Finding Magic in the Everyday
Reflections from Nature
I’ve had some lovely comments in response to last weeks’ piece ‘Erratic’. Thank you. It can feel a little odd sending words out into the ether without the dopamine rush of social media that we’ve been pre-conditioned to seek, so it’s good to know that you are there. The reaction has also nudged me into realising that although I wrote earlier this year that I mostly write to help me figure things out, this isn’t entirely true. My motivation for creative pursuits is mostly intrinsic, but it’s important to share them too. And if my words and images have lifted your mood a little or helped you relax at the end of a busy day, I’m glad.
It’s been good too to gain new subscribers, and some names I’ve recognised with pleasure. Hello, and welcome. If you’d like to catch up with recent posts, there’s a home page for FLOW that lets you do so easily.
I’ve been thinking about how to use this space. As well as sharing new work with you, I have it in mind to write about place, and in particular small place. About why I write. About my attachment to water and how it has changed my vision. And about creative process and why I’ve felt the need to evolve my outputs beyond photographic prints. ‘Erratic’ and ‘Goodbye Summer’ have been off the cuff, drawn from notes recorded in the field and in the moment, and I hadn’t expected them to be so well received. The easiest thing is for me to carry on with more of the same, but I worry that it would become… predictable? overcooked? that my prose may stumble? There’s been a richness to the weeks I was writing about that has largely disappeared – you’ll see what I mean. So before I continue this Flow, for this week, I’d love to hear from you if there is anything in particular that you would enjoy receiving and reading.
Friday
I wake to learn that Amy-Jane Beer’s ‘The Flow: Rivers, Waters and Wildness’ has won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. It’s a book that I was drawn to buy and read earlier this year; the overlap in our titles is coincidental. Its mix of personal story, scientific research and evocative writing about water does indeed flow and it’s a stunning piece of writing for a first book.
After a fruitless trip to the garden centre (why is it so difficult to find good plants at the right time for planting?) and a more fruitful bacon and egg roll stop I return home with the weekly shop and head out for a walk.
There is no magic this afternoon, no glitter or glimmer of sun. It’s staying discreetly hidden behind the clouds; I left it behind in Huntly. North was the way to go today.
And then the sounds and the silence begin to work on me as I continue.
Suddenly there it is. That spark that reconnects you with child-like wonder. What at first I take to be a bird is a bat giving an impromptu aerial acrobatics display in the middle of the afternoon. That’s all it takes, one open-mouthed moment to shift the needle on the day.
The shame-faced barley is no more, the mechanism of its demise echoes across the hillside.
There’s a conversation going on in the tall trees between leaf and mast, between beech and lime. It sounds like rain. I too am waiting for the water to return.
No camera, no photos, but I return home with a collection of bright yellow birch leaves and a plan.
Saturday
The morning begins with a desire to make, but my printing using the birch leaves is messy. In looking for potential collage pieces to rescue it I find other combinations that please and get waylaid.
Out in the garden I plant Hypericum and Spiraea, and relocate a Lenten Rose. After the clearing there is finally chance to create here, by the front door, though I’m limited to supposedly rabbit proof plants. The lawn tells tales of the night; hoof prints and nibbled shoots record another visit by the roe deer. More welcome is the red squirrel who comes to see if I have refilled the nut feeder; it’s hard keeping up with the appetites of the woodpecker family.
Monday
Is grey, and blue of mood. Rain cascades from gutters. The Met Office’s rainfall map looks like something Edvard Munch might have painted. You may have heard of dreich but a neighbour some years back added another term to my rainfall vocabulary that fits today - “stoating”.
While there was nothing poetic about the weather this morning, by afternoon it’s cleared so I head out for a walk. And here it is again. Before I pass the last house, there’s a blue damselfly. And then in the reeds, a rustling. Jump, jump, pause, wait. I can see two ears rotating back and forth. And then in four more bounds the roe deer fawn disappears into the woods.
As I’m contemplating the size of the puddles on the track and whether this means water in the wood another smaller fawn bolts across the track, first left, then right, back the way it came.
Step, step, step, and I’m into the wood as well. Not quite as gracefully.
So where did all the water go? Like the herd of eight or more deer that I spy ahead of me it’s disappeared into the moss. I find the meanest of puddles. Still, for now this will do.
The ditch under the large beech tree is a little more dependable; it’s a dark place, and it looks as if the deer had a party on the bank, so I tread lightly and carefully lest I become part of the arrangement in the water.
Autumn is more mess than magic and the day remains the flat grey paint of a modern car. And then, ironically, just as I’m heading back through the pine wood, there is a brightening. I end my walk accompanied by my own shadow.
Tuesday
Another rabbit hole, this time finalising a submission for the SSA’s 30 x 30 Online Edition 2023. I find it difficult to chose one child when I mostly build series or collections but settle on ‘Synchrony’, a mixed media collage.
Synchrony draws its colour palette from nature: birch bark and lichen. It incorporates tissues as delicate as the unfolding of springtime and a photo print over acrylic and gesso.
The day ends with another downpour as the light dims, tonight’s lullaby is percussive and persistent rainfall on the roof. The long light of summer seems a distant memory. Perhaps though there will be water in the pools tomorrow?
Wednesday
My cat is in full wintering mode. Nearly as marked as the change in temperature has been the change in her behaviour.
I decide on wellies for my walk; after all that rain you can guess where I’m going. The air is warm despite the wind and I can feel my batteries recharging.
The first ditch I cross is running high, and I spend a few minutes reconnecting with sunlight on moving water. Like the sphagnum I can soak this up.
I can still remember finding my way through the wood and over the moss for the first time, following deer tracks; it still feels a magical place. Within everything is still remarkably green; autumn is more visible on the exposed edges but in the wind yellowed pine needles descend around me like an early fall of snow.
If not full, the moss is finally satiated and has left me an abundance of water in the pools. I can’t help but cheer.
I have to tell myself to slow down, to breathe, that this doesn’t matter. I’m not sure I’ll come back with anything such is the rush I experience. I could say that my likely lack of success is down to too much breeze on the surface of the water, but it’s that assault on the senses again that has caught me unprepared. From a calorie controlled diet to the banquet now laid out before me, there are simply too many possibilities.
I find it’s easier if you have limitations, constraints even; it makes you work harder and you find new ways to see things. The tiniest of frogs, no more than 3cms, appears briefly reminding me that other things are more precious. I decide to just walk and look and enjoy. You can try too hard. Even after all these years I can’t force it; I have to remain open, relaxed and then perhaps the mood or the moment will gift me a little magic.
With best wishes,
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Hello Michella… reading your words feels like we are both, together, looking for unseen discoveries…
Haydee
haydeeyordan.artspan.com
I love your emails. It makes me want to get back into my photography. I've been pondering how to make time. Your images are tantalising and really connect with the moment. It's like I'm transported there. Thanks for sharing.