Song For Remembering.

What is this I now hold, this golden light?

It is fed by the rain and the moon and the stars,

it is Earth, moulded and shaped by my hands.
Hold it up to the light, there, do you see?

The bones, shells, stones,
flowers, feathers, leaves,
the saltwater.
The songs.

The songs it holds, the songs it remembers,
that shimmer and shake,
awakening, rumbling,
that long to be heard again, that call your name in the night,
that come on the breeze through the open window.

You say you don't remember the words,
but the words remember you.
They recall your grandmother's grandmother's names,
their hands in the earth, their sweat and their tears,
how they showed up again, and again, and again.
And they remember you.

So, take to the woods,

walk the soft earth,
find the place that you left that still holds your shape.
Lie down in her arms, your ear to her heart,
your fingers entwined in her leaves and her grasses.

Listen! Do you hear?
The songs of the birds, the worm and the beetle,
the bee and the spider, the snail in her shell.
Let their songs fill your veins, liquid notes in your ears,
for their voices are the ones that need to be heard.

Let their silken threads weave you back into remembering,

for it's in the darkness you will find your voice is among them.

And when you show up for them,

they will show up for you.

We Were Wildlife.

"...the 50,000 generations that preceded us in the Pleistocene, which is the age of the Ice Ages, when we became what we are as part of the natural world — when we were wildlife, if you like; we don’t think of ourselves as wildlife anymore, but we were wildlife then — that those generations are more important for our psyches, even now, than the 500 generations of civilization which have followed the invention of farming about 12,000 years ago. So that there is a legacy deep within us, a legacy of instinct, a legacy of inherited feelings, which may lie very deep in the tissues — it may lie underneath all the parts of civilization which we are so familiar with on a daily basis, but it has not gone; that we might have left the natural world, most of us, but the natural world has not left us."

~ Michael McCarthy in conversation with Krista Tippett

We walk this earth with tender feet,
searching hands,
breath held in silken clouds somewhere in our chest,
eyes wide, unwilling to blink.

Wander in wonder, hearts trembling and cracking open, remembering.

Remembering what it felt like,
waking,
peeling ourselves out of the boggy ground,
the imprint our bodies left behind us,
the empty place we walked away from.

In our ancient woodlands,
dark and leafy,
sun-dappled,
we clambered over mossy boulders,
through quiet pools and meandering rivers.

And somewhere in our journeying,
heads down,
we left the forest,
took to the fields,

and for a while we did not look up,
did not see the treetops dance and nod to us,
beckon,
alive with Life.

Until we paused

and looked back - look
the way back obscured and overgrown.

We are lost.

So, hands scratched,
we search,
cheeks whipped,
hair entangled.
We search.

We search.

Always.

For the way back in.

Listen, Great Silence.
Are you tired of me talking in your ear about this yet? Sorry.
(Not sorry!)
I have written about this so many times before, too many to mention here - heart sore and bewildered, or ecstatic and awestruck, each time reminded of this deep connection we all have to this tellurian mother we are part of, deep in our tissue, our ancestral memory. So many times I have questioned our disconnect, our willing abandonment of a more balanced, indisputably obviously more natural and commonsense way of living.
Yes, I do have others I have met here on the edge of the forest, scratched and whipped and searching like me, but I am interested in you, the Great Silence, who do not want to talk about it.

Come here to me.

Surprise me now, and talk to me.
Tell me, do you know what happened?
Listen to that ancient, scratchy voice inside you that is longing to be heard - that's it right there, 'just in the threshold of hearing', close your eyes, take a moment to search it out, to find it. It longs for you to hear it and has much to say.

We don't need to look very far.

Watch the children.
Do as they do.
For they are our teachers.

"We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children's memories, the adventures we've had together in nature will always exist."

~ Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods.

Reach out your hand and you can touch it - the fabric of this place we belong to. It's under our feet, outside our window, it is present in those differently alive beings we share our homes and gardens with; 'our' cats and dogs, the birds in the treetops, the insect on the wall.

