Louis' diary

11th june First event, launch party. I sang in front of everyone at the party, weird cos I'm not really a singer, nervous, forgot all the words of the songs i sing to daughter Kezzy to get her to sleep most nights - songs that are close to my heart and connected to all the themes of This Place.

Here are the lyrics to the songs:
bright morning star arising, bright morning star arising, bright morning star arising, and day is breaking in my soul
dark night star ascending, there's a dark star ascending, dark night star ascending, and today is trying to break my soul
and where are our dear sisters, where are our dear brothers, where are our dear mothers, where are our dear fathers
theyre in the treetops swaying, down in the highway a laying, theyre in the courtrooms a saying, up in the diggers locking on
and where are our dear badgers, where are our dear sparrows, where are our dear oaks and ashes when day is trying to break my soul?
theyre in the hedgerows trembling, down in the slag heaps a burrowing, theyre in the TVs a fading and day is trying to break my soul
and where are our dear cousins, where are our dear comrades, where are our dear neighbours when day is trying to break my soul?
theyr in the houses wobbling, on in the vans a moving, theyre by the fences squabbling and day is trying to break my soul
and where are our dear mosses, where are our dear grasses, where is our dear lichen, where is our dear bracken?
theyre in the valleys praying, up the mountain top a shouting, theyre in the valleys a praying, gone up the mountain top a shouting out

Chopped friends

When I was a kid on the North edge of hull
I knew two big oaks who lived in a field
Between our council estate that was getting pulled down on right
And on the left where they were building new suburban shite

The bricks and tarmac closer each year
More and more houses, all exactly the same
the birds got evicted and the hedges got bulldozed
Surrounding my favourite field and it's oaks

Now they've cut down my old friend s,
Bodies chopped up by the Harris fence
Now when I go that way to see my folks
Feet get cold and throat gets choked
150 years of growth
cut down to the ground like its less than nowt

Now I live on Ryde ave, and the best thing about the place
two huge cherries nearly a metre round the base
And the blanket of blossom on the pavement once a year
the blanket of blossom on the pavement once a year

But then they cut down my two friends
Bodies chopped up by the harris fence
Now when I walk that way carrying my daughter
Feet blossomless, and eyes full of water
Over a hundred years of growth
CUt down to the ground like it's less then nowt

Since I was a kid my heart ached for the jungle logs
For monkeys and toucans and jaguars and frogs
And this world with its deserts and ice caps and mountains and rivers and seas
Well It wouldn't be a home without a forest to breathe

9 million acres of rainforest last year
Cut down by capital, whole communities cleared
For timber and land and cows and control
Fuck macdonalds fuck bolsonaro

And theyre still chopping down our friends
Cutting up logs, and putting up fence
And we walk on grey not even looking at eachother
And nature's an enemy when it could be a lover
Over 4 billion years of growth
Kicked around and cut down like it's less than nowt

Now I know everything changes,
Nothing stays nothing stays, everything passes
And I know without death theres no new shoot,
And all life has destruction at its root

And I know we're living in the craziest age
And 8 billion people take up lots of space
But my tree friends were healthy and ancient and young
They were generous and beautiful they were a home and a lung

But now they're gone my fresh old friends
Not even firewood, not even a bench
Not habitat piles not a sculpture
Not a plank or a beam or a block or a door
Not rotting with their friends in the ripe of old age
Just waiting to be chipped behind some fucking Harris fence
Centuries of struggle and squirrels and sap
sawn down to the ground like it's less than nowt

And the youth are scared of mud, the country folk are racist and the workers are voting tory
Dead forests and homes all over the world's are just another sad news story
And misogynists go viral and the wildfires rage
It seems a sad old world a comin a desolate age

I'd move to the countryside if I could
But I'm currently locked in solidarity with the toxic mud
With the pigeons in the warehouse, with the rats in the park
With the machines playing tunes in the absence of the lark

(chorus)

On Friday me and 12 kids planted 70 trees
And Irelands tree cover went up 70 percent last year
And tree protectors fighting HS2 take a stand at bluebell wood
And even with the rubbish in the ditch still the saplings look good

And if a tree falls in a storm but the roots are still strong i can leave it to keep on growing
And if i got good reason to chop 1 down i can ask it for permission  
I can use every part from the dust to the bark, respecting the beauty of the wood
And admit how dependant we really are on blossom and soil and bugs

Somehow well stop em chopping down our friends
Tear down all of that harris fence
Fill myself up with love for every plant
Kick with foot and help with hand
Over 4 billion years of growth
Continues in me and it isnt for nowt

The earth it lives and its crying
The earth it lives and its crying
The earth it lives and its crying
And even on the last day of life we'll go down smiling

Cos we've seen beautiful things
Like people junping fences to get to their friends
We've helped worms and tired old bees
We've stroked dogs and even dogs with fleas
Weve watered roots and eaten fruits
We've seen bullfinches and coots
And if 33 years has taught a thing to me
The whole wide world lives in every tree
Over 4 billion years of growth
Continues in us and it int for nowt

when love runs towards me
when love runs towards me I am pierced by its horns
when love runs towards me Into little bits I’m torn
when love runs towards me I’m dying and I’m born
when love runs towards me I am pierced by its horns
I dont want no armour I don't want no shield
I dont want no weapons I dont want no spear
I dont want no castle I dont want to hide
when love runs towards me it will conquer my insides
love of our planet makes me shout and scream and cry
love of awe and wonder makes me reach up to the sky
love of other people makes me scared and gives me joy
love is like the tempest and the floating buoy
I am an empty bucket and now I am a lake
I am a tyrants tower, that crumbles in the quake
I am a pile of broken bricks and now I am a house
my love's as loud as thunder and as quiet as a mouse

the rapture of destruction and serenity of peace
roll around inside me like a two backed hungry beast
the battle between light and dark it never seems to cease
My heart starves in the desert and comes home to a feast

when love runs towards me I am pierced by its horns
when love charges at me into little bits I’m torn
when love charges at me I’m dying and I’m born
when love runs towards me I am pierced by its horns

Nice night, great to see some great friends and people I haven't seen for a while and have some nice conversations.

Today was at second Ctrl Shft event, so glad that project is happening. Meeting people and not just on a cerebral level but trying to communicate also with room for emotions and irrational stuff in body, belly, heart, desire etc.
we did an excercise with the question 'WHAT IS THE WORLD YOU'RE LONGING FOR?' where we repeated the question to our partner for 5 minutes, replying thankyou each time they answered. My partner was Charlie the facilitator, he really answered from his body and intution and feelings. My first answer was
THIS WORLD
very definitely, the world I want is this one, not Mars, or a fantasy, but this real world. My next answers were that I wanted a world where we don't have to deny parts of ourself... If society allowed us to work through all our dark side stuff we wouldn't pass it onto eachother, if we as human adults were allowing our children to learn to shake and shudder and wail off the traumatic experiences instead of bottling our instinctive reactions because they're asocial or impolite, then we'd all be carrying less trauma round and dumping it all over eachother.
My last answer was
I long for the air, flight, light, clouds,
Also I long for soil, mycelium, tunnels,
Also I long for the waters, the foliage, all the life on the ground....
And this made me cry. It wasn't an answer from my brain, but from deeper down. And it wasn't about what I wanted for myself, to experience... I didn't want to BE in the air or the soil or the waters or foliage - I just wanted them to exist. I want them to exist, the sky the underground the plants... I experienced a deep yearning for them to exist, experienced my interconnection and solidarity with all the matter of our precious earth, and experienced grief at the precarity of it all.

Thinking back to last night at the party I had a hard time cos of thinking about what other people thought of me. Trying to be vulnerable and open, and also strong and brave to say what I think needs saying, but so hard to disentangle from need to be liked. I think partly the search for Wildness, inner and outer is about the wild that doesn't care about human politeness, social constructs etc. I have been feeling for a few years a need to find my wild side, my belly-being....

At the same time as this huge river-pull in my life towards belly and body and intuition, there have also been unmistakable signs in my life that I need to honour mind, brain, thought, planning, organisation, order, intellect, all this right-hand western stuff that I have thought of as bad and to be destroyed. But order isn't only the oppressor it is is also much needed. Too much order is bad, but my life without order is not livable. I need to inhabit, honour, admit and nurture the ordering parts of me, the inner 'monarch' in fairy-tale terms, as much as the inner wild-animal. I need that monarch energy - the ability to see my whole landscape and wisely choose decisions for the good of my whole inner population. Much as I hate king-ruler-dictator-empire-colonial images because of the inequality and oppression they represent in the real world, there's some authority figure within me that has to be allowed to breathe within my inner story, otherwise I am killing part of myself. there is the dark side of kings and queens, but i have not ever admitted til very recently that there is a good side of kings and queens too - at least metaphotically/mythically.

Whole point of this month is to see and admit parts of self/society that are unpalletteble.

This energy of 'ruling' is is something I have to come to terms with, at least in my inner world. not sure how it applie sto the outer world...still think the closer to anarchy the btter, power diluted as possible, in as many hands as possible, not concentrated in the hands of a single person, or small group, because all humans have dark sides, its so easy to give in to greed and cruelty etc.

but maybe my suspicion and hatred of authority figures has gone slightly too far... not sure.....

