On the cusp of a new year, the shadows of oak trees stretch long. Time is suspended, a knot in the thread of how we perceive time. I am eating books for Christmas, to feed into a research proposal which activates an inner soul portal. Walking and reading show me doorways of possibility. Deborah Rose Bird wrote of the Aboriginal approach to boundaries, comparing them to ecofeminism using the metaphor of a door. A door divides rooms and defines them as their own spaces, but lets in others; permeable, flexible, breathing.
Ecofeminism opens and rocks my world as Susan Griffin's Woman in Nature and Ecofeminism: Culture, Critique, Change (Vandana Shiva & Maria Mies) are finished on the same day. Upon reading the last pages I am consumed simultaneously with inspiration and rage, decide to move a small sofa up a flight of stairs alone, then stand outside in the cold rain, willing it to (please, finally) wash away the many years of patriarchy.
"We are the bird's eggs. Bird's eggs, flowers, butterflies, rabbits, cows, sheep; we are caterpillars; we are leaves of ivy and sprigs of wallflower. We are women. We rise from the wave. We are gazelle and doe, elephant and whale, lilies and roses and peach, we are air, we are flame, we are oyster and pearl, we are girls. We are woman and nature. And he says he cannot hear us speak.
But we hear.”
― Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her
This anger contains love, as I embrace (alongside Carolyn Merchant) the view that viewing woman as nature is generally unhelpful to womankind. The earth as eternal mother; nurturing and fertile is perhaps not an image that best serves us. Yet it is as old as time, and womens' connection to nature must not become unspoken. A space which includes all is opening; the non-binary, feminine, masculine, queer, trans and intersex to name but a few. I am inspired (continuously!) by the young writer Sophie Strand, and look forward to reading The Flowering Wand – her take on re-storying masculinity.
How to restore, and re-story? Personally, I restore through walking, sleeping, stretching, eating, making art and good company. When these things happen, new art bubbles to the surface without the need for definition or plans. Restoration, re-storying and rest are facets of environmental approaches I am thinking about a lot right now. Writing and editing poetry is quite hard at the moment (and something I don't have too much energy for) although poetry is a medium I love, use often and hold dear.
These wanderings are in my body, tissues and cells. I think perhaps they are in some of yours too. Will 2023 give the smallest inklings within us a voice? With peace and blessings I will sign off, and look forward to any replies or comments to this post. Let me leave you with some music from one of my teenage heroines, Tracy Thorn with her alt festive single Joy.
Onwards!
Emily