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| Run |
In considering
a call for proposals around and celebrating the work of Fay Godwin, I
discovered I was interested in Peter Stokes question “How many more Aveburys
will be there, perfect under future moons”
Referring
to Godwin's work 'Land' Stokes wrote that she is 'dealing with issues
of exploitation and industrial damage; albeit with the
possibility of a suggestion, in the way in which the material is
associated, that all things pass, and that the land will heal.'
I
remember writing 'This too shall pass' on my wall at home in thick
blue paint in utter frustration and in response to a particularly
nasty relationship. We sometimes have a nasty relationship to the
'other'. Witness politics. Tara Brach calls 'the other' 'unreal
other', it means that we can feel able and justified to hurt 'the
other' partly because we are afraid of it/them and partly because
they don't exist to us, so far removed from us do they seem. This can
relate to animal, vegetable, human, mineral, the sea and the land.
We choose. Our rubbish litters the land, the sea and the air making
it difficult sometimes to see, to breathe or to move about safely
regardless of the physiognomy.
As
a vegetarian heading towards veganism I find it difficult travelling past sheep and frollicking lambs on the marshes soon to be travelling
to the abbatoir. We used to see lorry loads of animals on their way
to death. Now it's rare to
see that. Is it that there are now abbatoirs in every town and
village? Everything is being cleaned up in terms of what we are
allowed to see, so we aren't so inconvenienced or
distressed, despite wanting to buy 'meat' at rock-bottom prices which
has to equate to rock-bottom humanitarianism. It might be better if
instead of 'meat' we selected an animal with an identity at
the supermarket. Let's face it, if you're going to eat animal why
not have it's name and species branded on it, cheese and wine have to
declare what they are. My sister-in-law once yelled out the train
window at the sheep at the top of her voice 'RUN!' but then she had
visited an abbatoir. I share her horror at what will become of them,
a shank on a plate. The rot, in our country, is not just in our
minds its in our bellies too, via our attachment to the hog roast.
Godwin promoted the organic route not for nothing.
I'm
interested in how, as Margaret Drabble wrote (Guardian...
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/08/margaret-drabble-fay-godwin
), Godwin's change of diet contributed to her recovery from “advanced
cancer”. If our cancers are related to the desecration of the
land and life, Godwin's concern over our sites of mystery, pilgrimage
and contemplation becoming lucrative sideshows devoid of meaning and
mostly untouchable identifies them as also troublesome. Mass conscious life that is
out of touch with its centre, with little spirituality or deep
meaning other than a monetary drive for survival, allows us to treat
each other as unreal and develop deeply rooted psychological pain as
a result.
Looking
to the sky at night when the land and our destruction of it has
disappeared into a shimmering blackness offers hope. The twinkling
lights of distant stars, light years away, scribe their images onto
my hand-held lens as I, who wobble while looking upwards (not being a
tripod), am inconsequential beneath them. Is it my subconscious that
has me wobbling an image that might be the equivalent of an ancient chalky
white horse or a long man scribed into the side of a hill?
