Ornicophony ~ inspired by the deafening birdsong to be heard on Llanbradach Hill, above one of the biggest coal mines that once belched out black dust in South Wales. #HopeOnAStick https://t.co/EOVI6WxH4t
— Ginny (@ginbat) May 27, 2019
Seasonalight
Light Seeking
Photos by me.
A rubble road crests a ridge above the old coal pit village of Llanbradach. Breeze blocks and plastics are decaying to dust, beginning to press themselves shallow into the chorography of this place. I stand on a jumble of human fall-out, taking in the views, and think of my father; and his father.
Llanbradach Hill is one of many swells in the geodrama known unsentimentally as the South Wales Upper Coal Measures Formation. Down deep, where it is warm, labarynthine tunnels have been blasted out by men long dead, and the spaces left uncollapsed now leak with water, gas and ghosts. … Read more
Since my article published in Earthlines, Technofossils and Radionuclides, welcome to the Anthropocene, I have been referencing the significant work of Australian philosopher, Professor Glenn Albrecht.
Glenn is renowned for his term Solastalgia, as reported before in the New York Times, now embeded in popular culture, for example, featured as the title of the fifth studio album by Australian singer-songwriter Missy Higgins.
In this podcast by Cornell University Press, Glenn talks to Jonathan Hall about his powerful new book, a lifetime of work on words and emotions, culminating in the most profound and hopeful message there is – The Symbiocene. … Read more
Joe’s Harkness’s Bird Therapy is a thing of healing.
This is a man that has been to the lowest emotional point; the first few opening lines allow a glimpse of the depths of colourlessness that depression can bring, the point at which the pain comes to zero, and there seems nothing left to value, not even life.
Don’t be deterred; there’s great courage here. Through relatable accounts of his re-connection of a life-love of birds, and new paths found, Joe finds his way back from the brink of nothingness to somewhere good, somewhere of vibrance and of song. And he brings us all along with him. … Read more
“Flowers are the beautiful hieroglyphics of nature with which she indicates how much she loves us.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Wood Anemones, photo by me.
Let in the light.
Deep in a wooded glade on the northern fringes of Cardiff, bright sunlight filters down through an unfolding verdant canopy to an array of snow-white starlets gleaming along the woodland floor.
The wood anemones have bloomed and this makes me very happy. I must be honest with you, there were moments during cancer treatment when I considered never seeing Spring 2019. Today, these ‘wind flowers’ shimmer to a breeze in waves, whilst little clouds cast shadow moments and honey bees and bee flies trace their invisible paths from one flower to another. … Read more
Rockle ~ the sound of beach rocks drawn seaward by the backrush of waves. An energy released from a key process of beach erosion, the making of shingle and sand habitats.
Trasilian Bay, South Wales. Photo by me.
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Wren, by me.
“Wren; small, migratory singing bird, Old English wrenna, metathesis variation of earlier werna, a Germanic word of uncertain origin. Compare Icelandic rindill, Old High German wrendo, wrendilo “wren.” (etymonline.com)
The suffix like is a model for Spring Theory, an evolution from the root gelic, lic, like, and to ly.
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Wren perched in a little thicket of dogwood. I heard her first, of course, even above a whoosh of Taff water spilling the Blackweir. Then her roundness appeared so tiny, so seemingly defenseless in the face of human derogation (in this case, river-borne litter caught up in tweavelets). … Read more
Plastic in wetland habitat, photo by me.
I have been thinking of Earth Crisis, the sixth extinction and futures.
Paleontology proves such catastrophic shifts in abundance and diversity of life have happened before, and more quickly than one might imagine.
This time, the trajectories of evolution ahead of us, or the new biogenics of Earth systems, have been irreparably skewed or deviated by anthropogenic activity. Even an ice-age predicted by Milankovitch cycles has been prevented. The bitter truth is that, for a long while, certainly since the Rio summit of 1992, these harms have been a conscious effort ~ the first time in Earth’s history. … Read more
She speaks. Photo by me.
A holobiont is an ecological unit composed of several species, coined by the late, great Lynn Margulis. We humans are all holobionts, because we exist in symbiosis with many bacteria, etc.
— Ginny (@ginbat) March 20, 2019
I would like to offer a more colloquial name… symling ("symbiosis" plus "ling" diminutive ~ after earthling). This is not a word to replace holobiont as a scientific name.
Symling. We are all symlings, as are many other earthly entities. #Neologisms
— Ginny (@ginbat) March 20, 2019
… Read moreIn Welsh folklore, this time of year is associated with Blodeuwedd, a woman made from flowers, who then turned into an owl.
“The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of (hu)man(ity).”
~ Charles Darwin
Dipper and Grey Wagtail by Charles Tunnicliffe. Please click on the image to discover more about this wonderful artist.
The path rolled out in front of me like the lolling tongue of a happy dog. My strides were photon pulses upwards from a gloomy darkness that had haunted me for an age. Elm trees stood as watchmen, and I passed beneath conscious we were akin, so far, all survivors of disease.
After I received my good scan result, taking a chance on a tramp across town to glimpse a dipper at Blackweir seemed a necessity for me. … Read more
Welcome to Seasonalight. I’m Ginny Battson, writer and nature photographer with a passion for wider ecological understanding and environmental ethics.
© 2019 Seasonalight
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