Seasonalight

Chapter Severn – The Mouth 

Danger.

The Mythological.

Jumping.

Without you, I would not have known enduring love, no matter how complex, because it is complex.

Without you, we would not have the most stunning child, who takes my breath away in all she does and says.

Without you, we would not have known and loved Ben.

Without you, I would not have read Riverwalking and walked the philosophical path since. This blog was your idea, one I will always treasure because it was yours. Your name is mine, and always will be.  It’s a good strong batty name.

Without you, I would have remained parochial. I would not have read Lopez and Matthiessen. … Read more

Autumn leaves and rain droplets, photo by me.

Dark rum, rumbullion, rummage, scents, essences and escents (forming adjectives expressing a flux state or action). Now is the time of falling deciduous leaves in the northern hemisphere. For a long while now, I have mulled on a word that describes the prevailing smell for me ~ a sweet, musky, peppery aroma of decaying leaves, depending on the leaf mix ~ as well as the activity of soil enrichment and kicking through them on misty mornings and cooler evenings.

Smell is a powerful provocation of emotion. Emotion may lead to good things, including the for-wiring of the cultural acceptance that we too are nature. … Read more

Concrete infrastructure, Hereford. Access for all, emissions and ecological destruction for several lifetimes. Photo by me.

“Court blocks Lafarge bid to scrap Syria crime against humanity charge” 

Ah, yes, those corporate men who pay lip service to equity and resilience. Who might abuse those surviving under the most extreme circumstances?

Please, let me point out that, according to Carbon Brief and other well-known carbon data analysis organisations, concrete (largely Portland cement) accounts for 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions

EIGHT PERCENT

not accounting for any other mineral or ecological extractions required along supply and demand chains.  Lafarge is top of the pops in the game of global concrete. … Read more

Shadow of doubt and drought, photo by me.

I have been walking the dried up paths by the river, thinking about emotions of the prescient and ever-increasing burden of Earth Crisis upon everyone (at least everyone who is sane).

Climate or extinction “dread” or “doom” can seem such hopeless words, yet maybe have a rightful place in the hearts of some; those in total despair. For others, life is surviving regardless, caring for others in the face of whatever comes next; no time to allow a creeping then torrential flood of negative emotions that could hamper chances.

So I offer a word that means simply a deficiency of peace (mind, body, soul, ecological, social, and even planetary), a lack of confidence – an edgy feeling on a par with eerie, of craving peaceful conditions that are amiss. … Read more

Peacock Butterfly trapped inside the window of Bacton Church, and in great part by the “language” of the Anthropocene.

“I don’t get depressed, I get angry,” says Johan Rockström, Breaking Boundaries, Netflix.

Me too, Johan. I am furious.

I am furious because I listened to you in hope, and imagined millions doing the same. Yet your vision of the human global reign continuing, but within your “safe operating space”, is morally defunct.

Why on Earth would I ever say such a thing? You have a vast platform; earned, I am sure of this. Your collaborative work on planetary boundaries and Earth systems is hugely valuable to modern society. … Read more

This week, pre-IPCC policing of critical thought on Twitter has reached an outrageous level. I’m out, for now.

We know the failings of Twitter, the personal snipes, the fakery and the pack-hunting trolls. And we keep trying anyway. What started out as a Silicon Valley version of “equal “voice has ended in a scrap and a place of verbal oppression. … Read more

The Prince of Wales Bridge spans the Severn Estuary, viewed from Beachley; the Wye’s mouth to the right of shot. Photo by me.

♒︎      Deus ex machina      ♒︎

All feels pulled taught in the expansiveness of this place, as if the shores, the Dumbles, Sharpness, Saniger, Guscar, Mathern Oase, Northwick Oase, Portland Grounds, Goldcliff, Gordano Round, Stert Flats, Lavernock Point, are stretched in a myriad of directions by human ambition. There is a harshness about that and it is difficult. Folded up and inwards, down and outwards, the estuary is adulterated by human fear; often the thing that drives that ambition; to have money and to succeed, and not be poor and to have failed. … Read more

My friend Nigel Pugh @nspugh digs a deeper refuge for pondlife on community-owned land near Cardiff. An act of naltruism. Photo by me.

Life on Earth is now under obvious duress from dominant human action in all living systems.

Human empathy exists as part of a topography of the moral imagination. We who are wired this way feel the pain and suffering (or the comfort and exhilaration) of other living beings and symlings as well as our own species. This is not exclusively a human trait. It is a feeling that needs to be nurtured and grown in resistance to individualistic Western culture and is a pre-requisite for survival – not simply of our own species but of all life as we know it. … Read more