Changes (lessons from a field edge)

JOURNAL ENTRY

 4th July, Tuesday

"Goldfinch carnival 
Among the teasel heads
And early sun.

Dark clouds to the west
Bringing rain.
Spindrift of fine drizzle
Freewheels on the breeze.

The cows are in no hurry
Neither am I."

[MUSIC]

WELCOME

Twilight falling. The day's sun is reluctant to leave, washing the sky with the colour of mercury. Who can blame it? It was strong and roistering, rolling heat across the fields, canal, and river. A glorious heroic champion from epics of old. Who can blame it, if it wants one last curtain call. Night waits to gather, but must wait its turn. 

This is the narrowboat Erica narrowcasting into the sultry night to you wherever you are.

It's a hot sticky night. The kind of night to brew some strong black coffee, listen to Coltrane or some Billie as the moths dance around the lamplight. Too hot for sleeping. Too hot for anything much. Maggie has found a cool spot by my side. Some why not join us? I am so glad that you could make it. Come aboard and welcome, it's good to see you.  

[MUSIC]

NEWS FROM THE MOORINGS  

There is a sense of weightlessness accompanying these days. A lightness, the poised pause of a ballerina en-pointe. There was a post on social media this week by a follower of Wicca who was explaining how, at this time of year, the sun stands still. Of course, social media being social media it drew more than its fair share of ridicule and derision. Of course, it doesn’t and, to be honest, I am not sure whether the person posting it believed or meant it that way. But there is a sense in which there does seem to be a pause in the movement – just as at the head of every ebb and flow of tide, there is that pause. It is an undeniable fact that the daylight hours are beginning to diminish, but you’d be forgiven if you doubted it. The incremental steps are so tiny. The pendulum of the seasons has swung to its furthest extent – hanging motionless before the downward rush towards autumn and winter. ‘Soon.’ the days seem to be saying, ‘but not yet… not just yet. Let us be still for a few short days, breathe in the sunlight and the scent of growth and bloom.”

The summer’s strength is vigorous – although a few days this week has felt as if the damp chill of spring has never really left us. But whatever the weather, the colours shout aloud a summer at its height. Gone the virginal white lace of spring and early summer (although the honey scented froth of meadowsweet is still present), here come the pinks and reds, mauves and purples, buttery yellows and burning golds. If the senses reel at their massed glory, wait until you get close and look deeply into each flowerhead, each petal. The hidden fire in St John’s wort yellow, the delicacy of the pastel shades of bramble blossom that is just coming out here.

The hay on the hill without name has been cut this week, under roiling oily black skies that have threatened deluges – which sometimes came. Rabbits scurry and scatter where once there was thick cover. I no longer need to wade knee deep to reach the convocation of oaks and to spend time under their green shade and watch the shadows chase across the valley below.    

Donna saw a kingfisher at the moorings today. It's so lovely to welcome back the children of Halcyone. I mentioned earlier this year about how few ducks and ducklings I had seen and that most appeared to have moved away, possibly to safer nesting spots. Well, recently, there seems to be a fairly constant parade of mother ducks escorting or shepherding their young over the bank (much to Maggie’s amazement) or on water. Some are clearly a month or two old, while others look very newly hatched. In fact, I have rather lost count of how many there are.

The presence of young ducklings – as well as the hay cutting being in full swing – has brought the kites back to our skyways – silhouettes of sharp angles – hanging low on the blustering south winds. Much to the consternation of the mother ducks, but they have reliable allies in the rooks who cavort and sport with the kites, corkscrewing in the kaaaring and mewling air, raking the sky with their outstretched clawed feet. Unlike the spring mobs, there’s only ever one or two. Tactics and strategies are different. But the message is still clear. No matter how much the kite tries to ignore the distractions of ragged black wings, the racket they are all making and the racing shadows they are tracing on the ground, must make hunting nigh on impossible. Sure enough, after ten minutes or so, the kite climbs higher up towards the castling cumuli and heads eastwards. I can imagine, down by the bankside, a mother duck breathing a little easier. 

Maggie is continuing to settle in really well and slowly beginning to find her feet. We have gradually been introducing her to the noisier parts of boat life which dogs – particularly those like collies with very sensitive hearing, can find difficult. However, so far, she has been an absolute star. One of our concerns was whether or not she could swim. Although, we still have Penny’s old buoyancy aid we were a bit worried about how much experience she had had with water. Yesterday we took her along the River Avon where there are some nice inlets and bays which dogs often use to play in. She was a little tentative to begin with, but once both her feet were off the bottom, she loved it – swimming as good as any otter! In fact, we were rather glad we had her on a long extendable lead as, at one point, we were convinced that she was striking off for the River Severn!! We’ve now got to try to convince her not to bodily throw herself into any stretch of water that she sees!

[MUSIC]

CABIN CHAT

[MUSIC]

CHANGES (LESSONS FROM A FIELD EDGE)

Week in week out I have been coming here, watching the shift of light with the climbing sun. Feeling the movement and flow of the seasons, not just mentally but to the depth of my bones. Its ice has cut and burned me, it's creeping mists and sweeping rain have permeated through my clothes seeping deep into my being. So too the warmth and vitality of the spring winds. But as I sit, there's a strange niggling feeling of unease.

There is a sense of change down here. Deeper than just the turn of the season’s wheel. But real, substantive, root and branch, change. It’s as if some unnoticed but vital watershed has been reached and crossed unnoticed at the time, but it's effect is surely felt. 