12thjune Sunday earth exchange
Not many people - didn't do great with publicity. But such a good session, great to learn this simple format for ritual connection to place. Harriet explained very well, bringing in all main considerations like working in urban environment, health and safety, holding the space non judgementally... She did the ritual where she was in France, in a forest that was being logged, and we watched and then we did it ourselves and then came back to talk. In Ground were me, Adrian and Sam, and we did our ritual for the back garden at ground which is a small concrete square in a dirty back alley with plastic flower pots and tyres with herbs, flowers and the odd veg, and a fire pit, where we have had many good times. The ritual has 3 main parts (after choosing location and inviting people into a comradely space) 1- say how you feel about the place including absolutely anything that comes up for each person. 2- make a gift, a piece of art out of stuff you find around the place, and leave it there for the place. 3-say how you feel again, noticing if anything has shifted. and a fourth part, 4- a more informal social space for picking over the experience together, talking over a drink, helping each other process.

it was very interesting to me to see the shifts in mood/feeling before and after the gift-making. for example, i became less sad about the concrete environment, and more energised and able to see the positive side of the dirty rubbish we used to build our tree sculpture. Whereas Adrian seemed to go from fairly positive to angry about the obscene lack of care that means we spend huge amounts of energy making the aluminium cans, the plastic bags, the food, and then we disresepct all that by throwing it straight into the bin, or on the ground.

i feel its so useful to have learnt this ritual, as i have been trying to think how to approach the various places we will be visiting this month - how can we be respectful, asking permission, how can we settle back from our preconceptions and really connect/communicate with the land, and in what ways is it even possible...

i think this ritual, which is undogmatic and very adaptable to whoever is present from whatever walk of life, and whatever the location, will be a really really useful tool for us to arrive at various parks, gardens, fields, etc, and be able to talk together honestly about our thoughts and feelings that arise there, and about what the land has gone through.

12th june. pearson park - wildlife walk, foraging, foraging craft

i was quite unsettled at first because i was a bit late and there was no good solid plan in place for where people would meet, how they woukld find us etc.
but soon the numbers grew to a happy amount - there was me and Andrew and Aid, then Sarah and Glynis and Adam, Paul, Lilly, Kezzy, Karen, Una, Johna nd Liz, a person i dont know, and soon a few more. i had wanted to do an earth exchange ritual, as a way of grounding in the place, but decided to go with flow and let us sit around to chat and eat, and then we set off on the willife tour, which was a really interesting walk around the park with andrew gibson pointing out various plaqnts and basically talking about our notions of nature and conservations and the ins and outs of the ways we curate outdoor spaces - he pointed out loads of the stupid things that we do, both historically and today, the percieved constraints that councils might cite as stopping them making better choices..... andy spoke about ways of letting nature take its course and bring back healthy flourishing ecosystems even in tiny spaces in cities. he railled against cutting grass and weeds down so frequently and the lack of standing dead wood and supportive lower branches on big old trees. he prodded and provoked, and laid out some of his inspired ideas, simple ways of helping flora and fauna get a bit of a break, and ways of helping the humans get a better understanding of how things work or whats at stake.
i guess because i originally wanted to do something not involving walking, and something a bit spiritual and emotional and conversational, i was worried that a wildlife tour wouldnt leave room for people to express themselves and get to know eachother, but andy was really comfortable letting people interject, disagree, or share their own knowledge or thoughts. we ambled round slowly and learnt a lot and i meandered in and out of earshot as somewtimes i was looking after kezzy.

we ended up in the wildlife garden in the south west corner, and Danielle took over from andy to concentrate of the flora and its herbal properties. they gave us a little lodown on best practice while foraging, such as being careful of pollution and not taking too much and being greatful to the plants and the ecosystems theyre embedded in. we didnt walk far at all, maybe 5 metres for the bulk of the foraging session, but came across some amazing super-plants so rich in medicinal properties and culinary uses. For example nettles, with their high iron, magnesium and other minerals and nutrients, the seeds help adrenal glands stay healthy, and a bunch of stuff i forgot at the moment. Danielle was really knowledgeable and good at explaining with a good atmosphere, and everybody had bits and bobs of knowlege and experinces to share too. leartnt a great dance to remember what the mint family looks like.

we ended up on the grass in pearson p[ark and had elderflower tea, but had to describe our experience of the smell and taste in many ways before finally learning what it was, including drawing the flavours and aromas...

we decided not to walk to garrowby orchard because it was so mice where we were, and we let the forgaing walking and talking run over. belatedly i set off to cycle to the orchard to make sure noone had turned up to meet us there, but it was a doomed errand as i forgot the way in the maze of houses right at the end, but i was way too late and gave up and returned to the group (i had left my phone behnind so couldnt use a map, and ella had asked me Do you really have to go? and id asnwswered yes of course, because i couldnt deviate from my plan. halfway there i realised it was too late and it was pointless. but i went anyway. then forgot the way. frustrated! need to learn to sit back and consider, and to trust intuition.

back at the group they were beginning spoon carving but i needed to take kezzy back home. on the way out of the park we stopped under the cianothis bush with gorgeous blue blossom, and did a wee earth exchange, used broken off branches and made them into a little sculpture weaving into the living branches like a little stairway, saying thanks and i love you to the park.

great start to the project, really good day, cant wait for more!

13th june clay dig.
another good un, nice bunch o people. at meaux abbey, andrew beulah the farmer had dug us a whole with digger - in an original clay piut of the meaux abbey monks, from which they dug clay for the tiles used not only here but abbeys like fountains and riveaux... mum gave a little talk about the histyory, and others chipped in. then we dug. filled about 15 buckets and bags. a lovely activity, lovely time. when we were moving off me and kezzy went back into the pit, did a little earth exchange, gratitude for the gift of this mud and clay, and the connection to the underground, we put our hands and asfces in, got clay on our foreheads, built a little pillar/tower of clay chegs, and said lots of thankyous for the land and history.
nice chats with good friends new and old. walked back to the farm houise and past into the little woods where forest schools have their fire pit. we had a fire, cake, juice, mosquitos. since we were sat in a circle anyway we went round and said something each, a nice connective end to the afternoon. for me its beautiful to be able to descend like that into the earth , to know the land by its actual make-up. and i have been so prone to see what our area lacks like mountains and old trees, it was moving to be outside city and see for miles on our flat planes and gentle undulations - we may not have hills, but what does this unique place have? what is its history and identity and what does this place consist of? i'm so loving learning about the glaciers and waters and movements of plants animals and humans that have affected and been affected by this place. loving really seeing this place - not for what its not but for what it is. putting my face down into the clay was good for me, good for enabling me to love and whisper to the land itself that has birthed me and my neighbours...

14 june Listening to this place study group

Im in the study group, heaps of good books on the tables, and just 5 people, now four since luke left.
We have some checking in. then we go round in circle with a book each we are drawn to, opened randomly, and a sentence picked:
what do you want?
What do you value?
What do you long for?
What are you yearning to heal?
What do you want for your community?
These are the questions to ask when you want to heal your trauma.
///An important point,
to advance in any situation,
is to balance creation and destruction…
To create working models of anarchy,
we cant just destroy the things we depend on
we must attack and build at the same time.
///In the past I asked the question 3 times
and was beaten three times.
///Who knows their maleness
and guards their femaleness
is the gorge of the world.
The gorge of the world
has eternal life, and is a newborn baby.
///Ships are always called ‘she’
even if they have a male name.
Maybe ‘she’ is a nurturing mother figure
that guards against the cruel sea.
///The violence that can erupt
with little provocation
in the male characters of 3 generations.

-the politics of trauma
-total liberation -anon
-Zen Battles - linji/thich nhat hahn
-Tao Te Ching -willhelm
-Hull Fishing Superstitions
-landscape of harmony - Wendell Berry

this communal bibliomantic poem takes me from the big questions of life, and the individual search for the right questions that resonate deeply and help us heal,
through the NEEEED for the meeting and honouring of opposites – the light and dark, creation and destruction, male and female,
through the shedding of intellectual questioning – the need to shut the brain, and live in belly,
after we have shed our conditioning and preconceptions,
after we have admitted the inadequacy of binaries,
the need for a third force,
the truth of gender-fluidity,
then through the inner re-pondering of opposites,
the re-discerning and judging and sorting,
finding out what parts we are really made up of – what is the place of creation and destruction, of light and dark, female and male…

im thinking about sexism,
about all sexes put in boxes and forced by the weight of centuries to stay there in the boxes
about women having to Care and Help and Love whether they’re feeling it or not
about the dearth of initiation for young lads, left aggressive and angry and a threat to communities, when they could be aggressive and angry and a real help for communities…
about older men with nothing to do but spasm with sexist thoughts and shouts and jokes

How can we relate to our skies, undergrowth, earth, plants, waters,
without helping our twisted societies become less creepy, toxic, stagnant places?
How can we untwist the creepy stagnant toxins of modern life
without seeing clearly the humans here,
all genders, in their complex dance of violence, care, madness and calmness
how can we clearly see our fellow people,
without understanding their dance of sanity and insanity?
How can we understand without loving,
without taking the time to care and examine and admit the resonances in ourselves?

a weird workshop - quite awkward at times, hard to know what we were really trying to talk about - the piles of books of so many topics, and people talking about unnconnected things.
yet all connected.
lots of talk about slowing down, learning to be kind to self, being happy in the moment, and the antithesis - how do we make CHANGE in the world - how how how, so difficult, such big tasks!
sometimes hard to reconcile these - mindfulness and activism. poets often seem to bridge the gap. and the new genre of spiritual activism. yet it still often seems to be a choice between one or the other... helping others OR helping ourselves. i feel like its a false dichotomy... but am i kidding myself?... am i brainwashing myself into passivity by reading all these spirituality books, by meditating and self-caring - shouldnt we give and give, give fast and die young?
i liked what sam said about tension - we can learn to be calm and notice tension, whether its inside or outside us, and then we can act to alleviate the tension. I.e. we can sit and see if something is wrong - and if somethings wrong we can become active to help the situation. perhaps we are just sitting calmly in the garden and everything is fine... but after so long, if we have conscience, compassion, we will feel tension because of our awareness that there is suffering out there elsewhere in the world - and we will get up, leave the garden, and become active to help the situation.

Fri 17th
Got a heat rash on my belly. I like to ponder what my Bodies trying to say when I'm ill or injured... Not very scientific usually but...
My belly too hot... Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on it, trying to force-learn intuition and instinct. Maybe belly-being needs peaceful cool water as much as fire and intensity.
When I'm carrying Kezzy in a sling on my belly and chest I get too hot,,, maybe my inner child needs to learn to walk now and not be trapped in the middle of my insides, not carried.

Learning about myself goes hand in hand with my learning about the world and other people. Learning with kezzy about what she needs is good for me... Learning about her need for attachment, her dependancy and independancey both growing, shrinking, changing... Her confidence to adventure while having a safe place in her parents arms to go to and come from. The mistakes we make and the knots she'll take decades to unravel.

