Falling Into the Future.

Thoughts on The Great Unraveling, The Great Remaking.

Just over a couple of weeks ago, we were in school watching the unfolding of a surreal, unreal story, one that felt like we were falling headlong into a science fiction story or movie.

As the story continues to unfold around us, and we are all caught inside this bizarre new reality, there are a few things that stand out for me as I know they have for many others but which I would really like to name here, to acknowledge.

I am deeply moved by the profound recognition of just how connected we truly are. 

For the first time ever, in perfect reflection of the world we have created, we are all truly aware that we are together in the same boat. This Small Blue Dot we inhabit that hangs in space suddenly feels very intimate, more intimate than ever before. For not much more than a couple of decades now, we have been marveling at and loving ‘how connected’ we are. How technology has brought us together. 

But this new situation has really brought that home in a different, more sinister and more real way. We are more deeply connected than we ever truly comprehended, as this virus has shown us. Our connectedness is what allows it to spread, we can’t help ourselves. It takes our governments telling us to distance ourselves to force us to do so, and even then some people are finding it impossible. And so it travels around the world, infecting every country, and all people, without discrimination.
Could we ever have imagined being so as one, so truly together, so truly connected with every other citizen on this planet?

But there is something more to this connectivity, something older and deeper, something we have forgotten that we are now being reminded of, painfully.
I have been immersed, in recent times, in the writings and thoughts of people like Robin Wall Kimmerer, Robert Macfarlane, Richard Powers, and Paul Hawkin, among others, who speak to the deep, indigenous knowledge of how we are actually connected, how we have always been connected, but we have forgotten. It makes our recent technological connectivity seem embarrassingly one-dimensional, albeit useful in its own way.

Looking into these worlds they abide in gives me a strange sense of being a child, lying on my stomach and looking down into a deep, deep well, as though trying to see something that is in the past, that I have lost, only to see the sky and realise I am, in fact, looking up, looking forward into the future. There is no separation. There is no divide between humans and nature. The idea that there is a divide is such a bizarre one and so recent too, yet it is so pervasive that we are all completely ensnared by it.
Looking into these worlds has given me so much clarity, so much understanding, and in turn, peace. I have been moved to tears by the deep recognition of what they are saying.

What have been your silver linings, your Corona Gold?

Stay safe, stay well, stay home.

This Is Us Now.

Those of you who were here with me in Blogland in the days that I was over at Milkmoon will remember a gaggle of small, wild children, a whispering meadow by the sea. There were bonfires in the garden, fairy houses under the trees, a marshland filled with chattering birds. We shared our dear patch of earth with lizards in the grass, jackdaws in the chimney, and dustly moths on the walls in the sunlit halls. Our days were filled with the deep wanderings and wonderings of a mother mothering, and of young humans figuring out the path that lay ahead of them, side by side, as life unfolded before them, grass breathing in their ears, salt on their tongues, all under a great, big beautiful sky.

When we had to leave that beautiful croílár, our heartland, seven years ago, life changed in so many ways, aside from the obvious environmental one, and it was kind of like stepping into what we thought was a boat on a river but turned out to be a rollercoaster. The first five years were tough - really, really tough. Three of those four wildlings went into freefall, their anchorage unmoored just as they hit those challenging adolescent years. And add into the mix the abrupt changes to our day to day life brought on by me having to go back to work for the first time in their lives, just when they really needed the stability of me being there. Yes, it was tough.

But the first summer in our new, urban home was wonderful. It was a hot one, and the young teens relished the newfound freedom of public transport, of all the exciting things that living in a town for the first time in their lives brings. The only blemish was that Jay was working in Australia and ended up having to stay there for the full seven weeks of the summer holidays (this is unusual - he travels a lot for work but it’s usually two or three weeks at a time). My way of coping was to go to the beach, pretty much every day, and even though we missed him like crazy, it was a wonderful time together for myself and the kids. 

And even though the intervening seven years were our toughest yet, we have come out the other side, we are all still here together, well on the road to wellness. Our children are almost-grown, mostly independent, with loves and lives of their own. Most days I find it’s just me and the youngest home together, as Jay still travels with work, for now. And while I am completely in love with seeing their wings unfold, watching as they test them out and take to the sky, tentatively foraying into their own beautiful lives, there is also, of course, a sadness that comes with this. There is a strange pull on my heart even though I am happy to see them become more and more independent, I feel the loss of our time together.

And then, these dark times visit us all, and I find myself in a strange mirror-place, at home again with my four dearlings, and Jay in Australia again for as many weeks as the last time mentioned above - in all his years travelling, this is only the second time he has been away for that length of time. It doesn’t escape my notice that we are coming to the end of a seven year cycle - literally to the day, bookended by Jay’s unusually long stints on the other side of the world. I cannot help but wonder what it means…

So, here we are, counting the days, hoping he gets home safely, and so very grateful for this time together again. I am savouring every moment, so aware that this should never have happened, not like this. But we are here together, playing, talking, working side by side, hanging out, sharing every meal together, and in the midst of all the heartbreaking stories we are hearing from around the world, in the midst of so much devastation, I humbly give thanks for this unexpected gift we have all been given. 

So, I will document these precious days of ours, slipping back, for what may only be a moment, into our Milkmoon dream, for in our bones we are longing for those open skies and whispering grass, and a time when the world seemed a far safer place to be.