solstice morning a haze
slips through the gap between
the sweet chestnuts, this portal
the only place in our secluded
Home Meadow that reminds us
there’s a world out there
beyond the trees, that describes
perspective.
        Sometimes the mind
slips out of key, out of gear,
tectonic plates on a different plane

and you remember for a moment
that there is something you’ve
forgotten, though what it is
you forget too; but the bosky
doorway, framed as it is in
creamy comets’ tails of chestnut
blossom with its bee-thrum
offers a glimpse of bliss

and as the early sun suddenly
floats free of the sky and floods across
the meadowgrass and mallow
over the honeysuckle and right on
into your eyes, in the time it takes
for this one sparrow to gatecrash your gaze
you know that it’s something so simple
you forget over and over: something to do

with kindness, something to do
with it being the only word, in the end,
that counts.

Roselle Angwin



My lovely friends, I know it might be a shock for you to see a post from me; since we have moved to Brittany I've been quiet and reflective; partly I'm considering my writing future. 

I've also been quite reclusive, getting to know this ancient house and the land of which we are guardians. We've spent a lot of time, too, outdoors reclaiming meadow to make a large vegetable garden, planting fruit trees, making a small wildlife pond, and appreciating the wild Home Meadow with its many fragrant roses and bee-shrubs and its orchard, so overgrown we didn't know of its existence until be moved in. We're also planning a future food-forest, planting willow and hazel for coppicing, and considering how we might best help biodiversity. This land has woodland and many bordering trees; we are becoming increasingly familiar with each tree in or on the meadows, but on the whole leaving the woodland that drops to the stream to itself.

There is much to say about all this.

The only writing I've really done is to keep a daily journal of here, and our experience here; this is a year now, nearly, and I have ideas for its further shape. There are still two poetry collections 'in the queue', and a prose poem book; plus a book of essays on place and belonging.

But I have also been working on my long-promised vegan cookbook; still a way to go (editing and checking facts and sources – much more exciting to create a new recipe or two!).

And meantime, there are various other creative projects simmering – if I could just tempt myself out of the hammock and onto the computer...

But I am cooking one or two new online courses again (at last), and if you might be interested in knowing about these and you are not already on my mailing list for my occasional newsletter, you can contact me through the sidebar.

Meantime, I'm considering re-establishing this blog, but migrating it over to Substack.

Till next time, may you live well, and deeply, and with kindness.

haiku for the new year 2023

 

Haiku for the New Year (2023)



meditation bell
cold cup of tea and my
hands pretending warmth

*

in the wet holly
single drop of rain takes light
ignites the whole tree

*

in this one raindrop
swim mist sunshine robin-song
the whole world inside

*

hair dripping, clothes soaked
I bring in flowering twigs –
quince, honeysuckle

*

distracted by dogs
mind skitters   thread lost again
have to start over

*

woodstove incense twigs
in a bowl – even these things
clutter my mind

*

in the Christmas tree
lights reflect the fire

heart in the wrong place

*

even poetry feels
redundant for this crisis –
the first time ever

*

the world passes by
rainstorms gales mist sunshine ice
solstice   new year   now

*

after the storm
the light steals back –
shy animal

*

this moment – trying
to grasp it is like clutching
at grasshoppers

*

if this moment
is not for living deeply
then what is it for?

*

who said: ‘if we can’t
find it here where can we find it?’
I say it again

*

knowing it is here
my friend and I sit quietly
hoping it might visit

(for Pat)



© Roselle Angwin, January 2023

Poem for the Winter Solstice/Alban Arthan 2022

 

Midwinter in Finistère

Despite the ice, the icy rain
sparrows chatter all day

in the peach tree at the corner
of my eye. The dogs don’t care

that it’s cold, or wet. Flocks
of fieldfare, redwing, startle

at their rush. Only I have
forgotten to visit my larger

self; am stranded in this
enchantment, tide, of ice.

If we could join heaven and earth
the way a bird does, or a tree.

If we could remember.


© Roselle Angwin

And here's an older one that I really like, from my book All the Missing Names of Love:

Blessings for a deep and bright midwinter turning to you all.

poem for the autumn equinox: while nothing changes, everything does

 

While nothing changes, everything does
Autumn Equinox 2022


At dawn, after the stars and crescent moon, the sun

is back in the east, peering through the laden chestnut trees
into our bedroom.

In the night, scores more apples fall, and we eat our own
peaches for breakfast.
            Just now a new ladybird, so small
I could barely count its spots, landed on my arm.

These moments are lifeboats. 
                                        Such abundance, and
it's taken me till now to learn I don’t need to earn it,
deserve it, or strive for it; I can simply revel in beauty.

Nothing has lost its significance for me; it’s just
that, ageing, I crave it all less.

Of course
        the tragedy of the world continues.


My friend says ‘Five swans flew past this morning.’
My friend says ‘Surely this is enough.’