20/6/2022
for some months i have been thinking about certain inner psychological/spiritual symbols in my imagination. images and especially animals have always helped me navigate my inner terrain - but this is gonna be very alien and strange to lots of peoples different ways of getting to know themselves and the world. i wanted to post here my diaries concerning a particular image - the giant gold/yellow/orange eagle that has been meaning a lot to me lately.... i dont expect anyne to read any of this, but if you do, bear with me as it probably sounds weird!!

Yellow eagle
Nov 2021
Powerful brute, are you my shadow, or
Shining flyer are you my true future? Or both?
Gold yellow orange, solar animal, power, daylight.
My outgoing, my world face, not my whole
Nevertheless, crushed somewhat, unfree,
Trapped by plummet o bird,
sullen in the dim grey counties
On heathes, u shd b on clouds,
On moors, you should be on sunrays
Eating cows, you should be eating griffin's, albatrosses

A plan to free you... What offerings would you like?
Gold? Bright cherry leaves? Blood? Songs?
I, your host, the system in which you spin,
In which you are sun,
Do hereby solemnly swear
To be lit by you, to grow from your energy,
To rotate around you,
though youre uninhabitable, dangerous, lifeless, mere shear chemistry and physics,
I'll integrate you honour you,
follow your lead and curb your lusts, as appropriate..
So how will I know which when?
If your are not to be a king, who decides?
Eagle, roc, phoenix, Griffin, who would you bow to? Simurg? Wren? Cow? Love, compassion, wisdom?
My chakras:
Elephant, base, homeless but adamant, ground.
Snake, sex, no beginning no end, through and through.
Puma, you eagle, shining, searing, fierce
Nandi, heart., big blue soft caring cow bull, enveloping.
Quick bird, throat, succinct, eloquent, inspired, jewel.
Eye, gull, broad-winged traveller, seer, fierce and rootless.
Sahasrara, bee in flower, the dissolving bliss, god in my cosmos
Am I mistaken? Are you my manipura, my solar plexus chakra?
Stagnant, powerless, quick to anger,
bowel troubles, habits plugging holes, stuffing myself,
Identity in a rut, individuation lost at sea,
Giving up on expressing myself, sacrificed belief in Self,
Boxed in, stunted, stopped.
What is my purpose? Okay life is empty, meaning is illusion,
But my hole in the world must be filled from within,
I've had about enough of nihilism, distraction and laughing at death even when deaths not here, compulsively.
I've become too safe. Stopped risking.
It's good this safety, good for me, Lilly, kezzy
But too much is fake,, there's a need which turns to greed
Self perpetuating need for more security.

In the night, my body was cramped and contorted, I was mindful, sensing, my sense self filling and knowing what little space it had.
At that time, tired and squished between lilly and kezzy, pondering the great golden bird, It seemed I needed freedom., the dreaded tempting freedom from family and responsibility and the hardships of love.
The next day I walked for hours with kezzy asleep on my chest along the river out of the city, the best kind of walk, too rare, a journey inner and outer, boundaries crossed, nature's discourse effulgent and audible and profound.
Many kestrels or sparrowhawks. Two of them mating in an empty new-plown field, crying out mysterious yet grounded, free and yet together, embracing, procreating. Me and lilly will know our eagles together, will shine, grow, like wild brown birds in the mud and the crisp air.
Then three seagulls flew high overhead heading north east and the sun from the south east lit them each once a flap,, they twinkled and flashed.
The three of us will fly together, at least for now,, twinkling, flapping, flashing, companions on the journey, sharing our momentum as our bodies do what comes natural: well designed wings cut between the particles of air, navigating currents, cold fronts and warm gusts.

3/12/21
feeling tender, everything assailing me – ella and sam are sad and desperate, grounds in turmoil, weathers harsh, mould coming in, everything poisonous, electric bills going up.
Lucy is here and gave me some morning time by taking kezzy – I did manipura asanas for the eagle in my belly, sit, just full of thoughts then admit im feeling tender and assailed , body scan, realise something about this image – the gold yellow eagle in the green-grey landscape – the image is not just the eagle, its the landscape!!
-this image of home, a home I cant love. Lilly asked if I love myself and I couldn’t quite answer. I scan body, appreciating it. Ive long had sense of homelessness, unable to love hull and yorkshire, the dullness, the racist sexist culture, the flat expanse, the english unexotic monoculture...not loving the place, not at home, therefore not loving myself, son of this place, it is in me, part of me, made me, dictates many of my characteristics. I can expand, relaize my universal self my interconnectedness with selva, mountains, exotic birds and big cats, but I am from hull, and whats more, im here now.
As soon as I realised this and at least partially condescended to feel affection or a bit of love for this grey-green landscape in my lower abdominal mind, there was a hazy sense of the yellow gold bird set free, rising from the ground on its wings.

This grey-green landscape,
whats to love in this desolate place?
Rocks, grasses, grey, green, whats to love?
Love, are you lurking in this rock,
underneath…
under dry stone, behind little hill,
near tree? House? Road?
love, is that you, the soil, the worms, the beetles?
The wind in the orange autumn? I can start to hear you, sad love
birds in the cloudy pale blue
is it you doddering about in the body of the elderly?
Do you lurk in the young families even with their prejudices?
Can I love these racists, these sexists? I push them
away, im not racist, not sexist… wait, I am…
maybe we can learn and heal together.

Where is love in this plain? In the clay? In the limestone?
Is there love in our history? Can love live in the city?
Where does love wait while white face screws up in hate?

Cthonic love, deep in the bones of mother earth, magma,
the rocks are solidified bodily fluids, still emanating vitality, eros.
The grasses wave, the trees witness,
spying on the present, reporting to the past,
and the winds and ocean waves sing the future, the changes.
We humans wander about, hearts beating,
our red blood, the colour of fiery love

14/12/21
Been doing some shadow work - journalling, trying to examine unconscious behaviours assumptions etc. And really do feel different or changing. A little bit lighter, unburdened. And less constrained by selfishness. Fiasco with leak in Ground studio destroying belongings and prompting me to get rid of 2 thirds of junk clutter as well as destroyed books and art - this seems to be having a lasting affect too. Me and lilly asked in autumn, what are the falling leaves telling us? To let things go for winter. That these deaths are beautiful, fruitful! So we promised to let 1 or 2 things go from our to-do lists. This was great, I haven't felt so overwhelmed for a while now. So yes I'm having a little zeitgeist of less, letting go, unclinging. I asked Sam a while ago for advice on letting go,, he said about accepting instead - letting go can be hatred of the thing, attachment to idea of not having it. I'm also practicing this with the shadow work I'm not trying to change or push but to know, understand, and to accept and love all parts of me.
So both accepting stuff and letting go of stuff.
A sense of less selfishness, an easier generosity. Feeling happier about giving my time and belongings. Last night Kezzy woke right up in the middle of the night and when I took her to another room to jiggle her so lil could go back to sleep, as I entered other room I had momentary sensation of entering the body of this big Eagle, this power animal.
Sometimes behaviour isn't changing but reasons are changing. When I would have acted out of obligation I am stepping back to examine desire, letting go of inner monologue on should and shouldnt, accepting my actual feelings, and either doing or not doing, with more nature, less judgement.

23/12/21
I demonise the disgusting, slovenly, uncultured, dirty part of myself. Maybe I project it, onto others, naming no names... Certainly try to hide it in myself, destroy it. Scared of shit and piss and cum and snot and toenails and dribble. From parents and school and more and more growing up, needing to be seen as clean and clever, a man not an animal or slimy glob of muddy flesh. At times, between school and leaving uni, when I exploded out into new found freedom, I've been attracted by the disgusting, enthralled, and I've put it on pedestal and made a point of my disgusting side at times. Punk, grungy hippy traveller, hermit in the undergrowth, I've welcomed dirt, been a home for society's unwanted germs. Then for some years now I've been disgusted by myself, by the dung heap I find I'm sitting in, and I've tried to become clean, tried to control my mind and bodily functions and impulses, become more organised and professional, more embarrassed by my fungal infections and accidental drips and smears. I re-enter institutions that first made me ashamed of my dirtiness - parents home, primary schools, secondary schools, Hull white mobile working-class melee - and those same old disapprovals of dirt haunt and motivate me. Always an imbalance in me between clean and dirty.  Is this part of a witch archetype? Caliban, beast, brute, savage, wild, primitive, dangerous, unclean, diseased, subhuman, underworld, unevolved, asocial. Tied up somehow with aggression and violence, which I suppress and project onto dad, chavs, foreigners, government, corporations, war and armies. Both brutish and upper-class forms of violence I demonise totally. What do I need from these archetypes? Access to hidden worlds, spells of power, magic, strength, resilience, attunement with nature, with dangerous forests and mountain crags, with stags and owls and angry eagles and dark stormy nights and blizzards... ...and wind ravaged Hawthorn trees, and desolate moors.... Without my witch and my beast I'm an alien in this landscape and a threat or a meal to this great eagle.

The eagle isnt this accepted, free, loved part of myself, its also part of my shadow – this power, brute force, fierce, carnivorous, animal, killer, reptilian brain, instinctive, hunter, alone, independent, territorial, and beautiful for it – this beauty I reject as western, inhumane – this honour, pride, heroic (the meaning of my name, louis, is apparently 'famous in battle') – this lionlike, solar power – olympic, zeus, male god, individually powerful, tyrant, patriarch, jealous, quick to anger, ready to punish, judgemental

Did a shamanic journey with drum, below ground, with ants carrying me, downward to caves. Summoned my anger, my rage, an ape, a bristling baboon, a black oval of spike hairs and a tooth-jawed face. What do you want of me? no words... With the bristling baboon of anger and the great golden roc, still sullen, subdued, we went into a river, washed along for a long time tumbled about in the rapids. We went to the grey green yorkshire. Here, the ape set upon the roc. By agreement, the king to be slaughtered. It was butchered and buried in bits. The grey green yorkshire ate up the shining golden griffin, dead. Landscape fed.... A lightness, lusher greenness.... 
So what more do you want of me, rage? It stepped forward, and into me,, we joined. At about same time (before or after) the phoenix in the land exploded in fires of sun, huge searing red yellow blizzard exploding up and out, scorching and destroying all, and revivifying. Sun bird born anew, and alchemical joining of ape and human sealed and catalysed by flame, transforming element. Then drum sounded the end. I sank into the land, dissolved in sediment, trickled down in bits, and reconvened in secret passages to be transported back upwards by ant, to the hole under the birch tree from which I burst upwards, run-climbing the birch, jumping back into the middle world, to emerge from the forest, towards land on human-stuff.

