Monthly Dispatch
Welcome to the Monthly Dispatch, in which I look back over the last month and share a few stories with you all. Stories matter, they are powerful and important, and I’ve been thinking about them over the last month. But before we get to that, let’s start with the van.
Last Month in the Van Build-
The floor, the floor, the floor. I feel like I have been writing about the floor forever. I feel like I have been working on the floor forever. But it is almost done. I’ve managed to get the existing floor out and all that’s left is to tidy up the edges and fix the few small rust spots I’ve found. Rust is a killer for vehicles and is why I’ve gone to all the effort of revealing every inch of the van that I can. The plan is to treat it, so it won’t spread, hopefully ensuring the van continues happily for a long, long time. This also means a trip to a garage so I can get a look under the van and treat any rust there as well. Essentially, I am trying to make sure that every inch of the van is in the best condition it can be. Once that’s done, I will be able to start building. Its frustrating to be within touching distance of construction and not able to start yet, but I know that any project of this scale needs the early steps done right, and so I am patiently refusing to rush. My hope, my aim even, is that by the time I write my next monthly dispatch I will have begun building. Let’s see what happens.
Stories, names, art, and the power of understanding-
In The Box, a museum in Plymouth, there is a major exhibition of Aboriginal art, on tour from the National Museum of Australia. I went last week.
In Tehidy Woods Rogue Theatre weave hilarious stories, dark magic and ancient Celtic myths. I went last night.
These two experiences have crashed together in my mind like waves, powerful and wonderful.
Last night was Halloween, Samhain, All Hallows’. For those who celebrate it, the belief is that on this day the veil between our world and the world of the dead is at its thinnest. I have loved Halloween most of my life. It is one of my favourite days of the entire year. A night to put on a disguise, a costume, a mask, and play with all that is dark and wonderful within. A night for stories.
In Erin Morgenstern’s exceptional book, The Starless Sea stories fill a labyrinthine world hidden far beneath the surface of the earth. Near the start of book readers are treated to a richly vivid, literary themed, masked ball, during which one main character meets another. Zachery has gone to the ball in search of answers and encounters a woman, Mirabel, who is first described as follows:
‘His favourite costume is worn by a woman in a long white gown and a simple gold crown, a reference he can’t quite place until she turns around and the gown’s draped back includes a pointed pair of ears hanging from a hood and a tail trailing along with the train. He remembers dressing as Max from Where the Wild Things Are himself when he was five, though his costume was nowhere near as elegant.’
The moment I read those words I knew I had to dress as Mirabel, to dress as Max. Last night in Tehidy woods I finally got my chance.
What could better than being King of the Wild Things? What could be more thrilling on Halloween than a Wild Rumpus? What could be more important than being a Keeper to the doors of story? For that is what Mirabel does, she paints the doors that let a person into The Starless Sea, she is a caretaker for the realm of story, and so a caretaker for our realm as well.
For the two are actually the same.
The first room of Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters at The Box includes a quote from the moment that led to the exhibition. It reads:
‘You mob got to help us…those songlines they been all broken up now… you can help us put them back together again.’
These words were spoken by David Miller, elder and artist during a meeting with art institutions, researchers, and indigenous elders. Miller and the other elders where worried that their stories, and therefore their very culture, was under threat, not just from colonisation but from a lack of interest by younger generations. Rather than risk losing their stories they proposed an exhibition and archive to tell and preserve them.
Songlines (a word which refers to the paths of Indigenous knowledge and creation history that criss-cross Australia) is unlike any exhibition I’ve had the pleasure of seeing. For though I have seen a surprising number of exhibitions of Aboriginal work for someone living in England, this one is different. What makes this exhibition remarkable to me is that it tells the story of the Seven Sisters Dreaming in the way that the people to whom it belongs – the Martu, the Ngaanyatjarra and the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjara– understand it. It is their story, and they are choosing to share it with us, offering us a part of it, asking us to help keep it alive. The generosity astounds me.
At one point in the exhibition there is a collection of glazed ceramic pots. They are part of the overall story, but we are also told that they were conceived by senior women Alison Milyika Carroll and Tjunkaya Tapaya when they realised that many young people did not know the proper names of their local plants and animals.
‘With the knowledge of the name of the bird you also learn where you might see it, what it eats, what its tracks look like plus lots more. A name is so much more than a name, it is like the key to knowledge.’
These incredible story vessels were their answer to the risk losing this knowledge, of losing these names. I couldn’t help but be struck by a sense of familiarity reading these words. I have seen and held art made in response to the exact same fear: The Lost Words by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris.
That across the globe two different sets of artists set about trying to save the names and stories of beasts and plants is truly gutting and truly powerful. I cannot bare the place we have come to that these names and their stories are being lost. And I love, with my whole heart, those taking art into the breach to save them. One of the plays performed by Rogue Theatre last night was an ancient Celtic legend from Wales, which tells the story of a woman made by Druids from the wilds itself, a hare for a heart and skin of moss. As with many such stories there is a curse and a prince, a hunter, a spear, love, despair, and death. Much of it could easily have fit with the story of the Seven Sisters, or with many other ancient stories from peoples around the globe. For we have always understood the world, and shared our understanding with others, through art and stories.
I’ve been thinking about all this a lot this month, about names and stories and how we understand the world, because I am writing a book proposal for a work of my own. The idea is a book of photographs and non-fiction writing that tells the story of my own personal rewilding process, and the wider story of our fight to save the planet from the climate crisis. The idea has come about through the creation of art, through the act of walking, and through learning the names, stories, and meanings of a natural world around me. So last night, when the veil was thin and magic abounded I put out a prayer to my ancestors to help me tell my story well.
We shall see where it leads.
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Monthly Recipe
Honey, Bee Pollen and Alexanders seeds cookies.
I’ve been inventing. I mean what could be more fun than taking ingredients as incredible as the honey I got from Edinburgh, Alexanders seeds from the coast path and bee pollen, and turning them into cookies.
Not much is the answer.
Eating them maybe?!
Ingredients:
1 ¾ Cups of self-raising flour
½ cup of light brown soft sugar
125g of butter
1 egg
Finely grated zest of 1 large lemon
¼ cup of honey
2 tsp of bee pollen
1 tsp Alexnaders seeds
These cookies can be down either using a hand held electric whisk or a kitchen mixer like a Kenwood or Kitchen Aid. Either works perfectly.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (fan assisted).
Add the sugar, butter, and egg to your mixing bowl. Beat them until thick and light brown in colour.
Grind the Alexanders seeds until they are fine. You can do this with a pestle and mortar or a spice grinder. Add to the butter/sugar/egg mix.
Add the honey. I used a mixture of Linden and Buckwheat blossom honey’s from the Edinburgh Honey Company but you could use any you like.
Zest the lemon and add the zest to the mixture.
Beat together until blended.
Sift the flour and add to the mixture. Beat until almost fully mixed.
Add the bee pollen- mix by hand with a spoon or spatula so the pollen isn’t broken up, you want the crunch of it in the cookies.
On a grease proof cookie tray place a teasppon for each cookie evenly spaced.
Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.
I’m going to end this post with a rainbow over the coast path, because why not?