© Roselle Angwin 2022

 

 

 

 

 

the first harvest

 

Lughnasadh, Lammas, begins tonight. As I've written many times before, Lughnasadh is one of the Celtic fire festivals, and exactly midway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. Traditionally, it's the time of the first harvest: notably grain (think John Barleycorn).

As you will know if you've been paying attention, TM and I have moved to Brittany, to be guardians of some very beautiful land and a shambling old farmhouse. We are beginning to plan – and where we can, start to implement – the next phase, which involves permaculture, forest gardening and rewilding. We have many mature and lovely trees as a starting point.

There is much joy and many challenges. There is far far too much to say, which is why I haven't.

Something rather lovely here is quite how many, and what a variety of, trees and shrubs are coming to light as we get to know and to weed or prune back the overgrowth; many of them fruiting. Our first harvest of raspberries and blackcurrants is well past now, and we have walnuts, sweet chestnuts, figs perhaps, grapes, kiwi fruits, hazels, apples and damsons to look forward to. We have the previous owners to thank for this. This garden has been much-loved – there are about 15 species of rose, many of them heavily scented, planted in borders and against walls.

And today's harvest, for Lughnasadh, are these cape gooseberries. Little fiery suns.

I'm thinking about giving thanks for our harvests, and how, on so many levels, what we are giving thanks for is the fruit of others' labour, whether we know those others or not. Of course, there is the earth; the sun; the rain (when it comes – here the promise is pushed back day after day). There are those who grow our food for us, since most of us  don't grow our own; those who harvest it, pack it, deliver it.

Whether or not you eat animals or their products (I don't), something still has to be sacrificed in order that we might live. Accompanying the reaping is a dying, too.

What we are today comes from others, human or other-than-human. Our very cells are made up of others' cells. Of course, there are metaphorical harvests too; and in an equally real, albeit non-material, way, who we are today is also a result of others: their gifts, their kindnesses, their teachings, their wisdom, their lendings, what they have offered and what we have taken.

And then there is immeasurable gratitude to whatever animating spirit it is that fires the cosmos, and consciousness.

Tomorrow morning, when I wake, before the various anxieties about the world kick in, I am determined to turn my mind, and thanks, to the harvests, past and ongoing, that have come my way from others; the many blessings of this (and any) time.

a summer solstice 2022 poem, belatedly

 

Moving House at the Summer Solstice – Finistère, 2022

Even before the sun crests the chestnut trees
this thousand-blossom twenty-foot fountain of fragrance
spreads her white invitation across this and the other
wild gardens, and already a hundred bees have rspv’d.

She was a slip when I planted her five years ago,
rooting so easily into her non-native soil. I could
linger here under her arch, at a kind of midsummer
crossroads like the one where I saw the hare yesterday,

I could borrow her unstintingness, belonging
to the universe so easily, breathing out freely,
without holding some back for myself, without asking
where home might be. At this midsummer turning,

how to unmoor the self from ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’? – simply to rest
between earth and sky, this whole wide world my home.


Roselle Angwin

 

 

 

 

 

A ragbag: May in Devon; other-than-human kin; Iona in April; our big move

 
A RAGBAG
In this post, I include parts of my recent Fire in the Head newsletter, so if you are on my mailing list you already know some of this.

In the merry month of May
May and in the deluge I walk out where the bright spring rain ignites the hillside into the ultraviolet flame of bluebells, incandescent against the new sharp greens of the valley. May, and in the deluge something hidden, almost lost, shyly steps forth and in a moment has taken wings. May, and in the rain I’m stripped naked then clothed by rain. May, and high above me the buzzard’s quiet jubilation encircles the day, the way a priest or a magician passes hands over the bread, the chalice, the water to be blessed; casts a spell that changes us all into what we were always meant to be.

*

If April is the cruellest month, May must surely be the kindest; the land here in Devon is awash now with the last of the bluebells and wild garlic, and the bridal blooms of Hawthorn, the May flower, in whose month, in the Celtic Tree Calendar which underpins my own life and work, and my most recent book, A Spell in the Forest – tongues in trees, we find ourselves currently. There is much to say about the mythology surrounding Hawthorn, and her dark sister, the Blackthorn, but that's not for here.


*

Our other-than-human kin

Where are the swallows and martins? I wonder if ‘yours’ have come back? Weather, chemical farming methods, conversion of barns and lack of nesting sites have all played their part in the decline of the hirundines. A permanent absence of these migrants in our skies is a prospect too heartbreaking to contemplate. There is a hole in the fabric of things when a species declines; a snag in the web of life.

Some time between 4 am and 4.30 am each morning for several weeks I’ve been woken by various iterations of young ravenous jackdaw squawks, in triplicate, deepening and increasing in volume by the morning. The ‘nest’ – the shambolic heap of twigs balanced precariously in the ivy growing up the stone wall and literally a metre from our heads in bed, albeit the other side of the roof – is coming apart at the seams. This morning something is different, though. The squawk is higher-pitched, I’d say panicky; even louder, and higher up the roof, accompanied by noisy mad flapping and the distinct sound of a small body sliding down the slates. And repeated. (Last year one fledgling fell off the roof, narrowly avoiding the neighbour’s cat’s jaws by dint of abseiling back up said ivy.) 



