I suggest care/love to be the measure, the result being wellbeing. We need verbs. Doing as well as being. Welldoing. https://t.co/DlXtMfuoCB

— 🕸Ginny Battson (@seasonalight) March 23, 2020

I agree! I see growing food as an act of welldoing too. Doing the gardening & eating food (both acts of care) contribute to wellbeing & spillover effects (carbon sinking, healthy soil, feeding bees, creating ecosystems & food networks) contribute to a larger eco-socio wellbeing.

— Niki Wallace (@nikiwallace) March 23, 2020

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My daughter has been through a huge amount this last few weeks, not least losing a classmate to suicide, worrying about my own isolation due to possible coronavirus infection, potentially transmitting asymptomatically to her grandmother, plus GCSEs now cancelled after she has worked and prepared so hard for them.

Despite everything, she has prepared an Active Transport Day for next week, which is now cancelled due to school closures.

I am so proud of her, and she has given me permission to publish the letter she composed, with some statistical help from her friend James, which was to be sent out this week. … Read more

Me in my bat t-shirt

There’s nothing more simple nor complex than love. Love is life-force manifest as relationship, the process of doing that makes life real and meaningful. I call this Fluminism.

Life is so strikingly complex; a dynamic weave we share no full comprehension, and perhaps never will. In our un-sapient attempt to shrink this world mentally and physically by rationalism, industry and trade, I do not think most could fully even imagine it.

We are evolved from the most exquisite resistance to, and acceptance of, physical, chemical and biological forces. We have absorbed them, and them us, and the complexity is magnificent. … Read more

Photo by me.

Oh life! You can be so brutal.

This week, a young person, a classmate in my daughter’s year, succumbed to the rawest severity of depression. She took her own life, trapped in that state of belief where there seems no other escape. I understand, because I too have been to the very edge. This young girl, as did my mother and too many beautiful souls, took a step further and now are gone into personal memory and collective history.

Her classmates, and school, are in shock. I know too, of course, a little of what her family must be going through right now ~ an emotional nuclear bomb blast. … Read more

Face Painting on my face by my Gracie.

I have been reviewing my nature recordings over the last year, and listening to all the biophonies (Bernie Krause). I merge pictures, memories and feelings in my mind with the sounds to make a 'moment' – a kind of 4D experience.

— 🌾 Ginny (@ginbat) March 4, 2020

Emotions & imagery (like photos or videos) are woven together in what I can see and feel, both real and by imagination. I have come up with a word to describe these noisy/silent/colourful moments…

— 🌾 Ginny (@ginbat) March 4, 2020

Tiss ~ Old French tissu, a band or belt of rich material.

New Green Shoots, photo by me.

New words for new times.

Modern humans spend a lot more time dwelling on the past rather than contemplating the future. This is reflected in the words we use (as are most things). Times are changing, and with Earth in crisis, we are needing to imagine our futures ~ preferably, good ones.

With so many things re-quiring a very new approach (at least in living memory), I am beginning to dislike the prefix RE.

re-wire, re-weave, re-wild, re-store – ‘re’ as in to go back. Latin re- again, go back, Latin possibly from PIE ~ wret. … Read more

“FLUMINISMO.

El amor y la ecología como fuerza integradora para el bien y como resistencia contra la mercantilización de la naturaleza y los daños planetarios.”

“Fluminism. Love and ecology as an integrative force for good, and as resistance to the commodification of nature and planetary harms.”

I have some exciting news. My treatise and narrative on Fluminism is to be published in Spanish as a 100 page book. Better still, it has been a collaboration of love, kindness and generosity.

The great ecopoet and moral philosopher, Professor Jorge Riechmann, along with his dedicated community of students in Madrid, have translated it from English to Spanish. … Read more

Credit: Paula Bronstein
Click on image to find out more.

Biosemiotics is an increasingly important study for our westernised species Homo hubris. Observant of signs between living beings, it is a process and, therefore, relevant to the ecophilosophy of Fluminism.

“Relationships are strengthened via language in multiple forms, indeed a world of biosemiotics exists between all living beings (Wheeler, W), experience and even memory.” Introducing Fluminism (Battson, G).

“Biosemiotics is dedicated to building a bridge between biology, philosophy, linguistics, and the communication sciences.” Springer Editorial.

Increasingly, in a volatile and rapidly changing climate, there is a need to draw attention to the signs emanating from ‘above’ – the climatic symbols of change (sometimes violent). … Read more

Hidden farm dump next to the River Wye at Glasbury, nr Hay-on-Wye

I have been looking at the word social in relation to symbiosis/fluminism. ‘Sociability’ in teresapien life is studied by biologists. But its daily use relates to human sociability, sociology, etc.

The ‘ecosocial’ is already in use, but again this is largely interpreted as human-centric with a bias towards external ‘environment.’ For instance, in ecosocial ‘design.’

When we charge subjects or objects, even acts, as being anti-social, there is a shaming element. Shaming is important in moral evolution ~ a moral rejection of the ‘wrong’.

So I’m going to use the word anti-symial (anti-symbiotic), to introduce the same effect for all life. … Read more