Stoop down and push your fingers into the soil, brush your hands through the waving grass, lie down and look at the sky above you. Take a moment to look at leaves. 

We all need to take a moment to look at leaves. 

Close your eyes.

Feel this Earth under your body. 

And listen.

Everything we need is right here.
We just need to reach out our hand to it,
grasp hold of it, and never let it go.

Let it help us find our way home.

Bring ourselves back to [Wild] Life....

The Lover of Earth Cannot Help Herself ~ by Mary Oliver

In summer,

through the fields

of wild mustard,

then goldenrod,

I walk, brushing

the wicks

of their bodies

and the bright hair

of their heads –

and in fact

I lie down

that the little weightless pieces of gold

may float over me,

shining in the air,

falling in my hair,

touching my face –

ah, sweet-smelling

glossy and

colorful world,

I say,

even as I begin

to feel

my left eye then the right

begin to burn

and twitch

and grow very large –

even as I begin,

to weep,

to sneeze

in this irrepressible

seizure

of summerlove.

Watch: Charles Eisenstein on a New Story on Climate Change and our part in it.

Watch: Mary Reynolds on re-imagining gardens and sustainable farming for the times we live in.

Listen: Michael McCarthy in conversation with Krista Tippett

Read: Sharon Blackie on 'A life-changing journey from the wasteland of modern society to a place of nourishment and connection.'

I Had A Dream...

Have you ever had a crazy dream that somehow somehow becomes a reality? There have been so many times over the last year or so when I have had to stop and pinch myself, hardly able to believe we have managed to do what we have managed to do. As many of you know, I and some fabulous people have spent the last few years creating something so ginormous and mad that it hardly seems possible that normal folk like us could actually do such a thing.

We made a school. Like, an actual, real school, with students. The hilarious part is that any teacher that had me in their class would pale at the thought of me of all people being involved in setting up and running a school. I did not like school and school did not like me. If I had a euro for every time I was told I was 'a square peg in a round hole'...

However, this is a school with a difference, and while there are many the world over,  it’s the first of its kind in Ireland. The difference is there is no curriculum, no classes, no teachers per se, the students decide how they want to spend their time, and for any of you not familiar with this concept, right now I am sure there are a million questions firing off in your brain, like can they still go to college? (Yes they can and do!) How do they learn? I could happily get up on my soapbox now and ‘talk for Ireland’ as they say, but you’d be much better informed if you read any of the articles linked below.

People ask what a typical day is like for our community, and there is no one answer to that. Every day is different, but you can guarantee there will definitely be cooking, games, conversation, exploring, reading, sharing, dreaming, cleaning, negotiating, building, making, drawing, wondering, creating, running, climbing, bouncing, questioning, honing, messing, contemplating, and a million other unquantifiable activities, all of which adds up to learning that is based on the individuals terms and needs, which in turn creates a vibrant, busy, active environment which is both exciting and fun, but also challenging in the best sense of the word. Phew!

Every day I am more and more convinced of what we are doing, all my apprehensions and wobbly moments of terror are a thing of the past, and I believe in this with no doubts whatsoever. Every day I am blown away by how these children and young adults, who having been given trust and freedom and responsibility, are striding forward, taking confident leaps towards their future, with such joy and determination (and challenges too, of course).

The thing is, we are self-funded, we do not receive a penny from the government, and now that we are a charity (CHY 22018) we can accept donations and we are beginning to look at fundraising. So, here is something I have never done before:

If you are so inclined, we would be delighted if you wanted to donate to our cause, (or buy us a building! We also have a growing waiting list and will need a new home sometime in the next couple of years) or even just share this with family and friends and ask them to share it on too. Our Donate page is here https://www.idonate.ie/3731_wicklow-sudbury-school.html

Every little helps!

For some further reading you can start here:

Sir Ken Robinson on parents obsession with sending their children to college - article, and TED Talk.