I lie wide awake now, and listen to the two thrushes, one each side of the valley. ‘Our’ thrush, in the field, has a fairly sophisticated repertoire, with a number of regular recognisable phrases: caerphilly caerphilly caerphilly, chew chew chew, peewit peewit peewit, teeeoooh. The valley one is a learner with a less distinct song – perhaps last year’s youngster. If I get up and go downstairs now, the pair of dunnock that lives in the courtyard and who currently have a brood in the goat willow tree that decorates my car so prolifically with fluffy mouse-like catkins, will, I know, appear at my feet, looking hopeful. Dunnock are shy birds, but these now know me so well that I can rustle a bag just above their heads and they won’t move.

In just over a week’s time, a new family, one with two cats, will move into this house with its one-and-a-half acres of spectacular land – meadow, woodland, bee and herb beds, extensive veg plot and wild twisty-pathed gardens. They will love and tend the place, and their plans will fit. But their cats will not respect my friendship with the other-than-human here. And I am heartbroken at leaving the wildlife I know so well, and who trust me: woodpeckers, owls, nuthatches, bullfinches, robins, blackbirds, five species of tit, and many others, and who know I will help when the winter is hard on this north-facing slope.

*

Then there are the hares, voles, and roe deer; the few badgers left from culling, illegally gassing or sett-blocking; the few foxes that the illegal hunt hasn’t killed. Nesting in our field are also buzzards and sparrowhawks; they too have their place, and I’ve learned a lot from buzzards.


The secret valley
There is, too, this secret valley. Having lived, with my daughter, most of my adult life on Dartmoor, and spending regular time in wildish places: the Hebrides, West Cornwall and, before that, the Pyrenees and then Brittany, this soft valley in the affluent South Hams didn’t at first speak to me. But I have come to love its quiet tranquillity, its out-of-the-wayness (one expects the compass to spin here, and in fact it is a bit of a Bermuda triangle), its lack of farming activity; its brook, its spindle and gorse, the little egrets that come up the Dart in winter to roost in the old oak and keep an eye on the fishy tiddlers in the brook, the owls who call from our great oak tree. Nowadays, within a radius of a couple of miles, there is also a small population of youngish people who have moved in to tend and cultivate the land in sustainable ways, some living off-grid.



And there is the land, and the beautiful stone wood and glass house built by TM 20+ years ago. And we are leaving it. The next blog I will write will not be from here. NB It seems that my browser and blogger are no longer easily compatible. I may start a new blog, perhaps connected to my websites, soon.

*

Loving it all

We learn to love the general, and humanity/other species/the world/cosmos, by loving the particular, the personal, the specific. I believe this is the meaning of Robert Hass’ complicated and wonderful poem 'Meditation at Lagunitas'. See how he begins with the distancing large and abstract, and brings it down to the close-up material detail of the personal? Almost everyone who reads this poem (it figures on my poetry correspondence course) feels the fire of it coming alive, beginning with the 'clown-faced woodpecker' but really leaping into three dimensions when he writes 'There was a woman /'. This is how, I believe, we make sense of, or learn to love, the vast existential and metaphysical questions: by seeing the enormous and extraordinary in the small and ordinary detail of those beings and things to whom we give our hearts.

Now is my chance to take this deep love and open it out to all I newly encounter in our new adventure; in wildlife terms, red squirrels, deer, pine martens and wild boar, besides the usual host of smaller creatures. Oh, and the humans.

*


Islands of the Heart

My ‘Islands of the Heart’ retreats on the Isle of Iona happened again this year. I always feel so privileged to be able to work with these fine people, some of whom have joined me every year, or nearly, since 2000 on the sacred Isle of Iona. I believe I say this every time, but I think this was the best yet. The weather was (mostly) fabulous, the people were just lovely, and some very fine writing was writ. (Some of the nutters among us, what’s more, also dipped into the sea, daily. Yes, in April, up north.)


I also climbed up to the Well of Eternal Youth with the long-suffering M, who didn’t complain about our taking the steep slippery route up Dun I – the 'Hill of the Island' – at speed, lured by promises of a gentle easy descent which never materialised: ‘I marched her up to the top of the hill / and I marched her down again’.

This well, dedicated to Bride who gives her name to the Hebrides, Bridport, Bridlington and possibly the whole of Britain (Brighid, or Brigid, christianised as St Bridget), the ancient Great Goddess whose cauldron (or in this case well) occurs in various guises in Celtic myths, is supposed to restore the aged to youth and also the dead to life. Sadly, I came back just as old and wrinkly as I went up. (Oh wait, I think we were supposed to take our clothes off and immerse ourselves?) Here for you, above, are photos of the well and its view, as a change from the eternal white sands and blue seas I normally post.

