America….. Swandro ‘25…
by Bernie Bell - 09:49 on 08 November 2024
America…..
Jeanne is originally from New York State – now lives in Orkney. She’s presently visiting family in America, and posted the following as a response to something on my FB page….
“We have not moved past the Civil War issues...racism exists as does fear...
I answered…
“Racism is just one of the faces of fear.... https://theorkneynews.scot/.../when-people-put-people.../
Most of the 'ism's' are.
Why am I writing this? The folk who look at my FB will know it.
I’ve just had this in an email from friend Bart who – God help him – lives in America…
“I'm trying to figure out the best method for getting more poetry into the eyes of non-poets. I don't even feel like it needs to overtly advocate for anything. I hope that the mere act of reading poetry will increase empathy. We poets need to change the culture.”
Other friend in America - Fred - wrote…
“So now the conversation changes. The hope is that the relatively sane, decent, and civic-minded portion of the republicans will now have a chance to discipline the loonies, now that what they perceive as the woke menace has been decisively rejected by the majority of the people. A rather dim hope, but we've got to keep going.”
And friend Elizabeth – also in America ..
“Spitting out fragments this morning like broken teeth. 11.07.24.
Fog’s thick fur pressed against my window. The light dim.
The landscape flat and stacked
Like a book of hours.
My heart and head unable to break the pane.“
My response……
“Do - break on through the pain....do..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdnzBNMfZfo Dance with Jim.”
These are the folk I connect with. Bart has a point – is there a lot of point in the reasonable folk all agreeing – it’s the others that need waking up.
I’m going to stop this and get on with my day – the sun is shining and it will continue to do so – that’s what the light in Newgrange/Maes Howe is to remind us of.
I do suspect that I write smug baloney at times.”
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Swandro ‘25…
We watched an episode of ‘Digging for Britain‘ in which Alice Roberts visited the Swandro dig, Rousay…
https://www.swandro.co.uk/post/swandro-on-digging-for-britain
This got me thinking about the fact that archaeology digs are finite events and however interesting the site is, a point is reached when the diggers have done what can be done at the time, and digging is replaced with writing up what has been discovered so far – as happened with the Ness of Brodgar…
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/
Considering the precarious situation of the Swandro site, I was wondering what might happen after the final dig, so I asked Caz Mamwell of Team Swandro, and Caz took the time to reply…
“The backfilling plan is to do a more final version of what we do every year, so basically reinstate the beach over the whole trench rather than just the lower levels as we do between seasons. So we would cover with the protective membrane, the lower level (i.e. the bit more exposed to the sea) would be carefully covered with rocks, the upper level would be covered with a double layer of sandbags then carefully with rock, using all the rocks we've removed from the site over the years.
This would give the site the best protection we could - we can't stop the erosion, but we can reinstate the beach so that the erosion would be no worse than it was before we excavated.”
Whatever happens afterwards, the 2025 dig season might be your last opportunity to experience Team Swandro in action on site – take that opportunity if you can!
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