Funny old week
Sunday, International Day of Biodiversity, and I was invited to speak at a webinar by the Green Guild Foundation about how we can build a shared future. It was great — an amazing opportunity to break out of the algorithm and meet colleagues from Africa. Representatives from UNEP, the East African Wildlife Society and Internet Society Uganda Chapter were also in attendance. We talked widely about policy, encroachment of natural spaces, global citizenship, inequality, protection efforts and frontline poaching and how these challenges are often politicised.
Whilst it was an opportunity to share our experiences, for me it was far more useful to hear about their work and challenges. The MOOC course I’m attending, called Worldviews, feels increasingly timely. One of my key takeaways, was how their needs and challenges should be more amplified in the global north. This is also a definite opinion by many on our course, recognising cultural differences and thought processes when viewing the climate and biodiversity crisis. We have much to learn by sharing, considering ways of participation in future-building and stepping outside of our comfort zones.
One of those invited was unable to attend, a representative of the Global Youth Climate Network. Later he shared video of floodwaters raging through his home streets. The next day, their local launch of a new initiative Attack the Flood, mobilising action to tackle the inevitable flooding that is increasingly occuring. I think of our local flood action groups, their rainwater gardens and sustainable urban drainage systems and wonder whether our learning is transferable and what needs to change in their specific context.
Monday, I drive my husband to work. We leave early and along a rural backroad, pass a big bird and its prey killed on the road. On the way back I stop and move the magnificent, dead owl to the side of the road. I resolve to go back, collect the body and honour its beauty in the only way I know how, by making art.
Back home, with the ant-covered carcass now laid on the drive, I consider my next move. I stroke its feathers, its body still warm, and sent photos to friends, an Eagle Owl. It’s not been often in my life that I get that close to a creature like this, perhaps the odd visit to a falconery or similar, but even there not like this. Here, I can really explore and sense its beauty; the construction of its feathers, how they lay and change in form across its body, the sharpness of its talons and the texture of the underside of its feet, its piercing orange eyes. I wished it were still alive.
Bodies decay quickly in this climate, the ants had found it so fast and it wouldn’t be long until the flies abound. It might seem macabre to some, but as a lover of nature, the construction of our living world and how it works is as much about death, than solely life. I have an expansive collection of rocks and seedpods, dead (found) insects, bones and skulls. Foraged from the wild and carefully stored until (one day) I’ll be able to build my Darwin table.
For the rest of the day, I work slowly with this bird. Carefully collecting its feathers, trying to keep as many as possible, despite the wind doing its best to hinder this. I keep a whole wing, the one not broken, to show my kids later. To let them feel the softness and explore its weight and construction, building the wonder that should be gifted to all children. I keep the feet and head, putting them safely together near our resident ants, allowing nature to take back what is needed, leaving me the bones just for the short while of my life. The rest I place further away from the house, perhaps something like a fox might find it interesting…
My head swirls for the middle part of this week. I’m feeling quite reflective and yet, I feel like I have a million things wanting attention. It’s not that much really, but the constant, low-level infiltrations of social media, emails, what I should be doing to find work and make an income, what I’d like to do for work and pleasure, what the kids need and my volunteering commitments. Everything feels so noisy. The MOOC is more work, but work that stretches thoughts, leaving me thinking deeply about so much.
Greater problems; a looming global food crisis, the ongoing war, lying politicians, another American massacre of primary school children, people across the India and Pakistan dying from extreme heat. The World Economic Forum meets, the self-selecting elite seeking to shape an agenda of our planet. Money sure does buy a lot of influence and power.
Thursday, our Portuguese MOOC cohort meet again via Zoom, and its clear that many of us are feeling vunerable. As the world breaks down around us, we feel pulled and stretched, hurt deeply by the challenges, seeking solace with each other and holding on to that which helps.
Small acts — tiny labs, an introduced idea from the MOOC — in which we can achieve what we can, where we can, offer hope. They are tiny rebellions, fighting back against seemingly overwhelming forces. They are spaces for practice and experiment, safe in success and failure.
Each of our tiny labs is unique to that person, a space for what they would like to see in the world. Mine, limited as I am in this rental, is just a table of seed-grown plants, some I know and some I don’t, experiments. Whilst just a tiny drop in the grand scheme of things, this space is a joy to me. Others talk of healing spaces, educating spaces, community projects and more. Each is valid, fractals of human action adding up to a greater whole.
Friday, my daughter had a day off school and the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction sent itself across various outlets in my social media algorithm. I switch to autopilot, concentrating on the daily tasks, drawing back the immensity to the manageable. We start new art, cutting and creating, painting and imagining, skills that are inherently human.
The weekend follows suit. I stay away from the noise of notifications. I retreat to the landscape around me. The meadow has quickly surrendered its vivid greens, for a sun-baked, golden tapestry, where beetles fight to dominate the daisies. The breeze rustles and ripples through the airy wild oat seeds, in a certain light they shine as they dance. I hear a cuckoo close by.
The madness of the world is still close by and my brain is running at five hundred miles an hour. The night draws in, long dark purple fingers of clouds stretch along the horizon, pulling down the darkness. Bats start their flitting, darting flights in the half-light. I delight in the glow-worms that fly around the grasses, blinking their conversations in buggy morse code. Tomorrow, the earth will revolve to face our star again and our funny little lives will start anew.