The Old Nunnery on Iona


Always the chatter from these
streamers of geese, ravelling the sky.


Above the hill, two rooks
bring their shadows along for the ride.


What else can I say for this nunnery
that I haven’t said twenty times before?


Beyond, the primary school is flying the blue
and yellow flag we all now know so well.


Roselle Angwin


*


And so to the big adventure.


Walking into the Unknown
I imagine I'm not alone with the strength of ideas of belonging in my psyche – to a place, to its inhabitants, to its culture. Experience of place and belonging are fundamental to how we humans find our way in the world. I'm also concerned as well with how we walk through this world, and relate to our other-than-human kin.
 I know many of you are too. And what does it mean to attempt to live truly sustainably, minimising our footprint?

As regards 'home', comfortable in most places at the edges of the Western Atlantic, I still have a strong sense of my own roots. We can trace the family’s roots back hundreds of years to the tiny magical triangle that is the far west of Britain, West Penwith in Cornwall. Having said that, I’ve spent most of my life in Devon, having been brought up on the North Devon coast and then, as I said earlier, on or very close to Dartmoor. I belong here in the Westcountry. But 'home' is perhaps more to do with a sense of being comfortable with a chosen life and its path as much as a geographical location. How do we DO this life? How do we walk lightly on the earth? How do we create a life that is congruent with our values?

We are now about to cross the Channel and make our home in Brittany: the far northwest department, Finistère (think Asterix), so similar to Cornwall (and Wales) in language and culture, as well as land, trees and wildlife. There is a long story behind this, but I will remain geographically very close to my beloved forest, the one that figures in Spell, and which I know well.

We have just bought 17 acres of beautiful meadows and woodland, along with a shambolic farmhouse whose heart dates back, supposedly, to the 1700s, where we are, in a matter of weeks, going to unroll our vision of guardianship of the land via permaculture, forest gardening or at least orcharding, and letting the land do its own rewilding as it sees fit.

One important aspect of this is a vision of how little one needs to create a healthy life. How can we shake our dependence on fossil fuel, and consumerism? How might we consider sharing this land? How much can we let it be, to be what it needs? What might we grow in how small a space that could help the wider community without damaging the land? All these questions are in our minds as we make this transition.

My work
For the best part of a year I will be concentrating on my own writing only (that is, if our land projects in Brittany allow any time or energy at all). I have my vegan cookbook to be finished, and hundreds of scrappy notes towards Book Two of A Spell in the Forest.

The next full course I’ll offer will be Iona next year.

However, this autumn I hope to offer 3 weeklong virtual courses. (I've finally added the prose version of 'Writing the Bright Moment' that I've been promising so long, as a nature memoir course.) Dates for these have to be arranged, but they are likely to take place in October, November & December. Please keep an eye on this link for info; and do let me know if you are interested (numbers will be limited). The first two courses garnered very complimentary feedback each time I offered them, and some of the groups have continued to meet, with one producing an anthology.



Postscript
I don't know how it is for you, but I notice that my deep joy in the turning year, especially manifest in spring, is tinged often with something like guilt for experiencing bliss when so many are suffering severe pain, trauma, loss in other parts of the world. Then I remember the words of Kahlil Gibran: ‘It doesn't help to limp before the lame’ (this is a paraphrase). 

So I wonder whether, to offset somehow the horrors, we almost have a responsibility to live deeply, love abundantly, and feel profound joy to the extent that we can, in this very beautiful, albeit torn, world of ours?

With this in mind, till next time, my friends, may the summer shower inspiration and love on you all; and I find I want to wish you the music of the eternally-turning spheres. May you find your true home in the universe, whether outside or inside; or, best of all, both.

 

Isle of Iona, again...

song from the Abbey

less precious to my heart

than this small sparrow

*

 

*

...And for a long space of time we voyaged on this glass-clear sea and knew no pain or fear, above or under it, and were blessed only by joy...

*

Between the Poles: equinox poem

Between the Poles

20th March 2022, 3.33pm: spring equinox

Beneath the newly-leafing elder
a shoal of wild garlic is secretly flourishing.
Above my head, a pair of buzzards flips and plays.

Yesterday I wrote ‘Saharan dust!’ in the thick
sandy spatters on the car bonnet. Today
the wind is backing; and here on the bench

at the top of the meadow I can see east
to the far horizon, though not enough
as to hear the bombs and smell the fear.

Everything cycles between these poles:
summer and winter, dark and light, peace
and war. For this one equinox moment,

though, on the cusp where day and night
are held in equal tension, I can almost pretend
we could change our lives, the world.


© Roselle Angwin

 

 

 

A Tree Full of Birds PART 11

 

In my previous post I excerpted a section from the last chapter of my book Writing the Bright Moment – inspiration & guidance for writers.

The chapter is called 'A Tree Full of Birds', and is intended to keep us keeping on: not just with writing, but with active hope, as Buddhist scholar and activist Joanna Macy would say, for the future, remembering that we co-create it, in our own small but individual ways through our own unique gifts.