Dr. Peter Gray on the importance of play - for mental health, and happiness.

Sudbury staff on education - patience and the long game, and the fear of falling behind.

More on our website here - Wicklow Sudbury School, and our Facebook page.

Where My New Story Began.

I want to tell you a story. Actually, I'm re-telling this story, because this post is four years old now, originally on my Milkmoon blog, and this project is celebrating five years, which is incredible to me. But I'm sharing again because I am so darn proud of what we have made, and how it has continued to grow and evolve and attract more and more people who want something more in their lives than neighbours they barely know to say hello to. This is genuine community, meeting our human need for social connectedness in a way most of us had forgotten.
My dream is to see this grow, to become a community of communities that support one another, that also meets our human needs for food, shelter, energy, livelihoods. I hope to share here, over the next few months, a taste of the kind of things that we are up to here in our little stretch of Irish coast.

But for now, this is where it began:

December 2013:
Sometimes Life amazes me.

Picks me up by my tail and whirls me around a bit, then deposits me somewhere unexpected and never-seen-before, and so, a bit ruffled, and maybe even somewhat bedraggled, I pick myself up and dust myself off, check for injuries, and then Proceed With Caution. It doesn't happen very often in life that there is a significant change, I mean, a really, really big one. Usually it's the slow meander along the winding little pathways, with occasional wanderings off into dead ends and loop-the-loops which bring you right back to where you started. And there are lovely woodlands along the way, with leafy green and yellow light dancing up there above you, and sometimes there are banks of the sweetest flowers nodding their heads in the balmy breeze, and sometimes there are puddles of muddy water you have to wade through in your favourite shoes, or stones that trip you up or find their way into your shoe and hurt your feet. But sometimes it turns out that the little beaten track you are on suddenly opens up into Wonder, a great grassy plain with a smooth road and the sea sparkling in the distance, and suddenly everything feels Right, and Good, and you find yourself skipping along, kicking up your heels and skirts, and warmth blooms in your heart.

Sometimes Life amazes me.

And I find myself doing something I could never have dreamt of, only a few months ago. And the phrase, In My Element, suddenly has meaning. 

A few months before we moved to this town we began meeting weekly with a bunch of rather splendid folks who had a rather splendid idea about what this town needs, and so, we have spent almost a year now, talking talking talking about just what that might be, and slowly something began to take shape, and then it began to grow, and to our collective amazement we are now in the midst of Something Splendid that is now fluttering out there, above our heads, stretching it's gossamer wings and testing the air. 

We have no idea where it will take us, or what it will bring, but it is exciting and inspiring, and speaking in a voice that, it turns out, many people can, and want to, hear.

We are part of a growing community co-operative that is still finding that voice, but that is strong and clear and determined. We started out as a wholefood buying club, and then we put on an event, a vegetarian feast with music and dancing and singing, and we started to tell people about what we were doing, and all around us these little lights began to go on, in people's eyes and hearts, as they listened to what we were saying, and they began to add their voices too, and now we find ourselves here, with a gathering crowd of good intentioned, hopeful folks who know that this is the way forward. Sharing our resources, our skills, our experience, sharing those tender seedling ideas that we carry around in our hearts, sometimes for years, not knowing what to do to help it grow, because some things need more than one person to develop and grow into that wondrous something that has untold potential. But then, when we gather together, and begin to talk, magic happens, things do begin to grow, and faster than you could have imagined. And we all realise that it is possible to do things differently than we are told. It is possible to do business another way, that things don't always have to involve money, or multinational companies, or foreign businesses, that we have everything we need right here on our doorstep. We have the community we need, right here in our town. And you know what? So do you!

