Happy Earth Day!
I need to put this date in my calendar for next year, I didn't know about it until today. I'm spending the day working on an assignment for college, so don't have time to try and write something particular. However, an Earth Day email I received earlier reminded me of something I had started writing about months ago but hadn't finished and published, so I thought I would quickly edit that post and use it today.
I'd like to encourage you to listen to this exquisite song, all the way through: https://youtu.be/GyL-ZLn3omY. Just put it on, when you have some quiet time, and listen, do nothing else for those few minutes. I discovered it in early December, and it actually brought tears to my eyes, and listening to it for the first time in a while just now it still sent a chill down my spine. It's called "The Lost Words Blessing", from the album The Lost Words: Spell Songs, a project by an ensemble of musicians following the 2017 publication of The Lost Words poetry book, by nature writer Robert Macfarlane and illustrator Jackie Morris. The book is gorgeous, and was created in response to the increasing disappearance of nature-related words from children's vocabulary, particularly the removal of a large number of such words from a prominent children's dictionary - acorn, bluebell, dandelion, wren, otter, kingfisher, hazel, heather, fern, heron, moss, ivy, lark, blackberry, grey seal, and more. As Robert Macfarlane said - "Names... can help us see and they help us care. We find it hard to love what we cannot give a name to. And what we do not love we will not save." It is a celebration and a protest. While I haven't listened to the whole album yet, this song is just as gorgeous as the book, with both beauty and sadness. One review I read summed it up well: "It is offered both in hope and light, and in grief for the losses yet to come." Here are the lyrics.
- Back to Nature: How to Love Life and Save It - Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin
- The Stubborn Light of Things: A Nature Diary - Melissa Harrison (the author has other nature-related books, and a podcast of the same name)
- Diary of a Young Naturalist - Dara McAnulty
- Wilding - Isabella Tree (about the rewilding of the Knepp Estate)
- The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District - James Rebanks (he also has other books I just haven't read them yet)
- I Am the Seed That Grew the Tree: A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year - collected by Fiona Waters
- Anything by Robert Macfarlane, Roger Deakin, Sir David Attenborough
- Anything that can be found in the Nature section of a bookshop, far too many to mention
Lastly - please leave the dandelions alone! They are brilliant for bees. Our society has an obsession with neat, tidy, trimmed lawns which are free of anything that isn't grass. So-called weeds are pulled up or, worse, sprayed with poisonous chemical herbicides. Unless they are a known non-native invasive species, resist this urge! Dandelions, clover, daisies, and buttercups (and more) are native wildflowers which provide food for pollinators, those most vital of creatures. See what other flowers you can see growing in the grass (they'll likely be tiny!) and use a plant ID app, such as Plantsnap, to put a name to them. Also, in spring, resist tidying garden plants until the weather is steadily warm and night-time temperatures are consistently above freezing; again, "weeds" and last year's growth can provide much-needed shelter for invertebrates and small mammals coming out of hibernation. Take part in No Mow May. There's absolutely nothing wrong with letting things get a little unruly; in fact, your local wildlife would love you for it.
Right, I'm off to try and get a bit more done on this hedgerow survey report!
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