---

24/12/21
Is that primate, simian, ape, also the ape of peace, joy, excitement, sadness, abandon, as well as of anger and rage and bloodlust? The ape of emotions, all of them suppressed.

I want to be whole. I'm scared of being down, angry, asocial, and I want to integrate these shadows. I want to be honest and confident enough to be vulnerable, harsh, honest and loving,, even in this situation in Sussex with lil, Lucy, per, jake, saffron, not home turf, not quite at ease,, even here with my fears of upsetting them,, I want my journey to wholeness to progress, and I want to honour them by being really myself and being open about what I'm going through, how I feel. I want, I want, and I don't want, don't want.

Wholeness.... I bow to the gods, gods of light, dark, and allness, and with their names resounding, I welcome these shadowy images and insights to rise, to be lit, and to be eaten, to become part of a rich metabolism, in a powerful and healthy human individual. Doe, I see you, you're welcome in my heart and body, your femininity, ethereality, beauty. Ape, welcome, on guard or frenzied or lolling relaxed or ecstatic, welcome in my body, thank you for living! Great eagle king, hunter, welcome in my soul, in my multiple brains, your  welcome in this community, it was wrong to banish you, welcome back home, get warm, eat, say what you want to say to us, to me....

But then... Aren't my desires wrong, isn't that the whole point? I want wholeness but that means I'm shunning fracturedness, partialness, unfinishedness, complexity, dirtiness... Desire for happiness shuns melancholy.

19/6/2022
been hard during This Place with lilly – both trying to balance and share – time, energy...tiredness, burdens. Last night we started to check in with eachother then kez woke up and lil went to feed her and I stayed up 10 or 15 mins then brushed teeth for bed. So tired! In bed, whispering, lil asked if im angry with her… ive just been feeling angry with myself, but im aware im vaguely annoyed at her for a couple of things and so honestly I don’t answer ‘no’...but we cant talk properly, glimpses of harsh truths exacerbates the tension – we obviously need to talk but cant, and we need to sleep!… I end up silently crying and I just cant sleep, flipping between all the negative emotions, they feel extreme but tightly packed in me, not able to express anything loud. I feel like im doing everything wrong (familiar feeling) -doing everything with stress and haste and rigidity instead of relaxed, generous, flowing. In This Place sessions and homelife. Not opening up, carrying stuff alone. Times always scarce, check-ins always rushed. My mood changes rapidly – up one eve down next morn...been smoking and eating sweets, feeling shame.
Last night, lying on my back with hands on belly, hara, snake place... extreme emotions, upset and having drank mugwort tea which may have made imagination more vivid, I have lots of images in minds eye – im rotting, an active dynamic sense of dry rotting like the inside of the oak I entered in hampstead heath recently. Im rotting down, then visions of green man in pains, im the green planty person grimacing, again very active, dynamic, this squirmy discomfort. Then vision of the green lion, alchemical symbol of decay, attacking my golden roc bird. The bright sun bird fighting and losing to the green lion of waning, decay and retreat and chaos winning over solar principle of creation, understanding, progress. I think these images all mark parts of a cycle, or 2 simultaneous cycles - of downward travel into myself – and up and outward travel, communication, generosity, going out. A cycle towards organised and comprehensive understanding of things, a broad view and the ability to skillfully adapt to all situations wisely. And a cycle towards wet hairy wildness that isnt human-style wise, but is chaos-wise, animal-wise, mud-style wise – in tune with the inhuman irrational rythms of nature. I feel like these seemingly opposite cycles are happening at once – one up and one down. I suppose it makes sense to have turmoil where they meet. Metamorphing through stages in a journey can give growing pains, unexpected difficulties. The meeting of opposites creates a lot of friction, conflict, energy, destruction and creation.

midsummer fest planning poem/vision
7-9/4/22

at midsummer,
how can we honour the planet that spins
the sun that gives its energy
the plants that leap up from the soil
the animals in full strength
the compost in full heat
the easy happy sunniness of hot days and long evenings?

how shall we gather, hundreds of us
dressed for a secular, religious, pagan dance-off
what shall we say, do, give, take
how shall we celebrate sun and earth,
the science of orbits and photosynthesis
and food-chains and weather patterns?
inspired by the past of this place - celts,
anglo-saxons, picts, jutes, vikings?
inspired by midsomer rites across the globe
this phenomenon we share with every culture,
and every living being
the longest day, the shortest night

where shall we do it?
how shall we celebrate in this particular place,
a city on 2 rivers, Hull and Humber, flat with big skies
a city with no religion, how shall our spirit and energy communicate itself?
lets eat, drink,
spontaneously rage and cry for our lost loved ones
and our loved ones only now being born,
waking up in the sun
lets mourn and celebrate our journey down to
hell and back
the death of our humanity -
killed by greed and fear and hate
the rebirth of our inner sun -
saved by generosity and bravery and love

at this time of year
how shall we gather on our flat soil
near our 2 rivers and our dykes
with our leafy willows and alders who love the soggy clay
with our dogs, ducks, kestrels, fish, worms and rodents
us unemployed, factory workers, office workers, farmers,
tradespeople, parents, teachers etc
earth, water, fire, air, spirit
head, heart, belly, genitals, legs
babies, children, teenagers, adults, elderly

how can we gather for an earthy, fearsome, lovely, anarchic party
an authentic engaged spiritual rave
unafraid to change and be open
unafraid to dress as animals or trees or
ourselves or each other
unafraid to make it up as we go along like evolution
to make it up communally, horizontally
unafraid to look and sound stupid, to be seen and heard
by neighbours, cameras, bullies, police
unafraid, for this one night
of societies rules of normal modern behaviour

lets be ancient, lets be crazy new born babies
lets be wild animals with the earth’s vital energy
rising in our veins as we howl and hug
lets have a bonfire, a swim, a procession with a
thousand homemade drums and trumpets
lets trespass and occupy and break all the bad laws
lets be punks, chavs, moshers, hippies, mods and bureaucrats
swapping spit and stories and strategies and sympathies
lets save each other from isolation
lets save our mystery from being named
lets save our inner children from education
lets save the wild from being tamed

PRAYER TO OUR LAND
this prayer is to ask for help in understanding and talking to our land - we ask for messages from the sacred land - we ask it to tell us its name and what it wants from us in order to heal our relationship to it. We are at a crossroads - what will be birthed in our communal spirituality from the meeting of atheism, spirituality, christianity, science and other religions?

hello
we are here, standing on the ground,, not knowing how to do what we must do
not knowing how to learn to love you, earth, mother,
are you a woman, a mother, a female, what does that even mean?
we dont know how to talk to you, how to ask you for food, how to thank you for the food weve already taken and eaten.

we are here, now, to TRY to talk to you, to know you, to say please, and thankyou

thank you land! thank you for the beauty, for the food, for the air, for the clean water

you give us beautiful flowers, leaves, smells and noises as the wind blows in the trees and the birds sit in the branches
you give us food, growing for free from the soil which is made by billions of worms and tiny creatures that make the soil nutritious.
thankyou for receiving the suns energy and converting it into food that feeds all the animals, the whole food chain, that keeps us alive.
thankyou for the trees that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, letting us breathe fresh air.
thankyou land for filtering the rain that falls on you into clean water that we can drink.
thankyou for being our home for more than 4 billion years, as our ancestors evolved from single celled organisms all the way into the complex human beings like us. as our human ancestors walked all over africa, asia, europe, australasia and the americas, learning to live in every type of climate with every type of plant, animal and landscape.
thankyou for supporting our ancestors in this part of the world - for thousands of years people have lived here amongst the rivers, fish, plants, trees, animals and weather, coming and going, changing..

we know that many humans like us have forgotten how to be kind to the earth and the creatures we share the planet with
we want to ask for you help to be kinder and wiser.
how can we know and love the land?
our ancestors had traditional ways of talking to you , earth. we have no sacred name for you any more
so we ask you to please talk to us in our dreams tonight - tell us how we should know you - what shall we call you and how shall we approach and relate to you?

we are no longer old celtic viking anglo saxon people, and we are no longer all christians, or all pagans, or any other religion - our community is made up of atheists, christians, pagans, muslims, buddhists, jews, hindus, sikhs, scientists, jedis, hippies and all sorts of other philosophies. all religions teach us to love and honour the land we feed off, so we are saying out loud into the listening universe, we are voicing our intention: we want to know this land better - we want to relate to this land with love and care …
some of us are religious, others not. we are not here to worship an idol or a god,, but to respect nature that nourishes us and that we are a part of - please accept our gifts that are beautiful, tasty, and biodegradable. please accept our apologies for when we have harmed the earth in the past by polluting, by throwing rubbish on the floor, flushing harmful chemicals down the drain, using lots of fossil fuels. our whole society is now set up so almost everything we do involves harm to the planet. but we are trying to be as kind as we can, please help us, inspire us, and forgive us when we fail.

we dont know how you identify yourself O land - are you a female, a male, non-binary, some other gender? surely you are beyond gender, but humans always personify everything - it helps us relate to things if we imagine they’re like us, with a face, a body, limbs, thoughts, a name and a voice… maybe if we imagine you inhuman form, then we can feel close to you, respect you, love you, give to you and say thanks to you...

so shall we personify you? shall we call you she/her, he/him, they/them or it?
please answer us!
what is your name?!

thank you for letting us gather here on your body today to enjoy eachothers company and celebrate the solstice that has happened every year since this planet was born, before there was even any organic life on you.