The most exciting thing we have discovered is that as soon as you begin to speak, to ask for what you need, you find it's right there, down the street from you, in your community, and it has been all along. There is a network of amazing people all around you who want the same things for themselves and their families that you do, and all you need is a place to come together to talk. A Common Ground to talk about the common ground you share, the back to basics, real, stuff, like how to feed your family, how to provide a real and rich experience for your children of what the world really is, and how people really do want to help one another, because it benefits us all, in the end. And in doing so, we discover how to pare away the unnecessary, stifling, consumer mentality we are all infected with, and to get real again, connect with people in a heartfelt way that brings untold riches of the kind we haven't felt since childhood. 

Last Saturday evening we hosted another event, this time a pop-up restaurant, a seated, four course, vegetarian meal for 30 folks, in a studio in what was once a factory that made the rather famous Beverley Bags in the 50's and 60's, and I found myself In My Element. Seeing all these people, many of them strangers to one another, gathered together and talking talking talking, connecting, sharing food and drink and laughter, stories and ideas and intentions, well, I thought my heart would burst with happiness.

It's all true, you know, what we know in our hearts; that we all want the same thing in the end. A safe place, with love and support, a community that lifts us all up, collectively nurturing and sustaining us, and that carries us forward into a hopeful future where we are doing things the way we want to.

Together.

–*–

Local friends, and anyone interested, you can find us,

Common Ground, Bray, on Facebook, here. 

And online on our website here. 

Awakening Thoughts on Imbolc ~ Lá Fhéile Bríde.

Things have been quiet around here ~ we bedded down, hibernating, dozing, dreaming in our winter snuggery. We watched as storm after storm whirled around us, (Brian, Caroline, Dylan, Eleanor, Fionn ~ some we were more intimate with than others) wind and snow and rain, though not as much of the white stuff as we'd have liked. The children lamented as they saw every other part of the country slip into Narnia~esque dreamscapes, while we languished on the edge of our temperate, rainswept grey eastern coast, the glistening snow visible right there on the mountains, just within reach.

Winter Solstice fire on the beach.

Winter walks.

Languishing, quiet. Until now.

Until the persistent piping of our neighbour, a little Great Tit who makes their home each year in a nearby Silverbirch tree, breaks through the sloth and torpor that we have sunk into these last couple of months. Like a clarion call, it pierces our Winter atrophy, rouses us, stirring something deep within us, some recognition of unfathomable, subterranean Knowing that is all around us ~ Nature just getting on with it regardless what we humans get up to. At the same time my body relaxes its cold weather holding tension, there is a quickening in my blood.

Winter walks.

And I am reassured.

And so, we loosen our scarves just a little, sniff the cold air, breathing in that delicate hint of something moving in the air, our extrasensory ears divining the first trickle of sap rising beneath our feet.

Winter walks.

It is time for new beginnings, for dusting down and shaking out our hibernating nests, for waking what is sleeping in us. Like Mole, we suddenly long to scrabble our way up to the sunlight and roll in a warm meadow. And as the evenings stretch themselves, reaching their fingers towards that first glimmer of extra light, the warm meadows of summer beckon us and we too leap forwards in the simple joy of living and the delight of spring.

So here's to Imbolc, officially the first day of Spring here ~ Happy Brighid's Day to you all!

Tig an gheimhreadh dian dubh

Gearradh lena ghéire

Ach ar Lá ‘le Bríde

Gar dúinn Earrach Éireann.

The house of winter is very dark

Cutting with its sharpness

But on Brigid’s Day

Spring is near to Ireland.

Stealing Stitches ~ A Samhain Interlude.

After a weeks break for Samhain (Halloween), we are back at school. Outside the window, there is a tree who is clinging to the last of its leaves, just on that bit that hangs over the garden. Rust, orange, yellow, green, fluttering merrily in the wind, and each day when I leave to go home, my car is festooned with them and it makes me immensely happy. The day before Ophelia I rushed to the woods, sure the trees would lose their splendid autumnal frippery in the following winds, but miraculously they didn't, and I have spent the last few weeks eyes skyward at every turn, filling them, drinking in that yellow and rust and orange, saving it for those dark winters evenings when the world rests in greys and browns, and I can close my eyes and find it there, that warmth. We are blessed to live in a place that is made up of winding roads lined with beautiful broadleaf trees both old and new.

