It isn’t just the conditions on our planet that are worrying, the loss of biodiversity and climate change to name but two. It is the conditions within humanity. I am not talking just about corruption or greed, but rather the oppositional nature of so much interaction. This leads to distrust of folk in other ‘camps’ whatever they may be, ‘othering’ them and wanting to convert them or bar them, sometimes leading to hatred and death threats. Wanting to win.

This demonstration of competition and extreme tribalism has been attributed to our nature, that we too operate on survival of the fittest. However biologists now recognise that this has not been the dominant strategy in the evolution of our life forms. Cooperation, not competition, gives the greatest advantage in evolutionary survival and advancement. Can we change our modus operandi so that in our decision making at all levels we are seeking to work co-operatively with each other and with the planet? Can we make our daily dance a dance of life?

Where the birds sing

Up at the dawn of the dawning, the yawning of the day. It is a sallying forth to come down here as the mornings sharpen and darken. The heat and light in the house hold me womb-like and the garden is strange territory. But here I am, in commonality with the trees and leaves, in community. We all sit with sleep in our systems, the warmth or cool of night in our blood, the slowness of it still heavy in our bodies, responding to the call of the day. Come and creep over us, around us, through us. Come and awaken with verb instead of noun, come and light our fires, stoke our boilers, prepare us for living and breathing and choosing.

The birds are awake before me, they sing gently while the leaves switch on. I am in a cage of quiet with birdsong as the bars. I am solid, I am seated. The rain should be coming later, can they feel it? Does it send a message in the air riding before it? Here is a breeze, sneaking in from the west, pouring gently through the oak tree in soft susurrations of sound, then swaying the ash and apple boughs that line its path before it reaches my right cheek with a cool stroke.

Apples have fallen in the night, full and replete, red and round, submitting at last to the love of gravity, lying as offerings to the new season. The rose leaves at the top of the trellis are catching the light, the new day, and holding it on their plate, offering it shining to the rest of us. It is such a big thing yet it weighs light as gloss, glancing off the leaves in an orchestra of silence.

Cop 26, the UN climate change conference, is meeting in Glasgow from Sunday 31 October to Friday 12 November and we care about the decisions they make.

PRAYING FOR COP 26

Days aren’t always sunny

Days aren’t always sunny.
Grey skies and chilled air
match my mood.
I have problems I cannot solve,
pain and fears I cannot fix.

Sitting here is a comfort,
a wild place floored with fallen leaves
like last year’s hopes,
brown and curled and finished.

Ivy pushes through them
and brambles surge
under the mossy branches,
beneath the dead tree.

There is a stream running through,
cold, clear water
burbling as it runs over rocks,
the sound staying here
while the stream moves on.

I take my troubles
and lay them in the stream.

I take my pain
and lay it in the leaves.

I take my sorrow and confusion
and dig it into the muddy ground.

The Earthshot Prize is going to be awarded this month on the 17th October. It is a new global prize for the environment, designed to incentivise change and help to repair our planet over the next ten years. There are five categories: Protect and restore nature; Fix our climate; Clean our air; Revive our oceans; and Build a waste-free world. They are featured on BBC.

Cop 26, the UN climate change conference in Glasgow, is at the beginning of November. Much of the discussions for this are happening now so please keep this in your thoughts and prayers. We need governments and organisations to work together and make commitments and laws that will ameliorate the changes in our climate.

A wonderful group of people are walking from London to Glasgow to be there for it. It is a pilgrimage for nature and is called Listening to the Land https://www.pilgrimagefornature.com/ . Please support them. Pilgrimage for Nature are one of the official events at COP26, which is HUGE and allows them to be a platform for the many voices they have heard from all the people and other fellow beings they have met as they have crossed the land, and the voices of indigenous peoples from overseas who, due to COVID, will not have as much access to the main arena as is normally the case. These are people living on the front line of climate change and whose skills and expertise we need to draw on to survive this. Listening to the Land will be hosting their event on 12th November.

When we do listen to the land, there is so much it gives back despite what we have done to it. There is hope, and joy, and life there. I encourage you to take time and do the same.

Listening to the Land

The wayside plants talk to me as I pass in words of brown and green. ‘Hallo’ they say, ‘we haven’t seen you for a while, are you OK?’ I smile and pass on past huge, happy hazel leaves grinning at the sun, and wine-thorned stems of bramble resting from all the pushing and growing and arching with a maternal air and nests of black drupes.

And oh the red, round earrings, necklaces, jewelled bodices of hawthorn which is modestly turning to dappled yellow and brown so as not to flaunt its pride in such a rich harvest. Elder leaves catch the sun and the spiders and the shape of the day between each leaf as a present to please us as we pass.

Nettles lean drunkenly with their stiff tassels of beads, humbly healing the land with a shy smile. And the grass is still singing as it loves the sky and reaches for embrace before it lays itself down, swayed by the gentlest kiss of air.

All is waiting. All is round and green and well-fed and happy for the year has been won, the roots are holding, the fruits are hanging ready for new times after dead winters and there are no regrets, there is no sorrow for the time that will crumple and blow away leaves and seeds, no fear of bare branches, no awareness of temporary death, just a resting in life, a simple trusting in growth that is part of next season’s bloom. Life goes on.

September 7th this year is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. September is also the beginning of our academic year and the time after our summer break which feels like a new start for many of us. Life does not go on the same, there are always surprises and new beginnings, some more welcome than others.

It is easy to bemoan the things we are aware of that damage people and planet, but change comes by believing in the future and letting go of the past. Things can seem beyond our control, but holding hope and vision for new ways of co-operation, respect and wisdom helps to bring in the new.

I love this Rosh Hashanah blessing, usually given with a piece of apple dipped in honey. I send it to you, and to our planet:

May the Lord renew for you a year that is good and sweet.
(Use whatever term you are comfortable with)

Sitting

I am sitting on the sand,
I am sitting on my planet.

I am rooted in this time,
I am present in this place.

This is my arena for life,
I leave footprints on its face.

‘As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer.’ Black Elk. We walk the earth with dead feet, not connecting to the wonder beneath us. What difference might it make to the earth, and to us, if we walked with living feet? Walking consciously is good, having bare feet even better, and dancing better still. Walk your appreciation and your connection into the planet. Dance your song of love and feel the joy.

Walking

Walking
is my meditation
today,
putting one foot
in front of the other,
heel to toes,
rhythmic,
connecting with the earth
then letting go,
moving my body
and my awareness
through space,
connecting with this place
then letting go.