I sit, as I have done so many times beside these sheltering reeds - beyond, the canal glints endlessly on – and listen, and watch. Just as I have done since the iron-hard, grey days of winter light and biting winds. Learning about the true life of a plant and tree. Not the visible, showy, exterior – as hypnotically magnificent as they are but the true life – down below. Beneath the boots encasing my numbed toes. Tentatively trying to learn to trust that life does burst forth out of that which seems lifeless and forlorn.

"For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed..." (Matt 17:20)

Well, I have gone one further – In those wintering days, I did not seek a faith of any size, just the faith OF the willowherb and nettle, bramble and dogrose, ash and ancient oak. A faith that covers the the wayside flowers and trees is a covering faith enough for me right now.  I have seen the aftereffects of too many mountains cast aside to care much about that.

As I watched them grow and bud into flower, together we shared the glories of the dawn skies and the feel of a warming sun. Me, here beside this little inlet, spring song giving way to summer, and the constant sound of commuter traffic.   

Perhaps that is why I can’t shake off this feeling of change, of things being now different. Stasis is never an option within the natural rhythms and flows of the landscape. All fledglings must, at some point, jump into the void below them. The nest is no longer their natural environment. Move on, reach upward. There are more lessons yet to learn, but perhaps not here. As much as I would like it to be, it feels as if I am being nudged on. My fingers being gently prised off the old handholds that have become my security.

Maggie coming, changes things. We have a new life to care and be responsible for. I love going for walks with her. It is so nice to once more discover the new among the old in a way that only can come from sharing a walk with a non-human. It’s a joy, and Maggie has been settling in so perfectly, more perfectly than we could have ever hoped. But it is different.

We sit by these reeds in the sunshine and I am aware how different things are. I sit where I have sat so many times before, on this little tussock surrounded by thistles. Clouds of common brown moths lift light and weightless into the air. Nothing has changed and everything has changed. Maggie snuffles and explores. Even lying down, her nose twitches and she is alert to a thousand sensory stimuli of which I am ignorant. This is her first time here and already she knows far more about those who live here than I do.          

Earlier, I stopped by the horses to tell them that things have now changed. I have a dog with me. They of course knew that – even as I climbed over the style. One or two, I think, still recognise me, but I am aware of a wariness in their approach. They hang back. I don’t blame them. It is good. They are living by their own wisdoms. I thank them and tell them that now things are different. And that is undeniable - it IS different. I knew it would be – not worse, just different. My relationship with the land, this land has shifted once again. It’s not just me here anymore. Let go of the rockface. Stretch out those wings.

It is time for me to learn other things and Maggie has come to guide me. I am suddenly acutely aware how different my relationship with this field is to hers. I have cultivated a quiet, passive, silent watching and being. That has been so important and I don’t decry a single moment. But, if I am honest with myself, there was often – deep within me – the feeling that this was somehow not really it. It wasn’t as ‘natural’ as I wanted it to be (whatever that means). It was a relationship that could only be afforded to those who do not really need the land – or for whom it provides a palliative role. My passivity (as important as it has been – and possibly will continue to be) is the byproduct of an attitude of difference. Being set apart. The admiring but detached observer.

So different to Maggie and (when I look back) to Penny. They were unabashedly living the land, uncompromisingly and unapologetically a part of it. Actively participating in it. Living out that sense of belonging. Owning the land and taking ownership of your place within the land are two very different things and the distinction is crucial – and one, we as humans need to learn quickly. Maggie takes ownership of her place within the land.

We seem to struggle between two dysfunctional views of our world. We are either blinkered by our misconception of proprietorial conviction of the world and all it contains belongs to us or we're wracked with guilt for our very presence, ashamed of the shadow we cast and guilty about the footprints we leave as if we too are not part of the ecologies among which we live. Both stem from a misapprehension of our place on earth. Our ecology needs our footprint - the marks that are necessarily left by our lives, just as much as the bees' or whales'. It just matters what sort of footprint we leave. We should not feel that we should apologise for being here. Both attitudes stem from a sense of disconnection and separateness. That we are not really part of this planet and the alienation that that brings.

I need to listen to Maggie. To learn how to take ownership of my place here on earth.

As if on cue and out of nowhere, a stranger’s voice breaks into my consciousness. I am politely and firmly reminding me that I have no right to be here. Maggie and I should make our way over to the public footpath immediately (emphasis on public). I do not belong here. He couldn't be more wrong, of course, I do belong here – perhaps in more ways than he will ever understand. Ownership of land is not the same as taking ownership of your place within the land. This land has welcomed me, sheltered and protected me when the storms came and accepted my joy of its presence. Yes, I do belong here.

But on the other hand, he couldn't be more right. He is simply articulating out loud in (very) human terms what Maggie is beginning to teach me. It is time to move on. It is time for me to move on accept that things are changing. Different now. My time with the buckthorn and the willowherb is over. This nest is no longer my home; no matter how protective and comforting it still feels to me. There are other questions that I need to find answers to about how to live fully taking ownership of my place within the network of ecologies around me. It is, perhaps, time to dismantle the persona of observer – as sympathetic as I tried to be (and, again, as vitally important as that is) – and to slowly feel my way into a new living world, and like Maggie become unapologetically part of it.  

Things change, as they always do. Other homes are calling to me and wait for me.    

‘The Summer Day’ by Mary Oliver

[READING] 

SIGNING OFF

This is the narrowboat Erica signing off for the night and, particularly if you too are facing the uncertainties of change beyond your control, wishing you a very peaceful and restful night.
Good night

WEATHER LOG