Daily I wrestle with time, feeling as though it does not belong to me yet demanding that it does, stealing stitches, one at a time, pushing the needle determinedly in and out, making, creating new things where before there was only thread and fabric and vague notions wisping around my head or somewhere over my shoulder, there behind me where I cannot quite see them except perhaps out of the corner of my eye. (You know the way some things you cannot look directly at, instead approach gently, sideways. Innocently.) But eventually, those individual stitches begin to add up, become something, and take on a life of their own.
And they begin to tell a story...

So many things in my life can be added up like this, things created a stitch at a time, things big and small, things that felt frustratingly slow or simply not any-thing until the whole cloth is revealed. Whether it's one of my stitcherys like this one that took me forever, or a big project like our school that seems impossible until suddenly, look! we've done it.

Samhain brings many things for me, my favourite time of year. As soon as the clocks go back it's as though we slip in to a different world, under cover of the growing dark, shadows and hidden things become more present in our days, and we find the time to sit with whatever awaits us once the distracting summer sparkle drifts away.

Outside the window in the fading light, the children bounce in the leaves on the trampolines, barefoot, hooded, their voices high and excited, glad to be back, bringing the cold air in with them and their pink cheeks when they've had enough.
We are past Mabon, the equinox, now, speeding towards the shortest day.

And so we begin to slow down, savouring the darkening days as we slip comfortably into our slippers and light the fire, snuggle up together on the couch, and, as though pulling out photographs of our summer past, I mull over and examine all the threads that have been weaving together throughout the busy Doing months, pulling them together where needed, revealing the picture of what is being formed, thinking about what comes next for us.

There is work to be done over the winter months, for we have what is perhaps our biggest pot on the boil, to date. Bigger even, in some ways, than starting an alternative school ~ that is, creating a magical place to live with a bunch of kindred folks who share the same dream as we do.

There is a mountain looming ahead of us, but what lies beyond it is just too enticing to not at least try.

Swimming In The Deep.

Summer is slipping away,
into the fading green that is softening towards sepia toned senescence,
the vigor and vim and zest that sang off the trees since May now toned down, flagging,
like a bedraggled party that went on a day or two too long.
Outside my window the autumn mists roll over the hill, over our rooftops, down into the town and out to sea.

The first yellow leaves pop, rain-bright against the grey,
and the gardens around town have lost the puff of voluptuousness that makes them so alluring all summer; among them the air is one of satiated contentment as they wither slowly,
rain heavy,
decaying happily towards winter.
Rest.

Spider.
Moth.
Retreating.
All hurrying towards some Otherness we cannot know.

Our summer was a mixed one.
July busy, bright, beach days galore, while August sneaked by,
suspended in a waiting game for the sun to return, things to begin, things to finish,
and in the end we woke up and it was suddenly September.
Suddenly there are no more beach days. Not the summer kind.
And even though Autumn is my favourite time of year, I somehow don't feel quite ready this year.

Somewhere in August, in the midst of it all I got lost. Fell into a big lacuna. Looking at the world around me was like lying in a dark sea looking up at impossible stars, being overwhelmed by their presence and extraordinariness, but not knowing whether it was a terrible beauty, or just Terrible. I want to believe the former, but secretly believe it is the latter. Given all that is going on in the world, the craziness, the breaking apart of the way things were, events and people that stop us in our tracks in horror, norms that are now taboo and taboos that are becoming mainstream, this coming apart at the seams, this deconstruction of the old story, some parts of it are exciting but most is very scary, and how exactly is that we are all still standing and functioning and carrying on? Human spirit and all that, right? Is that what it is? Or is that just denial?

