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“These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.” —Anton Chekhov, A Day in the Country.

I have been watching old man heron on the Glamorgan Canal, of late. And a dainty little egret at Llandaff Weir. Their organic curves and soft feathers lull me into their lives. I long to communicate with them, if only by brief mutual gaze. … Read more

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(Dissertation extract, in continuing the ideal of co-operation, symbiosis and mutualism into, and of, language.)

6.0 Language of Flow: Fluminism, Introducing Spring Theory.

6.1 The Need for Neologisms.

Two particular yet simple words, love and ecology, are my inspiration in the creation of my own neologisms ~ fluminism, and then sanguimund and praximund, the latter two as constituent parts of the former.

As to both words, love and ecology, as lexicons combined, they are complementary. One word is a positive emotion and the other a rational science. Like life itself, it is the combination of both affect and rationale which our brains assimilate as moral constructs and in the choices we make every day. … Read more

I have decided to publish my complete Masters dissertation on environmental ethics here, the culmination of years of research and thought. But it’s just the beginning…

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FINAL_2018_Dissertation_Ginny_Battson_Adrian_Davis

Awarded: Distinction … Read more

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Poem by Walt Whitman

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. … Read more

To speak of ‘limits to growth’ under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be ‘persuaded’ to limit growth than a human being can be ‘persuaded’ to stop breathing. Attempts to ‘green’ capitalism, to make it ‘ecological’, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.

~ Murray Bookchin (Remaking Society: Pathways to a Green Future)

“When I mean abnormal cells, I do mean cancer.” In one sentence, the consultant moulded my existence into a finite entity. I felt shocked, blood pumping furiously through my neck.

He went on, and as he did, I sat back in the chair and tried to take stock. A flurry of questions then fell out of my mouth. My ex husband sat next to me, with his own questions too. This was a gynaecologist, not an oncologist, so most of his answers were short and unsure.

Memories of my father’s death from small cell lung cancer flashed through my mind. Then all went slo-mo, an oil slick of emotion, suffering my senses to numbness and the whole thing rendering me flightless. … Read more

The Holy Bible. Genesis. Chapter One. 26. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

“Human beings are empowered to exercise dominion over nature and even to be participants in creation; and yet, at the same time, there are strictures against idolatry, which is a kind of overreaching and confusing human beings’ role with God’s.”

– Michael Sandel

I have been pondering the word dominion; a word to describe the human shadow cast about our wondrous planet like a suffocating inversion of smog. … Read more

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cupido ~ yearning (Latin)
lustri ~ wilderness/dens of wild beasts, wood, forests (Latin)

As I sit here in the city, thinking, confined by recovery, I am yearning for the wild.

I want to be where no humans live, where they are rare, where I can go in for a walk and feel peaceful eutierria with other species, interconnected and free.

Cupilustria is a deep feeling that is bridged to my awildian imagination. Special places are conjured in my mind, gossamer images overlaying and underlaying the slate roofs and brick chimneys I see through my window.

I close my eyes and engage all my senses. … Read more

I watched them soar then beat their wings so quick, like bats, tumble-twist and rise again. Uphill, sometimes uplifted, falling like sycamore samara. Higher, higher, dissolving to nothing. #swifts

— Ginny (@ginbat) June 13, 2018

 … Read more