very interesting essay, I had to read it twice, slowly. I would like to be slow like the raindrops in your forest, but ‘I would like’ is too hasty. Did you study Chinese? I like the imagery of modern humanity as a flood spilling out of its channels; I especially like the three ghosts. I think that now, I can never rid myself of Remembering Before, Being Alone and Disquiet; they will sit there quietly, when I muse about life.
The graph you included in the piece says almost all that needs saying. I read the other day that 'the wild land mammals alive today have a combined biomass of 22 million tons; marine mammals account for another 40 million tons. By contrast, humans weigh in at 390 million tons - and if you throw in our livestock and our pets, that adds another 690 million.' We outnumber and overwhelm the world, and it is our loss.
A long while ago, she has gone now, I knew a young artist, whose team refined potters clay to make a living. For a festival she made a mountain of clay and a simple sprinkle of 'rain'. This ran for the festival and history was recorded.
Such is imagination. I would be hard pressed if non-human nature didn't talk to me, usually modestly as is nature, confiding, but occasionally tough and insistent about realities..
From a long poem Albion's Land -. In The State of Our Desire' ...
War, 24 hours' drive to the east of here, means a tree yields 3,000€ in firewood now. We have 50 or so fewer mature oak & beech around since January, thanks to this. But I have a wood burner and, consequently many ghosts.
The bats were feeding this evening, looping around my space and wildflowers are appearing 'early' on my patch. I feel impermanent and a sense of satisfying humility as I think about planting this year's tomato seeds tomorrow. Me and the ghosts.
I find our mastery illusory. We have no control even over the direction of our own technological development. The passenger pigeon a better ornithological metaphor for this human moment.
There is no mourning of nature itself in this piece, by the way. 'The Mountain' will be fine, we can't harm it: should we detonate all our nukes at once, the world would recover in a what is, for it, the blink of an eye. I suspect I was not clear enough about this, but the three ghosts are all ghosts of our relations to the world, not of the world itself.
Interesting that you bring up the ultrasound. I had two pregnancies and they were not like anything else I have experienced. Both were difficult to achieve and both caused me massively more anxiety about my physical health and the baby’s than I normally experience. I very much appreciated the regular check-ups and not for anything would I have given up access to health care and hospitals and every technological gadget and piece of human expertise to help my children if something went wrong.
I did seek out views to balance my anxiety: the people who reassured me that birth is normal and my body knew what to do. (This appeared truer the second time around, when I was able to have a natural breech birth in a hospital where this was allowed with close supervision.)
It’s only in (safe) hindsight that I feel able to sometimes question that anxiety: does the monitoring and expectation of a perfect baby increase it? Would things feel different if I had my children younger and struggled less with fertility? There’s not much point in rehashing this for my own sake: the past is the past and it is touched by grace and miracles even more than by pain. But it may impact on how I talk about life with my two daughters.
very interesting essay, I had to read it twice, slowly. I would like to be slow like the raindrops in your forest, but ‘I would like’ is too hasty. Did you study Chinese? I like the imagery of modern humanity as a flood spilling out of its channels; I especially like the three ghosts. I think that now, I can never rid myself of Remembering Before, Being Alone and Disquiet; they will sit there quietly, when I muse about life.
I only studied it informally, lazily, and badly, I'm afraid.
Glad you found something of value in it :)
The graph you included in the piece says almost all that needs saying. I read the other day that 'the wild land mammals alive today have a combined biomass of 22 million tons; marine mammals account for another 40 million tons. By contrast, humans weigh in at 390 million tons - and if you throw in our livestock and our pets, that adds another 690 million.' We outnumber and overwhelm the world, and it is our loss.
I didn't know those statistics. Striking!
A beautiful meditation.
Lao Dan walked on, not thinking about Wensleydale.
A wee like heart isn’t enough. The stream and flood analogy is superb.
Thankyou, thankyou.
A long while ago, she has gone now, I knew a young artist, whose team refined potters clay to make a living. For a festival she made a mountain of clay and a simple sprinkle of 'rain'. This ran for the festival and history was recorded.
Such is imagination. I would be hard pressed if non-human nature didn't talk to me, usually modestly as is nature, confiding, but occasionally tough and insistent about realities..
From a long poem Albion's Land -. In The State of Our Desire' ...
"Imagination bereft in moonlight
Knowledge left without substance
Haunts its own dreams
A ghost in what was home"
A beautiful reflection. Much to ponder.
War, 24 hours' drive to the east of here, means a tree yields 3,000€ in firewood now. We have 50 or so fewer mature oak & beech around since January, thanks to this. But I have a wood burner and, consequently many ghosts.
The bats were feeding this evening, looping around my space and wildflowers are appearing 'early' on my patch. I feel impermanent and a sense of satisfying humility as I think about planting this year's tomato seeds tomorrow. Me and the ghosts.
Really loved reading these reflections.
I find our mastery illusory. We have no control even over the direction of our own technological development. The passenger pigeon a better ornithological metaphor for this human moment.
There is no mourning of nature itself in this piece, by the way. 'The Mountain' will be fine, we can't harm it: should we detonate all our nukes at once, the world would recover in a what is, for it, the blink of an eye. I suspect I was not clear enough about this, but the three ghosts are all ghosts of our relations to the world, not of the world itself.
Congratulations, though!
Interesting that you bring up the ultrasound. I had two pregnancies and they were not like anything else I have experienced. Both were difficult to achieve and both caused me massively more anxiety about my physical health and the baby’s than I normally experience. I very much appreciated the regular check-ups and not for anything would I have given up access to health care and hospitals and every technological gadget and piece of human expertise to help my children if something went wrong.
I did seek out views to balance my anxiety: the people who reassured me that birth is normal and my body knew what to do. (This appeared truer the second time around, when I was able to have a natural breech birth in a hospital where this was allowed with close supervision.)
It’s only in (safe) hindsight that I feel able to sometimes question that anxiety: does the monitoring and expectation of a perfect baby increase it? Would things feel different if I had my children younger and struggled less with fertility? There’s not much point in rehashing this for my own sake: the past is the past and it is touched by grace and miracles even more than by pain. But it may impact on how I talk about life with my two daughters.
Congratulations to you and your wife. 😍