Keeping a sense of wonder alive seems particularly important at a time of great darkness. This is not naïve, not sentimental – it's a way of not giving up.


So here is Part 11 of A Tree Full of Birds.

Where do you start? Find a moment of glory. I’m thinking of Seamus Heaney’s ‘Postscript’ poem, of R S Thomas’ ‘Bright Field’, of Brendan Kennelly’s Glimpses. Early in her narrative non-fiction book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard mentions a tree, an Osage orange, which, ostensibly empty, suddenly flames with an eruption of blackbirds, previously unseen; then another, then another – hundreds of blackbirds from what looked like an empty tree. This was a moment of glory for her, to which she returns in the course of the book.
    Reading her passage, many years ago now, that tree became a moment of glory for me, too; one which I have not forgotten, to which I return, a metaphor against which I measure, or by which I name, other moments – including, of course, my own personal remembered gloriousnesses. The tree, in the book and in my imagination, is both itself and a metaphor for something else. It has become mythic in size, and that way contains magic.

It happens that many bright moments occur outside, when alone in nature; and many occur in the little ‘lost’ moments between people.
    These events, I realise as I get older, are not the huge dramatic moments of intense revelation or passion, epiphanies, as they seemed to be when I was younger. Instead, they’re often tiny and easily missed; clichéd in their everydayness: a smile from a stranger, a hug from a loved one, a touch on the arm, shared words or silence, extraordinary light on the water, the glimpse of a kingfisher, an unexpected gift through the post, a card with kind words, pony’s breath or dog’s wet nose barely touching your hand, catching the dawn, an instant of total and spontaneous openheartedness. Sometimes you are prepared, maybe in a heightened state of some sort. Usually, though, these moments occur in mundane circumstances – and, let’s face it, much of our life is mundane; yet this, this quotidiennité, is the terrain of miracles. It’s the present moment that we inhabit – the now that is the only time we have.
    The writer’s job is to pay attention, pay attention, pay attention. Cultivate that kind of looking, and write with intention. Write to add to the positive stories that might help us keep hope, the tiny flame of hope, alive.

Slow down. Stay open, stay alive. Stay awake.
    Writing is a process that never stops. There is no destination; there is only the journeying. Sometimes it works; sometimes you’re off track. You’re always searching for the next step. ‘…It can take a lifetime to convey what you mean, to find the opening,’ says Barry Lopez. ‘You watch, you set it down. Then you try again.’

So you find something that inspires you and you let the pen catch fire. Find that moment of glory. Stay alert for it. Catch it out of the corner of your eye as it streams past, and slide it onto the page. Write what you’re passionate about. Really passionate about, deep inside. Let it have soul. Let your words matter. Make them count. Don’t waste them, and don’t underestimate them. Don’t worry whether anyone else cares about your writing. That way, you can’t fail. ‘People are hungry,’ says poet David Whyte; ‘and one good word is bread for a thousand.’


© Roselle Angwin 2004

A Tree Full of Birds PART 1

 

My friends, it's been a long time. I know that. I've been ill, and there has been far too much going on, personally as well as collectively; there is far too much to say; plus big changes are happening in our lives (of which more anon).

But for the sake of encouraging those of you who write (and encouraging those of us who do and haven't for a while!), I thought that in these times it might be worth posting part of the final chapter in my book above (published 2005 with Arts Council England support; available in the UK from me). In its way, it's about not giving up. I hope you enjoy it.

Part 11 next week.|

***

EXCERPTED FROM A TREE FULL OF BIRDS: the final chapter in my book Writing the Bright Moment – inspiration & guidance for writers





A Tree Full of Birds PART 1

‘If I were asked what I want to accomplish as a writer, I would say it’s to contribute to a literature of hope... I want to help create a body of stories in which men and women can discover trustworthy patterns...Every story is an act of trust between a writer and a reader; each story, in the end, is social. Whatever a writer sets down can help or harm the community of which he or she is a part...’
Barry Lopez

[...]


We know that we need to find a wiser, more sustainable way to live; not just for ourselves, but for the planet as a whole.
    What are the tales we tell ourselves? What underlying beliefs and truths do they portray? What stories support our values? How could we build on this? Do the stories in which we immerse ourselves enhance our view of ourselves, each other and life?
    Here’s another question: what responsibility does the writer have for what he or she puts into the world? No one wants chocolate-box stories and perpetual epiphany; you can’t make stories about only contented characters in a perfect world. But when did you last see a film that portrayed people relating in a healthy, loving and mature way to each other? What is the attraction of watching TV shows and screenplays that centre on human dysfunction and people behaving badly?