happy solstice planet earth
we hope you are happy to hear us whispering in your ear that we love you
we hope you accept our gifts
we hope you answer our questions
we hope you forgive us for hurting you
we hope you are feeling well and healthy despite all your troubles
we hope we can be good friends to you

towards spirituality of land hull
how to find sacred grove?
asking praying discerning intuiting
fingers on maps
go there, feel and ask, ask
say prayer to our land
ask for plants to wash myself,
wash myself then sit there, ask
for blessing on This Place -
blessing from the land

WILDNESS
we need the wild back, its buried deep, flooded, built over
civilisation sez its bad, scared of the power, violence, hair, blood, mucus
but its part of us, vital, its our guts, our instinct, our sex, our fight, our survival

there’s a balancing act to make - of course - between the wild and the polite
if we are ONLY wild, we might kill our neighbours, our own kids, might hurt people
but if we are ONLY polite, as we have been, we are depressed, indecisive,
cut off from nature, too weak to fight for our conscience

how can we touch our deep, latent, forsaken wild, buried deep, drowned, built over?
shake the concrete, dredge and drain the waters, dig dig dig
a part of our deepest truth lives, has a heartbeat, and we can FEEL it down there

there’s work to do, a lot of work to do, mental work, physical work, emotional work
to find the wild in the dark unknowns, to reach out to it through all the fears,
to give it its agency back though it goes against our education
to get to know its strengths and weaknesses and not let it go too far!

we’ll have to help eachother out, share the wisdoms we’ve learnt over the years
over the decades and centuries, the stories and insights and hunches
the empirical data and frenzied dances and shocking sobs and erotic shudders

there’s nothing to lose but the chains that tie us to a civilisation we never consented to
we need to be empowered to shake it up, change it, start again
its so deep, the wild - the roots of me, the roots of us, somehow all we really have
and yet we deny it. its time to respectfully hold this pandoras box, and open it together

Some questions:
Is there something missing from our relation to land/nature/place?
Is it about respect, reliance, admitting we are dependant?
Can ritual help? What would seasonal or daily rituals mean for us if we had them?
How can we talk about ritual without it being meaningless, boring, abstract, airy fairy lovey dovey...
How can we start conversations about our ancestors, about collective trauma, privelege?

Haven't written this diary for ages, feel a bit weird about it - I'm just monologuing about my weird internal symbolic stuff that must read as real bullshit to a lot of people and totally divorced from what matters like revolution, money, politics, ecological activism etcthe real world and inner world are inextricably linked for me, and it's important for me to work out stuff about both. But maybe don't need to broadcast all my thoughts. Hey ho... Dunno.

First Co counselling thing went well, excited to learn the techniques and the group definitely felt really nice together, great to have a way into getting deep together.

Susdrainable workshop was also great, but not too many people showed up - it's really hard to know how publicity is going, whether it reaches people... I was a bit stressed, mostly just cos of the logistical concerns. Ground got a great rain garden planter out of it, and it was good to learn together and do practical jobs together.

Next day we walked to Beverley, again not many people showed up. And again I am not relaxed, not feeling able to enjoy myself - locked in my dissatisfaction - partly about logistics, partly about what's maybe missing from the event, partly just my own shit of needing ultimate nice feelings and perfection and pleasure, not relaxing into just a normal fine time. Would have been good to check in as a group, but it was actually a great day - foraging, ice creams and I haven't laughed as much for ages as I did with our grass trumpet orchestra!

next day three of us organisers met in the park and had a meeting, then i missed clay cos i needed a rest. we had solstice music practice in the eve - i had made many mistakes,, wrote wrong venue on publicity, and double-booked ground with the ADHD support group, but they were very accomodating and we shared the space - they went in the garden and we in the gallery. dropping lots of balls like this is a symptom of so few people organising so much in so short a time. very few people showed up, but we worked out a plan for the solstice march, and had a good bit of practice so that a few of us would know what was going on tomorrow. it was fun in the end to march in a tiny circle, 4 or 5 of us with drums and a trombone, making a racket. apparently clay workshop went really well, with round 20 people!

next day, tues 21st, solstice.
making costumes went fine, i got more stressed as day went on, leading up to packing the trailers, organising all the instruments and supplies we would need... radio lady turned up just before 4 to interview a few people, then cliffy turned up just in time for us to play a little music for her to record, which turned out to be quite good for getting us up and pumped. we faffed abiut getting ready, then at last set off. time to stop worrying about numbers and logistics. i had big bass drum and cowbell strapped to me with cherry-picker harness, foliate dungarees i'd just made, top off, bunny rabbit head-dress. cliffy had green man mask and foliate top and snare drum,,, felt good to be led by green man down the road to solstice party. ian in mad-man parade mode had hard-hat with ear defenders and deer antlers, and djembe. ella had flowing foliage-fabric mask and trombone. foxy pushed alfie, shaking bells. darren H wore a foliate tunic-poncho, bald head winking in the sun, and pushed the bike with the trailer full of drums, flag, and buskers amp playing a drone. Lisa in another poncho, and lilly pushing kezzy in the pram with sun masks and a big bunny rabbit and rattles. it was fun, going down bev road and them turning up the bike track past the alcoholics who were appreciative. i couldnt really get into it that well this first leg. we stopped in pearson park and a bunch of people joined us, the hippy with the djembe, paige, rocko and friends. And lauren, wes and 2 kids. we had a check-in round, which was good to do. soon we went playing to the bandstand, and we went into it and circled round,,, it was great, tonnes of kids joined us, the romanian kids doing load wolf whistles, and a big crowd gathered outside. when we left down the steps the crowd parted for us and we marched off up towards newland ave, and some people follwed a while and we were joined by a disabled lad on a bike and his 2 brothers/friends/carers, all already wearing cool colourful clothes, fitting in nicely! on newland ave people were happy to see us, leaning out of shops taking pictures and smiling. i found this leg so nice, so great to be smiles at with joy by so many people. we were a wild little parade, of cheap bargain thrown together half-costumes, and an array of amateaur pot-bangin and occassional shrieks and animal noises. cliffy drummed on railings and posts sometimes which everyone liked. when we got to beresford park we were tired, sweaty, happy, and we sat on the grass. we were late so there were already people there to join us and numbers swelled quickly. we watched mud and feathers dramatic history of hull hilariously played by ella, sarah , ellie and mum. then i walked lilly and kezzy home and the trees seemed to be smiling back at me. i returned to a big plate of amazing food made by bethan, and chatted to more people who had turned up. must have been about 35-40 people. the puppets came out and some musicians jammed. soon the sun was rapidly going down picturesquely behind some trees, so we gathered to 'stand like trees' in a tai chi pos barefoot watching the longest day of the year leave, the oak kings reign ending, the increasing of the suns powerful season slowing down. me and darren and sarah and joe meditated a while after that. soon then it was time to find a good spot in the woods for our fire and vigil through the shortest night. we found a great spot in the clearing under the big ash tree and had a couple of fires going soon. we spent 5 or 6 hours chatting eating drinking, sharing in a poetry circle, coming together and going off on little skirmishes. interacted with a family in a tent who gave us wood and then had to shout at us to quieten down after 2am. soon it was time to go up to the riverbank to watch east for the rising sun. it didnt emerge from behind the clouds, but i liked the anticlimax. then we filtered away to clear up, pack all the tat and ferry it back to cliffys parents house and paulas car. then home. a great day, lovely, meaningful moments and an all round coming together to celebrate happy summer, planetary cycle and celestial orbit, and the wild vital energy of sap and blood in trees foliage animals and ourselves.

the next cocounselling group was really good, more people came and most people left buzzing - great to share our deep feelings and be listened to, and to begin to grasp really useful tools for listening, and to hear and say loads of poignant and moving and interesting observations, experiences and insights.

25th june
we had to cancel the belong event cos a few people ill,

but the walk the next day was great. we met at rooted for pizza, blind herbal tea tasting, and a check-in circle led by darren m. then we set off an hour late, through the industrial estates, 25 of us, 2 babies soemtimes napping in slings. we stopped to see various plants and discuss their uses and dangers - mugwort, ragwort, plantain, nettle, dandelion, cherry, st johns wort, self-heal, hogweed, cow parsley...
it was a really nice walk, another nce day. i found it hard to go slow and keep stopping to forage, especially as people kept asking me how far, how long etc... but i was trying to not be strict and stressed about the time, and mostly i managed! after we passed the last main road and went off piste on a track along the east side of holderness drain at som point the track was a lot more overgrown than when i'd checked the route out a month or so ago - midsummer nutrients bolstering the nettles and hiogweed,, it was so tall we worried it was giant hogweed, but we didnt suffer any third degree burns. it was nice to have a bit of difficulty, all of us in our shorts! evem i the city, a bit of adventure. we arrived afew hoyrs late to our destination. our numbers had dwindled from 25 to maybe 15, but three more met us there.
it was global earth exchange day, i was very keen to do the ritual, but we still had foraging craft to do and it was getting on in the day. i was stressed. we put it to the group and somehow managed to decide to do earth exchange then cord making after. tim suggested holding the circle at a dried out pond he'd seen before, so we wandered down paths till we found it.

