‘Greenwitch’……Slime Mould……Neanderthal Elephant Hunters……
by Bernie Bell - 08:16 on 06 February 2023
'Greenwitch'…..
I started reading ‘Greenwitch’ – the third volume of ‘The Dark Is Rising’ - but in a different edition, published by Red Fox. No intro. by Robert MacFarlane, and a cover illustration which I dislike enough that when not reading the book I was placing it face down! I don’t know yet whether the Greenwitch will be of the Light or of the Dark but either way – I don’t want to look at that image. In fact, I dislike it so much that I photocopied a card of a tapestry by Leila Thomson - ‘The Last Load’ - cut out the circular image and used it to cover the ‘face’ on the front of the book. Much better. https://hoxatapestrygallery.co.uk/
Jane is invited to make a wish when touching the Greenwich…..
“She put out her hand to grasp a hawthorn bough, and paused. ‘Oh dear,’ she said impulsively, ‘I wish you could be happy.”……...”But the hard-eyed Cornishwoman was looking at her with an odd surprised kind of approval. ‘A perilous wish!’ she said ‘for where one may be made happy by harmless things, another may find happiness only in hurting. But good may come of it.”
And I’m remembering years ago when I knew someone who was afraid. Afraid to be at ease, afraid to speak out, afraid to be herself. I’d think of her, and ask for her to lose the fear - repeatedly - I asked for her to lose the fear. And, through a series of meetings with a group of good-hearted folk, she did.
But this meant that she lost the fear of being mean, and finding the strength to be herself included being mean to and saying mean things to people. Including me as, in her eyes, I was all that she resented in others and she found the strength to show it.
There’s a saying that we should be careful of what we wish for as we might get it. Maybe we also need to be careful of what we wish for for others as, even with good intent, we might not know what is best for them.
Good intent is A GOOD THING - however it works out.
I don’t know what became of her as I moved away from that area.
I read ‘Greenwitch’ in a day, then had such dreams!
If you want to know what happened between Jane and Greenwitch – read the book……
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Slime Mould….
I’ve previously written of my fascination with Slime mould….
https://frontiersmagazine.org/the-wonder-that-is-slime-mould/
.......and was pleased to see an item about them in ‘Emergence’ magazine….
https://emergencemagazine.org/
by Lucy Jones
“How might a kinship with slime smother our inadequate but still-dominant ideas about the world?”
"Long admired by scientists, the slippery, undefinable beings known as slime molds have in recent years captured the public imagination. Believed to be among the oldest living organisms on the planet, they are neither plants, animals, nor fungi. At once strange and beautiful, they’ve demonstrated the ability to learn, remember, and form networks—an intelligence that lies at the limits of our own understanding.
Brimming with awe upon discovering slime molds in her local woods, Lucy Jones is drawn toward their shape-shifting, nonbinary nature. At a moment when our global challenges risk tipping us into despair, slime molds invite us into their mystery and remind us of the vast possibilities of life on Earth.”
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Neanderthal Elephant Hunters……
Steve Drury writes of Neanderthal elephant hunters….
https://earthlogs.org/2023/02/04/neanderthal-elephant-hunters/
......including the chilling words….
“Archaeologists working over a ten-year period recovered bones from an estimated 70 straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), as well as many other large herbivores, while huge bucket-wheel excavators advanced through the deposit.”
https://theorkneynews.scot/2021/06/29/the-great-anthropocene-debate/
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Here’s one I made earlier….. https://theorkneynews.scot/2020/06/16/grayson-perrys-art-club-britain/
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