What stories do we need? At the end of my first book [written in 1992] I asked this question. Here I am again: nearly twelve years on [2004], I am still asking this same question. [Now, in 2022, it hasn’t changed.] In one way and another this question has been posed throughout this book, too: tacitly, or overtly.
    How would it be to read books that support us in being more fully and compassionately human? Ones that give us tools to grow and change; offer us models of functional, healthy patterns of relating – whether to ourselves, to each other, to the wider human sphere or to the planet as a whole, rather than narratives that merely underline how grim ‘reality’ is, and how untrustworthy and self-seeking people are, thus confirming our view of the world and the human condition as basically beyond hope?
    Perhaps our diet has become too thin, and we are looking for a different kind of nourishment. We need now stories that offer us healing, offer us the potential of wholeness, of coming through in the end. Empowering stories. Stories that show us human being at its best: its most courageous, generous, kind, loving, compassionate, wise, funny. Stories that celebrate the earth, wilderness, the diversity of nations, the diversity of species. Stories that allow us to imagine a new world order based on empathy, co-operation, kindness, discussion, negotiation, fairness, equality. Stories that celebrate what is green, what is vulnerable, what is innocent, what is childlike, what is wise, what is feminine, what is masculine; stories about co-operation and harmony rather than competition and conflict; about people making wise choices. Stories that celebrate magic, mystery, miracle. Stories that help restore some sort of faith, whatever that may mean for each of us.
    I am aware that these things on their own do not make story, or even poetry. But the way we deal with them, and the choices we make, do. I am not suggesting that we pretend all is not how it is. I am not naïve enough as to assume that war will end in my lifetime; that violence will cease to exist; that poverty will be an extinct word; that pollution will be outlawed; that conservation will suddenly become more important to the corporate world than profit.

I am not at all suggesting that we pretend pain does not exist. On the contrary. Go to where the pain is. Write about it. Make a story of it. The pain will show you where the work is needed, and it will, in its unfolding onto paper, show you the path for healing. Human life will always be hard, in parts – that is the nature of the egoic life, which sees itself as separate and all-important, that judges and picks and chooses: ‘I like this, but not that. This is acceptable but that isn’t.’. But the stories that matter, the big stories, are always a triumph over these limitations.
    It is important not to give up. Human actions matter; they make a difference. Even one person’s weight will make a difference. And who knows which of us will effect the final ‘critical mass’ moment at which a threatened downslide will wobble, pause, and start to right itself? And it is at that critical moment, when we are deepest in the darkness – maybe right now – that we need these stories of hope; when we need a lamp out of the cave. And we need to know we are not alone.

Find something you can really believe in; something that enhances your life; and a group of people who think like you, whether it’s a writing group, or a politically active group, or an evening class, or an online discussion group, or people who like walking out on the land, or are involved in life-enhancing projects in the city. Find a community that supports you in your vision. Maybe they’ll be flesh and blood people. Maybe it’ll be the books of poets or authors writing passionately about things you care about. It’s crucial. Make it the next thing you do. ‘Never doubt that a group of committed individuals can change the world; in fact it’s the only thing which can,’ said anthropologist Margaret Mead. And ‘Better to light a candle than curse the darkness,’ goes another saying. 



And again: ‘There is never enough darkness to extinguish a single candle.’ Hold that thought close, especially in these times.


May we together work towards freedom from suffering.


© Roselle Angwin 2005–2022

Reblog from 2012: the book of beauty

Thinking as I do from time to time about Keats' profoundly simple statement that 'Truth is beauty and beauty truth' (I'm reminded in part because it's one of the few ideas couched in poetry that TM rates), it occurs to me that truth is to the mind what beauty is to the heart; and how we need both. It's exciting coming across an idea or concept that seems to have traction, to be of another plane, to convey what we sense but may not always be able to articulate. It's also exciting, and inspiring – and essential to the life of the heart – to experience beauty, through, as we usually do, the senses of the physical body (in this I include, say, meeting the eyes of another with love for example, as well as the more obvious access to the manifest beauty of the physical world).

I'm partly saying this because the students on my poetry course have recently been looking in some depth at Robert Hass' wonderful and difficult poem 'Meditation at Lagunitas', where, amongst many other things, he seems to be suggesting that profound human experience, akin to beauty, is found in the particular, the unique, the individual, the specific – and in his poem it's the recording of this rather than the abstract generalised conceptual truths that we feel moving our hearts. And yet it's against the backdrop of the abstract and eternal that the particular and transient reveals itself.

So I'm suggesting that 'truth' is an equivalent to the abstract 'backdrop', where 'beauty' is the matter of the world of the senses.

And I'm partly saying this too because in the last two weeks I've had occasion three times to remember the ever-presence of the nearness of death. In the last few years I've experienced a number of deaths of people, animals, ways of life that were dear to me; and of course we experience a perpetual cycle of births and deaths in smaller ways all the time. These three times, though, were more directly personal reminders. I've found myself this morning, after a night's sleep, utterly ecstatic to be outside in all the beauty of our world when walking the dog this morning. It's always a source of joy to me being outdoors, no matter what the weather (interior or external), but it's heightened by the reminders of our transience, isn't it?