it was great to do the ritual, im so glad we did - the check in round was a mix of griefs and joys at being in such a lovely place very few of us had visited before or heard of, with the sun and wind makking great climate, a fantatsic clearing we were in, in the bowl of the pond, and willows all around us waving and rustling high in the air, bright green. but the rubbish in the woods, the city land we'd walked through to get here, the image of dried up water-source, climate change and the damage humans always do - all these were reasons to express sadness too. then we made our gift for the place - emanating from a centre point of astick, moss, feathers, stones, we made a mandala-like sun-like explosion, then after a while started picking up sticks and logs and branches lying on the pond-bed and sticking them back into the ground, making them upright like trees again, or standing stones. some of them got adorned with moss and dried pond-weed, feathers, stones, flowers of purple, white, yellow, and discarded beer cans. we stopped and sat again in a circle to share again. it had meant a lot to people, there were tears and laughter - something had moved around, shifted, changed. many expressed a new sense of responsibility, ownership, belonging - a desire now to care for the place. great to do something irrational and a-modern, a-scientific, non monetisable, and do create joyfully together, playing like kids, and to be able to share together why this was so unusual or beautiful or touching. it was beautiful to make a gift for a place and to leave it there, imagining how eeather and water and animals and other humans might react to and change it, and how it would evetually be gone. How this location will change over coming millenia, as it has over past millenia, and how awe-inspiring and coolt aht is,a nd hw we are now a part of that. there was the sound of two babies breast feeding as we shared, another reminder of natural life cycles and their tender moments of closeness, and a reminder of humanity, our humanness, not far from other animals, but unique and beautiful in this moment. we remembered that other people were doing this ritual in other parts of the world today. there was a sense of communality between this group of both old friends and new faces. lots to be grateful for

then some of us hugged and started to leave, taking bits of rubbish we'd collected, and some stayed on to learn how to make cord out of nettles

a good day

Mon 27th listening to trees retreat
Was nervous to lead this with Sam - never led a retreat before. Nice bunch of friends turned up and I was able to be open and honest and I quickly felt better. Sam exercise about cycles or stages you've been through in your life was really good for me - felt profound to look systematically over my life and see what's changes, what was learnt, what was let go, and what rituals helped with moving on.
I led a imagination journey to the world tree to invite The Wild to approach and say something... For me I felt something wants to be allowed to escape..
This feels very connected to the decaying and green man and green lion images I had recently and also a dream I had last week where I begged thich nhat Hahn to bless my book, full of reverence and he very off handedly and disdainful ly did so, and then he presided over a competition where we dismantled wooden palettes, which I did very well with tai chi moves and kung fu kicks, while Kezzy wandered around happily, and then the wood dismantled even further to ashes and gravel, and kezzy had to be taken away to safety because of the fumes.
The teacher/student bit must be about how I learn from the world and not needing a devoted guru I guess, and the dismantling palettes, the gravel and ashes is about dismantling inner concepts, conditioning etc, a phase of waning, of unlearning and getting in touch with the base elements of my life, some of which are dangerous, and the discharging of them must be done safely - ie not around Kezzy or maybe not around my inner child... The wild beast I met yesterday that wanted to be set free, a part of wildness that I force to live in me even in civilised times when it would rather be roaming the underworld... Is it the dangerous fumes from the alchemical process of decomposing things down to constituent parts? What are these dangerous fumes? Discharged emotions, vociferations? ... is it addictions, or habits of anger?

The morning after the gravel and ashes dream I found a little bit of cardboard, with the world Gravel carefully painted on it!

feels like something wants to leave
downwards
something trapped amongst humans that
would rather find a way back downwards
to underworld amongst the roots
of this world tree im next to
a hairy beast, bear or ape
wants to go back to its own realm.
i must have got it here somehow,
its good to know how to do this, but
needs the matching ability, to let it return whence it came

3/july/2022
the polyvagal workshop last tuesday went really well - people were engaged and managed to take in a lot of information and the excercises really helped it to make sense to our persoanl experience. lots of people turned up and lucy and per were very accomodating and welcoming. per was so animated, it was great to listen to, and so nice to be sitting and lying around in the beautiful orchard. such valuable ideas. i think the setting and delivery style made it possible to take in the gist of the many parts of the talk. a check in at the end meant we came together as a group and shared something of our lives and persoanl reactions tyo the day, which i think was invaluable, at least for me, because it calrified certain points as they were repeated, it gave new insights as the info was seen through different perspectives, and it made us more aware of the communal aspect of the day, we saw and heard echother purposefully.
We began with a body scan type excercise which demonstrated that we can beconme aware of our nervous system through observing the tension or relaxation in jaw, belly, breathe...
in the middle we mimicked angry body language and facial langauage, and noticed it started to make us tense, suspicious, angry, on edge. we mimicked shock and felt shocked. we mimicked gormless shut-down and felt energyless and deadened.
at the end we learnt a bsica excercise for helping come back from fight flight or freeze mode, to the social enagement part of the nervous system just by using our eye muscles which associate with the cranial nerves at the base of the skull

the Release the Wolves event of the thursday also went really well, carla is a great teacher who comes at the matter from a slow generous and creative angle, allowing us time to understand in various ways. we chatted as a group about various patterns that repeat in nature, and the conversation quickly bloomed and became very fertile. for me the idea of The Edge was particularly exciting - the boundary between two things - organism and environment, or two bioregions, etc... this being a place of great fertility - where outside affects inside, where forces affect matter, where nutrients are swapped and mutations explored...
when we got onto the idea of the Wolves (the yellowstone example being that wolves were killed off and the ecossytem went badly askew, then the wolves were reintroduced and the ecosystem regained a balance in terms of caribou numbers, aspen/willow trees coming back, beavers coming back and all the positive effects of the beavers on the waters. Carla asked us to examine one pattern from our own lives - and how it is embedded in and affected by other patterns, events, forces, etc. Then we pondered what 'Wolf' we could release that would bring with it some missing equilibrium or change. For me, examining my morning routine, which is fairly chaotic since wy work life is chaotic, and kezzy basically prevents me from my old habit of meditation... i felt very unsettled... i have been happy in the knowledge that i am putting ALL my energy into This Place, which is an attempt to explore exactly the questions most urgent interesting and deeply felt in me - and an attempt to Do the things i really need to do... so i am trying my best basically. but this excercise asked me once more to look at what im NOT doing, what is missing, what i need. ...

later that night was co-counselling. the first checkin in round asked us to say something we really like about ourselves. okay. then the first excercise was to talk for six minutes on things we want to change in our lives. so basically 'what do you dislike about yourself' or 'whats wrong with you'.... this type of question usually excites and energises me, because its about the possibilities of change in the future. but becasue i am already trying with my every breathe this month to engage with this things, and relaxed into the process, trustuing it to be good, i have not got extra capacity to keep interrogating myslef and looking for how to improve. i got very down , very bad mood and could not come out of it for the rest of the sesesion and felt bad about that, felt like i was oozing bad vibes, making it shit for everyone else too. checking out, i cried and when i left i got hugs.

these two workshops on thursday, both poking me around the question of 'what do you want to change or introduce into your life?'
talking to lilly that night i remembered a primary school memory of being put in for my english sats exam a year early in year 5, but i failed, and felt i'd dissapointed everyone. i thinkthis is part of the reason that when i am set an excercise i HAVE to complete it, to the EXACT instructions that were given. this is why i did the co-counselling excersie with harshness, even though i probably should have been a lot kinder to myself.
and maybe why i was SO ANGRY at myself when i failed my driving theory test last week, i feel so stupid and ashamed!

the next morning i woke at 5am wheezing (a cold and hayfever). i went to another room and sat thinking and drawing. and drinking a herbal tea for my lungs. i thought of the 'Wolf' i want to release in my world of patterns. its called 'flexible meditation baby' and it can fit into the inbetween spaces of my chaotic life - i have the neccessary skills and desire to sit, stand, walk and paint calmly, with deepness and relaxation into stillness. i can close my eyes for the odd 5 mins, the rare hour, and from these times, flexible arrived at, i can draw the energy of meditation that i badly crave. i become still and notice what state my nervous system is in, i can coax my frantic monkey back towards my spine and my organs, and become loving once again to my belly and my breath.

so thank you Per, Lucy, Carla, Sam and Zach,, a fruitful week!

friday 1st july comics and mythology workshop and singing workshop at down to earth
i was really excited to do the mythology workshop but in the end had to look after kezzy mostly, and the heavens really opened before we could tie tarp sides to the gazebo. we were soaked, and so were peoples pictures! but i think people enjoyed it and i really like the little bits i joined in with and am looking forward to making my comic in my own time.

the next night we stayed at my parents, and in the morning i had an unexpected hour to myself, and my flexible meditation baby was let loose! it was great to sit. as part of my sitting routine i have a prayer or liturgy that i often recite, and it includes remembering the 3 forces - the holy affirming or active force, the holy denying or passive force and the holy neutralising or reconciling force - as taught by G.I Gurdjieff - because i find this to be an extremely compelling doctrine and something i try to observe in the world. They say that for anything at all to exist there must be these three forces present, and it is usually very easy to discern 2 forces, but the third is mysterious and hard to comprehend, but the other two forces cannot combine and produce anything without this third force. In my prayer i remind myself of this doctrine by thinking of the holy mountain Kailash, the holy lake Manasarovar, and the demon lake Rakshas Tal, the three of which dwell together in remote western Tibet above the Himalayas. To me, Kailash represents the pure active principle, stretching up towards heavens, Manasarovar represents the passive, serene water lying in the earth, and Rakshas Tal represents the mysterious reconciling principle, the feared lake of demons that people avoid, and when i was lucky enough to visit that place, i couldnt see Rakshas Tal, i couldnt find the top of the ridge to see over to lay my eyes on it - so for me it is particularly mysterious, highlighting how difficult it is to apprehend this neutralising principle.
I mention this because the other morning as i meditated on the 3 forces in my life, i imagined the different archetypes or symbolic images that have been interesting my imagination recently and helping me ponder my life and the world. Namely, the Wild One, and the Monarch.... the wild symbol of animality, hair and mucus and anti-civilisation and the opposite, the symbol of clean intellectual rule, of a tall straight spine and a piercing eye that sees the kingdom and makes decisions and draws boundaries. I have been seeing the need for both of these in me. As well as seeing how they already affect or play out in me. This morning, sitting with my eyes closed, i saw a third, something much less familiar to me, something like a doe, something like a nymph...
the Wild one and the Emperor are big people, sure of themselves, demanding, and basically materialistic, they have been ways for me to understand my attitudes and impulses that are most prominent in me, more or less tangible stuff in specific parts of my body and mind... masculine stuff for me, being a cis male with all that conditioning... This doe nymph was diaphanous, very feminine, i had a sense of sexuality, eros, and fluidity, this new archetype moving like smoky water, in and out of different parts of me, not just my heart or my bowels or my head, but slipping-floating-passing between parts like misty glue, i felt it had always existed, but out of my sight, i had not been able to feel or see because its too subtle for my blunt instruments. I felt this floaty doe knew the Wild One and the King well, had been their lovers all along, fulfilling all the relationship labels - lover, empress, witch, friend etc etc....
The wild one and king swap between the roles of active and passive, they are both prominent in my life in different ways. But the doe/nymph is the mysterious reconciling force, smashing the opponents heads together and saying - work together, remember that you are brothers. She carries all the shadow that they forgot. fulfills all the mystery of their unconscious, embodies all the dark fluidity from which they emerge. These archetypes have myriad dimensions, but i have been dimly aware of most of it, if at all - the nymph is the conscientisation of all i have not welcomed of these imaginal images, the bringing into consciousness and therefore and into my circle of friends - whatever we make conscious can work for us, rather than being subconcious and making us act out unconsciously. Whatever we make consious in ourselves can become part of our strength to act politically in the world - to be a more empathetic and useful person. I feel that it makes so much sense to me that this feminine mysterious part of me has been hidden because this is how i act - i get very uncomfortable around femininity, around sensual touch, around indecision and uncertainty...

i'm not totally sure about the jungian ways of understanding things, but i do believe out unconcious parts speak up (to me at least) in images, and that examining these images, working with them and been inspired to look around the world for more clues, is really helpful in becoming more fully ourselves. by our upbringing and the events of our life we are made very complex in our thoughts, feelings, bits of trauma and habit and need and etc... i find it helpful to approach all this with images and with the aid of myths, religious stories, etc.

