This is Gilbert & Sons, they are a travelling players group. Unlike other plants, these guys don’t exude oxygen but joy. As you can tell from their happy upright gesturing, they want you to pay attention, because the more attention you pay, the closer you’ll get to joy. Literally and figuratively. Gilbert & Sons are actually what happens to some lifeforms who achieve liberation from suffering. A liberation which, judging by my response to the non-stop electric sander somewhere outside, I’m still a long way off achieving. In this play, Gilbert & Sons are demonstrating the maxim that “all things can be found in miniature”. It is an exhortation to pay attention to the small in order to dwell in the large. As you can see, Gilbert & Sons are trees, the feather moss is playing bracken, and the twig is doing a great job of acting as an ancient, fallen
Once upon a time, there was a girl who always tried her hardest at everything. It was a time when the earth was dry and made of rubble and dust. A time when everything was scorched, a little red, and very, very dry. The girl was the last girl but she did her best not to think about that. She walked the land picking up this thing and that, rearranging them into interesting shapes so that she might populate the sparse land with something like creation. So that when her eye scanned a horizon, she would know where she had lately been and where was still to traverse. As time went by, the last girl learnt to dig into the ground to find things to make her sculptures with. She found bones and roots, rocks and ancient mycelial webs, shells and fossils: the myriad remnants of an ancient world. She brought
You’ll have heard of the Eye of Sauron, and some of you will also have heard of the Eye of Horus, but it is unlikely that you will have heard of the Eye of Beechus. The Eye of Beechus is only visible on days when there is a milky white sun slung low in the sky and everything is a little bit damp and bitter. If you see it, you should know that it symbolises the need to not second guess yourself. Stand firm, stay true, don’t think, keep on. The best way for me to tell you about the Eye of Beechus is to recount my experience with it, so forgive this personal and informal piece of reportage. It is not the finely honed, professional type of writing you have come to expect from this nature reporter with a very important job to do. However, sometimes I feel it is
In the beginning, long before the earth had been dug and ravaged, this was what human beings meant when they said ‘gold leaf’. In those days, human beings were taller and more graceful, kind of like how we imagine a LOTR-type elf only with a dwarf colour palette. In those days, collecting gold leaves was a coveted pastime by the people of Stanley Common. It was saved as a reward for those who had been the kindest and most compassionate the year before. The job was given so that the lucky gold leaf gatherer could go about finding beauty and replenishing any emotional, psychological, and spiritual well that felt dry. In this way, gold leaf gathering was a salve for the most gracious few. At the end of the year, the community would round up all the leaves the gatherer had collected and they would arrange them into the most beautiful
This is one of the most uncomfortable pieces of reportage I have provided thus far. The fact that I have soldiered on should demonstrate how dedicated I am to being a nature reporter with a very important job to do. For my mind is screaming, my heart is quaking, my skin is crawling, and yet and still, I must be faithful to nature and pass her story on. This rather beautiful knot is the winning entry of an under 12’s competition run by the spiders of Tankersford Common. The competition entails young spiders making their web offerings at dusk, and then overnight, the Ice Elemental comes and chooses the one they like best by making it glitter and glint in the morning sunlight. The young spider responsible for the winning entry this year is called Emily and she is actually a nice one. It is very difficult for me to admit