Once again this morning I picked up a book that has lived by my bedside since I bought it at Glastonbury Festival in 1994. It's a modern book of hours: Soul of the Earth, by Phil Cousineau. Each page contains a passage or excerpt from a poem, accompanied by a stunning photo by Eric Lawton, and each day of the week is given a number of pages according to the old monastic tradition of praise-singing at set times of the day.

Here's a paragraph from the introduction: 'Contemplation of beauty is the consolation of the world. The soul needs the slow absorbing of beauty just as plants long for the sun and the sea craves the moon. Deep contemplation of beauty in the scudding clouds over an ancient Mayan temple, the shimmering blue-white of Vermeer's portrait A Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, the deep black god-tracks of Old English in the hoary pages of Beowulf is still our most creative human response to the shuddering of the soul.' He continues: 'And always after every encounter with the wonders of the world came a further wonder: How can I keep alive the astounding moments of my life so that I might withstand the turbulence, the soul-breaking moments?'

Make a book of beauty. Choose a big hardback notebook – one that you like the look and feel of – and dedicate it entirely to the collecting of poems, quotes, phrases, images that move your heart. Keep it by your bed. Bathe in it often. Allow it to remind you that in all the distress and suffering in the world the moments of beauty are right here, right now, too. They can save your life.

Prose poems: Driving North; and Reed, Eagle, Monk; & the sacred Isle of Iona

 

This is the first post of the new year – Birch month – and in my mind I've been mulling over all the profound(!) and nature-oriented things I was going to tell you; and tell you I will. Soonish.

But for now, already I'm thinking of my Iona weeks in March and April; it seems so short a time since the September and October weeks I spent up there leading my retreats (for the 21st year, minus 2020), and remembered that I was due to have two prose poems – one about the journey to the Island, one about being there – up on Stride magazine. The prose poem is a form I like very much, and I'm currently gathering my many together for a collection.

You can read these two here, if you'd like to distract yourself for a few minutes:

http://stridemagazine.blogspot.com/2022/01/two-prose-poems-by-roselle-angwin.html

Wishing you all good things, and a healthy, creative and inspiring 2022.

the last of the light: winter solstice 2021 (poem)

 

The Stillness of Trees
winter solstice 2021


After the owl has scratched white lines
on the gathering dusk
After the soup the mince pies
the warmth of companionship
after these dry months
After the lit tree

We carry our lanterns into the dark wood
in silence   each lighting the way
for the one behind
Make a circle round the fire
taste the lichen gin
make a libation

After this I lean into the stillness
of trees   think of the one yellow leaf
holding firm at the tip of the thirteenth
apple tree which I read as both promise
and symbol   think of how

persistence and resilience take a yielding shape
trusting in the dying and rebirth cycle
without question   think of how hard
this is as human   think how much
we still have to learn.


© Roselle Angwin

November's mini-sagas

When I send out a Fire in the Head newsletter, I've taken recently to offering a mini-competition. The prize is a book, but the point of the competition is to keep the pens or cursors of the many lovely writers who've worked with me in the past moving, especially during a time when it's hard to attend courses in person. (I will be returning with some more online courses in 2022.)

The latest one in November was a prompt to write what I called a 'mini-saga' with beginning, middle and end all contained in no more than 200 words. My stipulation was that it should in some way, no matter how tangentially or briefly, refer to trees. The idea behind this prompt came from a competition I ran as part of a small Dartmoor literary festival I used to organise many years ago. I've never forgotten one of the winners: the whole of the Trojan wars retold in 200 words.

'Mini-saga' is a bit of a misnomer in this current competition, though I haven't found an alternative. Really, mini-saga should refer indeed to some epic story, like the Trojan wars. Never mind though: it did get some people writing.

As always, I struggled to pick a winner. Four stories rose to the surface in the end, and the truth is I could have chosen any one of them. All of them had something to commend them. Here they are, with the writers' names and my brief commentary:


THE WEAVER’S MAGIC

Deep through the night of dark blackness when all slept, save for the sparkling stars illuminating a way, a mystery unfolded.  Someone spun such a complex pattern of intricacy and beauty across the cover of firs and berries, that it was impossible not to be awed.  A force had stolen in through that silent darkness, creating immense power and strength. And whatever were to fall against it resistance would be impossible.

Then the freezing air caught up each suspended strand of woven thread, all was engulfed as magical white tightened its hold, drawing taught all in its wake.  As a new day emerged, the sun rose to shine, and the mists drew away, leaving life to unfold in its usual daily habit!  And the hunter knew it was time to withdraw, no capture yet made… Eyes rushing looking down, all failed to witness the wonder of the night’s magic.

But suddenly marvelling, new eyes caught the sparkle dancing, they paid attention. Who had created such craft?  Alas, the gardeners already cutting, destroyed for ever those unseen magical threads.  And a larder was empty, no-one saw the destruction they’d caused.  Who knew what talent of weaving might ever again emerge?