3rd july the gardening at constable was nice, if rushed, the walk to pickering road was all on main roads unfortunately (its a short walk so i didnt find a better route). at the orchard we helped rejuvinate the labyrinth which was a lovely activity. i had to whizz off fast to get to Unit 45 for the 'healing jam'. The jam went good, but i never really let go and surrendered to the music because i was keeping an eye on the time and the computer playing the special frequencies which we were jamming along to. Even so i enjoyed the noises we made and enjoyed making them, and definitely felt like theres a lot of potential in this idea of turning up and jamming with no talking and just playing along to special drones...

4th july HARI, 'learning from this place' - sam D lead this session... heres stuff i wrote:
what am i taking with me from this month of stuff?
-grounding in community and hull
-deepening of imaginal symbolic work

what experiences ive had?
-check -ins being powerful bonding, GROUNDING IN PEOPLE
-in and out of tension/relaxation; enjoyment/disdain... ive had a bit of clarity on how and why this happens
-simplicity and power of communal ritual, and laid backness/fun within it
-dreams and imaginings

what ideas and concepts ive had?
-the 'Wild' - exploring what the word means, and 'Tame'/'Civilised
-masculine/feminine...the place of mystery, uncertainty, non-binary...
-conscientisation through relaxed communality
-rooting, grounding, body, history..
-practical compassion - not pressing too hard. Soft, flexible, slow...

what changes/shifts in myself?
-towards harmony of wild/civilised
-opening to communality
-towards a peace, relaxation around iuntense need to engage with my homeland. Less fear, urgencey, trepidation, less shame, embarrassment, reasoning...

what questions am i taking forward?
-what next
-how to balance planning and organic emergence
-how to balance similarly intensive work periods with family life, slowness and solitude
-whats the role of money and alternative economies in work like this?
how to bring explicitly radical objectives?

hopes / dreams
-individuation, peace, integrity, businesslessness
-ongoing seasonal cermonials and a strong/flexible group that wants to initiate them
-more and more interaction with deep layers of land - personally and communally
-ongoing groups exploring big questions

Notes as we had conversations:

its not the end, but the start
what do we need to let go of in order to move on?
self acceptance and love. undersatnding impulses, not being bound to action
the hope for certainty / clarity
shared culture... we dont have much of a fixed alternative culture in Hull, which gives us freedom and lots of potential
Tribe.... are we a tribe? what is this tribe like? out of the ordinary, open, emotional, with love for the land, and trying to build skills
a nomadic tribe, travelling the city, hunter gather phase... what if we then developed into a bronze age phase, cultivation....
but the postmodern context gives us the right not to floow the sequence of events, not to stick to the script - we can pick n choose, or go backwards, or leap forg or stick with just one phase... or embody all phases at once, integral...
how can we connect to land without becoming fascist?
'does the watersanke with its backbone of diamonds think the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace of his own making?' (mary oliver)

what is rising?
urgency
apathy and hopelessness
sea levels
recycling
clowning profession
sense of entitlement, lack of imagination and mystery
slowness, accepting uncertainty and urgencey
synergies
being with eachother in new ways... it changes things
grounding in people
vulnerability together makes us strong
FEELING TOGETHER IS THE MYCELIUM

another communal bibliomantic poem:
the softest thing on earth overtakes the hardest thing on earth
the kuznets curve is bullshit
community must refer to a 'placed' people
negative feedback can be seen as stabilizing the growth of organisations
'soul encounter' pivotal place of descent to soul, blessed of blasted by conscious encounter with mysteries of soul, shifting experience of self, soul, world, possibilities
to create... to evolve as a work of art, wavicals (waves AND particles)
fairness built into human nature, when we take in others it helps us, and this capacity develops at the same time as language aquisition
from the bronze age we have lots of common implements thrown away, there were liots of metal objects on the ground and wasted, reminding us that our practices of throwing rubbish away are nothing new
the haartebeest were exterminated, entire herds killed in single hunting expeditions, and the last one was was shot in north africa in 1925
deeply playful, joyful celebration is not forgetting those struggling in our rotten system, its is an act of solidarity
theres little reason to suggest the first people in britain (iberian/megalithic, 3000-2000 BC) were warlike - there are not many weapons excavated in their settlements.
kingfisher flashes in the stillness. A halfmoon is in the sky.
(tao te ching; donut economics; wendell berry; jonanna macy; bill plotkin; ?; ?; john zerzan; dark mountain; sam donaldson; A L Morton; nick hayes)

6th julky i didnt get to thew potluck meal til late as we had a ground meeting. usually i leave Ground meetings fustrated but this time felt amazing - we got through i long agenda, made actual decisions together, solved issues, got on well! lovely.
i was tired though, lilly and kezzy are way and ive been burning candle at both ends trying to get bits of work done, and trying to cram in loads of socialising too. maybe not in best mood for the discussioin tonight...
felt awkward when i arrived but went out the back and played football with the kids which i absolutly loved, very enjoyable! the campfire discussion not so much - felt very dissastisfied, but of course how can a short chat about Poverty and Richness satisfy if you approach it with a desire to solve the issues!... i was also sat next to a very grumpy man, very agressive and i didnt enjoy sitting next to him as he attacked people any time he had a chance to speak.
but it was interesting non the less, and really beautiful to hear people staing philosophies of localism and love in the face of dire global circumstances, and interesting to be in a very diverse group with quite varied outlooks and opinions, discussing the issues of a world of inequality, war, principles etc...

afterwards went to see rave machete at adelphi waering a skirt andbalaclava cos they said it was fancy dress. no one else did... i won a prize (a chopping board with dick drawn on it). i was tired and hot but i zipped up my hoody and danced as frantic as i could muster to the insane music and had a cathartic little sweat lodge in my balaclava.

camping trip was amazing,,
after organising and packing and buying food and asking for lifts etc, a bunch of us packed up our bikes and set off peddling - in hindsight we should have chatted about the route, the weather, who would be at front and back, and got peoples phone numbers cos we loist luke along the way - it was too hot and he turned back we later found out after searching forwards and backwards for him for hours!
other than that worry it was a beutiful ride out along a bike track that got bumpiuer and bumpier. Its only about an hour ride but it took us over two, and we arrived late. - Another hindsight, we shoukd have had more people to help organise things when we got there becuase everyone was kind of waiting for us to tell them where to set stuff up.... this kind of continued all night, becuase only 2 of us knew where stuff was etc we just had to run around like headless chickens all night doing everything for everone which meant we had to extra capacity to do extra things like gettinmg people cosy togther for a communal circle of jamming or talking or anything - the only time we were all togther was for 2 mins at the start of di8shing out the food - but it wasnt a very bad thing - people were in smaller groups around the site, - there were about 40 of us, so a lot to fit in any one place..

great making food with a little team of 5 or 6 pople just rough-chopping veg and stewing in a couple of big pots. forgot cutlery but jim found another bagful.
great making earth kiln for firing the clay - this was a real highlight for me - the long intricate process - i feel ive had a look ihn on an occult mystery, an insight into alchemy....
great jamming near the fire, some grogeous noises
great sitting by the lake on a 12,000 year old bog oak - what a privelege
great sleeping in the open air to the sound of people by the fire behind the mound, next to the lake, along the shore from Aidy also under the stars, and the moon and shooting stars, with a little smoking log to keep mozzies away, and a cup of water, lying on a bit of carpet in the spot me and aidy had earlier done a bit of Zham Zhong.

we lost ian in the morning, just dissappeared, but we knew he can look after himself. Nevertheless before we left to ride back to hull i ran round the lake. i like to circumambulate the main feature of a place anyway but this time it took a missing person to make me do it. so glad for it - a family of young buzzards went up in the air from the far shore as i neared them, and two grey herons, which circled super high up into the sky, a hundred metres at least, which i have never seen from a heron.

