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

“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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  … Read more

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

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

In 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

In this  piece of prose, I am expressing myself at a juncture in life, a collision of complex matters that are important to me right now, and causing me much emotional pain ~ love, Earth crisis, cancer.

I hope to explore the idea that some ambivalence, far from being malign in relationships (with humans, non humans, self and in our work ~ protecting the biosphere and machines), must be embraced as part of the process (fundamentally, I am a process philosopher). There would be a point where rejection and change is wise ~ letting go ~ but no relationship will ever be perfect. … Read more