© Thea Bailey November 2021


Thea Bailey wrote a beautiful and lyrical piece that drew together how easily the small but beautiful is overlooked and even trashed, and the ‘weaver’s magic’ destroyed. (The weaver being both spider and a metaphor.) Look at this great opening line: ‘Deep through the night of dark blackness when all slept, save for the sparkling stars illuminating a way, a mystery unfolded.’ Somehow Thea made a mere 200 words feel like a substantial story.


*

CHANNELLING LEWIS CARROLL

Once upon a time, in a shiny part of this lovely land, happily a-gyring and a-gimbling, lived the little locals. Music lulled their sleepy woodland groves –

BUT monsters were reputed to stalk the deepest forests - the Secretive Jubjub Bird, the Fiercely Frumious Bandersnatch, the Totally Terrifying Jabberwock!

Our princely hero, (listen well, my Beamish Boy!), grasped his fabled sword and, fully-armoured, bravely left the Palace, seeking to slay the fearsome, flame-eyed monster.

Princey entered the tulgiest part of the wood, hunting high and hunting low until, iffing and uffing slightly, he rested his weary body in the shade of the Tumtum tree.

"What's that I hear?!" He caught up his blade and snicker-snack! Off came the head of the unsuspecting Jabberwock, as it came a-whiffling between the trees...

Grasping the gory head, leaving the body dead, our hero hurtled lickety-spit through the wildest woods and galumphed-up to beat Callooh-Callay on the Palace gates!

"Oh what is this, my Beamish Boy?! Have you triumphed over adversity and restored peace to our Kingdom! Come to my arms, come sing the frabjous news!"

And we all lived happily ever after, a-gyring and a-gimbling in the mimsiest of Borogroves...

© Janey Thompson November 2021


Janey Thompson made me smile with her ‘Channelling Lewis Carroll’ and her version of the Jabberwocky – a humorous and tight little piece. I loved the verbs – some created by LC but some I think by Janey herself. This was an original approach to my topic.


*

(UNTITLED)

The battle was over; the Kings of the land were dead. Pyres of discarded corpses smouldered as the victorious took their riches downstream. Wind swept across the open space and found no answer, as only the emptiness of death lived here.

A young girl emerged from the surrounding trees. She had witnessed the battle and felt the pain of loss. She came to stand where the earth had been scoured during the fight and pushed her bare feet and hands into the earth. Her tears fell.

Years passed. Many seasons came and went until a warrior came upon the clearing. She struck her silvery sword fiercely into the earth. For she too had lost ancestors in this place and silently channelled her rage in the only way she knew. She gripped the soil, sensing a need in her to make this place her own.

More years passed. Others had followed the warrior here and life returned. One day an old woman walked within. She stood before the warrior who towered over her, cascading tendrils of hair flowing in the wind. She thanked this soul who had renewed the Earth. Her tears fell on the Silver Birch.

© Claire Brown November 2021


Claire Brown wrote a fierce and beautiful story about the brutal logging of the Kings of the Forest, in which the feminine principle, in the shape of the queenly Silver Birch (opening tree in my Wheel of the Year tree calendar), after the ravages of the logging companies, sets her footsteps towards the healing of the land (Birch is a 'pioneer species' colonising new land for other trees to follow). After the desolation comes new life and restored Wasteland via the women in the story. This one really speaks to me. Claire has some strong lines: 'Wind swept across the open space and found no answer, as only the emptiness of death lived here.’ This story too feels so much bigger than its length suggests; it’s also a bit archetypal.


*

WINDING WOOD

“Mama,” she asked when she was small, “why is it called the Winding Wood?”
     And Mama told her it was for the path that winds through the trees, and that winding path is the one she must always take.
     Now that she’s grown the rule irks her. Her friends abide by it but she slips off, skips through the trees and then waits, laughing, as they take the longer way.
     She goes to the wood on her own – another rule carelessly laid aside – and the sound of the trees moving in the wind is like a voice calling Come and dance with us. And she dances, winding among oak, ash and beech until she remembers the time and dances back to the path, and home.
     She wakes to the tree-voices in the night and slips out in her nightdress, running into the woods, dancing – certain the trees are dancing too.
     Another tree-voice – a rowan, berry-bright – whispers, Come close, touch my skin, then, Let me feel your skin. She sheds her nightdress, leans naked against the trunk. The leaves caress her; the branches wind round her like a lover’s arms.
     She’s lost to Mama. But in the moonlight, she still dances…

© November 2021 Caro Johnson


In the end, I chose Caro Johnson’s ‘Winding Wood’. I think it’s because of the apparent simplicity. The story reads like a fairy tale that holds a key, as well as ‘everywoman’s tale’ - there’s an undercurrent that feels autobiographical, but also more universal and ambiguous. Central to it are two themes: leaving home and finding one’s own true path despite the various voices that try to hold you back, and finding home among the trees (in this case the Rowan). The journey of individuation. Read it again, though. The simplicity is deceptive: do you too feel the undercurrent? A somewhat Otherworldly undercurrent?


My thanks to all four of the writers above.