NOTES FROM MEETINGS REFECTING ON THIS PLACE MONTH 9/7/22 and 10/7/22

WHAT PEOPLE WANT MORE OF:
-walks
-foraging
-monthly or bi-weekly events
-fires
-things in groups, gatherings
-everyone at ground could put on their own events, workshops etc
-solstice/equinox events
-ground going out of the building to other locations
-walks to the edges of the city, estates
-connecting with other projects
-a reflective art piece, reflecting on events done so far
-helping each other with art and music projects
-pride in our place, (hullians are self-depracting but have a strong sense of identity)
-a slow underbelly way of experiencing hull
-clay processes
-solstice march every year
-collectivising effort, mutaul support systems/networks
-learning from othert movements - class work project, zapatistas, kurdish liberation, common ground
-make a book about the project so far
-keep intentions in mind

CLAY WORKSHOPS were amazing!
- intense detailed process - practical, learning
-connected to land, history, process
-over long time, building engagement, excitement!
-inculded talking, sharing, emotions etc

CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK:
-it was intense, we probably packed too much in, it was sometimes quite draining!
-Be good to do a more drawn out process involving more people, planning more slowly
-If we do really intense periods with loads of events, they should be shorter!
-check-in cirlces were great! especially good to do at the end, so people can share and feel deeper into their and other peoples experiences.
-wider more effective publicity
-question - how to provide newcomers with a slow introductions to an organically grown culture
-more people involved in the planning
-it was nothing like the book!
-OFFICIALNESS, PLANNING
-on the bike-ride we lost luke - we could have avoided this by talking as a group before we set off, to get a plan, and taking everyones numbers.
-should have delegated jobs at the camp a few of us were over worked!
- be good to have shared rules, philosophy between people at the camp, maybe teams with different jobs.
-risk assesing as part of planning process
-talk as a group before each event - so everyone is in the loop
-maybe better is people arent paid, so everyone is equal, shared responsibility
-insurance, get better at risk assessments, especially if we had massive amounts of people.
-split into affinity groups for organising and practical work at big events
-more people organising together, especially big events like camp trip
-small buddy groups within bigger organising group
-clear roles, boundaries? can switch between them...
On EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY questions, it would be good to have access to a minibus so we can offer free transport.
-Be good to go to peoples existing places such as clubs, community centres etc - offer things on peoples turf rather than asking them to come to new strange places.
-Get on social prescribing lists so we can offer our activites to people in immediate need of them.

divide FORAGING and walking into serate evets so that we arent trying to do too much at once - not having to rush from A to B.
Give 1.5 or 2 hours for a short walk for foraging, with tea tasting, find the plant we tasted, eat a plant, practical foraging craft...

here are my own reflections on the month:
*grounding in people
*touched my home-land
*developed my love for and knowledge of the natural world (but also fed my ego!)
*specific skills, in ritual, foraging, communicating, organising, relaxing/being...
*new friendships and deepened old friendships

• a start to a process......................................

*learning from it, i wont cram so much, need more space around things to be with kez and lil and myself alone, and plan with more people, long-windedly
*my inner life was rich this month... i havent processed it all yet - havent 'finished'... i see variuous archetyupes present in my world: 'green' one, 'wild' one, 'doe-nymph', 'metal' one, 'ocean', 'baby'/'inner child', 'king', 'fire-eagle', 'shadow',... and all of these encompass lots of stuff... i had vareious means this month of interracting with and observing this stuff: dreams, reflecting, exploratory workshops, conversations, art, rituals, out-of-comfort-zone times, safe-feeling times, vulnerability, and above all a sense of connectedness from one day to the next. Wow, i hadnt thought of that before, buts it something i remember lacking, remember noticing being missing many years ago - feeling theres nothing linking one set of experiences one minute, to another, on another day. But this monthhas been threaded through with the slogan 'land, community, self' with my practice of trying to write reflections on it all, with regularly meeting the same people, both the organisers and other regulars, and with repeated sessions like co-counselling, circles, clay, and with the fact of my utter commitment and investment and psycho-spiritual needs and manifestos... and with place - with repeated patterns of Hull land - nettles, mud, magpies, etc... lots of love has been shared, ive been fed, and ive had a vocation, which is astonishingly life affirming, i feel integral

it was great to plan the Listening to Trees retreat with Sam - felt quite close to soul purpose - planning around sharing and exploring what most helps my spiritual life, especially around 'wildness' and 'delving' , mythology, image, meditation, nature, and where all these intersect. Would love to do this further with people - one-offs, day events to explore place and its inhabitants. probably good to keep doing it collaboratively so i can learn and so my ego doesnt have to expand to fill too large a role for me.

also feel there are legs in the Study Group idea - to make an 'other space' for the ideas/thoughts part of the big questions, explored emotionally and bodily

also Healing Jams - let us meet to not talk but make healing noises, loud and cathartic and quiet and gentle, soothing, inviting inner openings...

what do i want to continue?
what do i want to continue with?
what elemnts of the month can/should/will/could continue? and how?
what obligations are left over?
what does my wolf need?
what to do with my eagle?
how to contune a regularity?
stand like a tree?
continue daily gratitude, cos im a melancholic

what was missing from the month?

• climate change
• social problems and politics
  -sexism, homophobia, racism, classism
• activism, direct action

for me, a stand out experience, but one with a few chapters running through the whole month, as i shared at the last big sharing circle we had in the pearson park wildlife garden, and cried, was the process of digging up earth and making something from it. at the first big sharing circle beofre the month began at mammal jam, i took a spade and dug a clod of lawn up in the middle of the cicle of people, and later sarah mentioned that this was a poignant symbol to her, a taking ownership, being confident with our local soil.... weeks later at the meaus abbey clay dig, after the other had started walking away, me kezzy and Darren H lagged back and me and kez descended into the pit, and did a little earth excahnge ritual, building a clay cairn and i put my face down into the hole in the earth - this was really something for me, touching deeply the land, right deep where its been for millions of years built up slowly, witnessing the monks who drasined the marches, and the city building up, and the plants all feeding off this clay soil, and the animals feeding of them and humans feeding off them, i put my face down into the basis of this whole local darea, and i really felt at last ive touched my homeland, ive never touched base here- my parents arent from here and i never really belonged, and i tried to escape but for some reason came back but now ive touchedthe place, loveingly, with my face.
In the middle of the month, after a long walk to logland nature reserve, we did another earth exchange ritual, quite a few of us, sticking sticks into the dry pond bed and adorning them with moss and dried weeds, making a bedraggled henge, this was another heart-touching the of the place we communally really interacted with the place, loved it, cared for it, opened up in it...
Then at the end of the month, after the cycle ride, at the camp at the quarry, we fired the clay we'd dug at meaux. we built a ramshakle pit out of breezeblocks scavenged from the quarry yard cos the earth was baked too hard to dig. we built up the fire intricately according to the precise instructions, moving our clay slowly closer andd deeper over the hours until we suddenly covered it in wood and straw, put a metal sgheet over and dug dusty mud to plug the smoke holes. i really didnt expect the eagle model i had made to survive the firing process. but next moring we unvovered everything, and it had survived! this amazed me, and i feel very grateful, it feels profound that the elements blessed this model i had made representing this part of myself that grounded in this place, this huge bird that is trying to fly up off the ground, but in order to do so needs to make peace and love with this earth, this place.

SEPTEMBER, MABON

sunday 25th - foraging, craft and solstice party
foraging was nice but i had kezzy with me and though we drifted in and out of the group we spent more time in the playpark and then under the willow where people had already started gathering. we sat there a few hours, mica, mat, hollis, denni, kurt, saffi, drawing and talking. i sharpened knifes for later. Kezzy got on really well with saphi. more people started arriving.. i went to buy fifteen portions of chipsleaving kezzy with ella. it took ages, then i got back, ate chips, had a beer and it was about time to take kezzy home. i returned with a trailer full of wood and a few instruments. Beggars buttons played- i'd missed sweet goose, but id talked to him earlier - he heals birds full time from his house! Beggars Buttons were really good, folk tunes and songs, good players. martin king did a few songs after, and we said some gratitudes for the season. earlier in the playpark the parkies came in looking for 'a mister winter' which i fgound poignant... id didnt say it round the fire but part of mabon i suppose is going into the dark, looking to winter..,. ive been feeling daunted about this - our cold uninsulated house, trying to insulate it quick, rising energy prices ontop of so much scary political stuff - queen, liz truss, pcsc bill etc.. like going into a dark unknown. been feeling this for some days, especially with another baby due in the spring, and i find it so much easier to be a fun dad in the summer so far when we can go exploring outdoors most of the day. But after ceremonialy acknowlegiung this stuff, if only in a short prayer to the ground round the fire, i feel its lifted and i can go into winter feeling capable and rweady for the challenges and the pleasures of the season. We jammed abit. it rained, numbers slowly thinned and the wood pile went down and eventually i packed the trailer and went home.

monday 26th - BELONG
the long awaited Belong event we cancelled in the summer - patriarchy discussion, prisoner letter writing, food, and real life tales.
i went early to clean for an hour and a half then gave kezzy her nap. lilly was ill so she was resting. we got to ground late so missed some of the discussion, but there was plenty more time and it6 was great. im so happy we finally made some proper time to talk about gender roles, sexism, mysogyny etc at ground and there were a lot of people there and mostly really engaged. we covered so much ground, or at least touched on so much important stuff.soon after arriving Anna asked the 'men' how it was for them, and there was talk of how crushing and scary the macho culture can be when your an outsider to it, and also a bit of the reasons for why men behave like this - societies set up like a power game and we are groomed to feel good when we are on top, when we make other people feel our power, and some of the reasons men often hate women, because there is all this testosterone and agression that is not allowed to be enacted, not useful, not valued, not given a purpose, and women are seen to be the powerful ones, the voice of society which tells us politeness and caring and compassion are the only acceptable behaviours, and when we cant live up to that we hate our 'oppressor' and ourself, and end up creating a violent subculture, which has been going on for decades or centuries.... ironic that men often feel oppressed within a patriarchy... the macho laddy behaviour is i beileve a mixture of learnt bullshit and genuine aggression that needs to be valued in a proper role - but the line between the bullshit conditioning and the genuine urges is so greyed and hard to see and we are given virtually no help or good role models. as Linda King said, eac of us need to find that line for themselves - own own truth. we talked about our own personal experiences - how patriarchy shows up in our own behaviours, and we talked about trans experiences somewhat. we talked about what we can do to change things... one thing i believe is that we need to find our truth and then be brave enough to enact it in any different subculture we have access to, crossing percieved boundaries between them and us whenever possible - boundaries of class, gender, fashion, sexuality, etc - each group has its own language and if we have knowledge of that lkanguage and how to speak up for less sexist potentials in that langugae, then we are uniquely placed and have a bit of a responsibility to make ourselves understood..... even though we are all still learning and cant just give a finished lecture on the way things should be, we can at least say something about what we see as being bullshit or toxic or abusing or enabling or whatever. as isaac said, lots of 'lads' are conforming to very narrow sterotypes and they have so much more within them and need spaces where they can look into what they contain a bit more...