I didn't write then. I couldn't. I was too cowardly. And I was in too deep. People don't want their faces pushed into it, I know that, (even though all you really have to do is open your Facebook or Twitter feed to get a whammy of a face full) and in some ways I'm not sure what good it does, writing about it - people come to it when they are ready (or their backs are to the wall). But I can no longer not talk about it - my body is talking about it, singing it, a lament of epic proportions, which is hard to ignore.
However, if you find yourself unwilling to engage with this, that's okay, I understand, but some days we just want to know we are not the only one who sees the world the way it really is, as I said before the one that is beneath the market driven consumer enchantment.

But thankfully there is human spirit, or whatever you want to call it. And we all find our causes and our means to continue, because it's what we do. But I truly would love a conversation about this. A healthy, honest, and balanced conversation. I balk at the notion of becoming a catastrophist, really and truly, but talking about this stuff to people who do not want to talk about it can be isolating, and if left to ones own thoughts I can see how it might be a slippery slope.

So we carry on, and some days feel too full of daunting change, others just the right level of excitement overriding that, but in the midst of it all, stuff is getting done. Exciting stuff that makes me feel like we are powerful after all, and we can make a difference.
Yesterday the school we made opened it's new doors to sixteen students, and being there at Wicklow Sudbury School with all those eager, happy students (seriously - kids and teenagers happy to be going back to school?) and parents was a truly exciting thing to be part of, and with a growing waiting list, hope is in the mix there too.

Our active, vibrant community Common Ground  is gearing up for a busy autumn, with a lot of truly great stuff happening, for example we have The Dargle Exchange, which is a 'skills, services and goods trading scheme' which includes our own currency, Cogs. We also have a food savers scheme which is redistributing food which would otherwise be dumped. And these among the many classes and workshops and groups that happen on an ongoing basis.

And we are also busy beavering away trying to get a housing co-operative off the ground, and my, what a brilliant bunch of people we have landed ourselves - after nearly three years fumbling around in the dark we now have folk who can drive the way we drove our school project, and it no longer feels exhausting and overwhelming but exciting and hopeful (those words again!).

So summer slips away from me and much as I love the huddle and nesting of winter, I am loathe to take shelter indoors just yet, my sea fever not yet content, the wild ways of the woodland still with stories to tell before I retreat in to the fireside to distill and extract the fragrant essence of Summer, of whatever our bones and skin and minds have absorbed these last few resting months. I will delve, winnow, and weigh, ponder all of this as I gaze into winter's fire, and somewhere in there will be the nugget, the means for what is next, and my words will find their conduits, and break out into the world, for I've been writing like a mad woman, and I've a great big story to tell.

I am swimming in the deep, still, treading water. But alongside an intrepid ship that I am hitched to, come rain or shine, and there is something about having a ship that is skippered by many.

~*~

  The Return by Geneen Marie Haugen

"Some day, if you are lucky,

    you’ll return from a thunderous journey

    trailing snake scales, wing fragments

    and the musk of Earth and moon.

    Eyes will examine you for signs

    of damage, or change

    and you, too, will wonder

    if your skin shows traces

    of fur, or leaves,

    if thrushes have built a nest

    of your hair, if Andromeda

    burns from your eyes.

    Do not be surprised by prickly questions

    from those who barely inhabit

    their own fleeting lives, who barely taste

    their own possibility, who barely dream.

    If your hands are empty, treasureless,

    if your toes have not grown claws,

    if your obedient voice has not

    become a wild cry, a howl,

    you will reassure them. We warned you,

    they might declare, there is nothing else,

    no point, no meaning, no mystery at all,

    just this frantic waiting to die.

    And yet, they tremble, mute,

    afraid you’ve returned without sweet

    elixir for unspeakable thirst, without

    a fluent dance or holy language

    to teach them, without a compass

    bearing to a forgotten border where

    no one crosses without weeping

    for the terrible beauty of galaxies

    and granite and bone. They tremble,

    hoping your lips hold a secret,

    that the song your body now sings

    will redeem them, yet they fear

    your secret is dangerous, shattering,

    and once it flies from your astonished

    mouth, they–like you–must disintegrate

    before unfolding tremulous wings."