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A quick flurry of wind unlatches leaves from a beech tree.
polypores, nutrient oscillators of the forest.
It’s Samhain for us today, not Hallowe’en. The day when we celebrate the Celtic New Year
I’ve never understood how to play games with the other kids. The rules of play are a mystery to me. And they certainly don’t understand my rules, which are usually convoluted and complicated. Either I’ll underreact or overreact; I’ll stand vacuously staring or get madly excitable. There is no middle ground.
we relax in the sitting room surrounded by flickering candles lit for those who have left this world. The Celtic New Year is an opening up to the dark, lit by fires, warmed by the awakening of senses, and hopefully some space to think with the stark branches of winter.
groyne planks,
We rarely think of all that effort being made below the water, those webbed propellers whirring so the bird can glide with such ease and grace on the river. It’s just like being autistic. On the surface, no one realises the work needed, the energy used, so you can blend in and be like everyone else.
The drained days, submerged in grey and brown, a dripping watercolour. The absence of abundance reveals contours and shape in the land. Structure, spires of bareness. Welcome in the gloaming, embrace the night as it takes up more of the day. Feel the sky closer than ever, as it presses, sometimes gently, more often forcefully.
Winter, for me, is now feeling like a time of growth, of contemplation, connection with our ancestors and those that have passed.
biro
holloway
The dead are ashes: they still exist and never leave us.
That’s the peculiarity of time. The string can split into an infinite number of possibilities.
Granny believes that the dead live in robins, or that their souls do. Grandad died when I was two years old, and every time she went to visit his grave, a robin appeared and sang gustily. It felt like Grandad, she said.
in Ireland we’re not afraid of death, we embrace it. The dead are ‘waked’. Their body encased but without covering.
a thin place where both worlds intertwine.
Sparrow song,
Numbers have declined by almost seventy per cent in the UK since 1970. House sparrows make their homes near human places,
It’s amazing to think that house sparrows have an extra bone – the preglossale – in their tongues, making them perfectly adapted to eating seeds.
In Greek mythology, sparrows are sacred and often associated with the goddess Aphrodite, symbolising true love and spiritual connection.
Welsh poet W. H. Davies wrote in ‘Leisure’:
What is life if full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep and cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
Heart work. Taking the time to observe nature, to immerse oneself in its patterns, structures, happenings and rhythms. It’s how mathematicians and scientists are nurtured. Alan Turing studied the patterns in nature:
We can create a safe space for nature in our gardens, especially during the winter months when food is scarce.
I don’t think people realise what needs to happen behind the scenes so ‘we autistics’ can look like we’re doing alright. Mostly though, we hold it in, so controlled, until we reach a safe space. Then release the pressure.
All three of us stim – ‘stimming’ is a word used to describe the self-stimulatory behaviours of those on the autistic spectrum. Lorcan uses sounds, squeaks, grunts, purrs, whistles, groans. Bláthnaid twirls her fingers, hand-flaps and makes sucking-in noises which she calls ‘fluorescent stress-taking movements’. It’s not weird. It’s just different. Some neurotypical people talk incessantly – so much small talk! I curl my hair, jump randomly and sometimes, embarrassingly, do a few wiggles. I control it when people are around.
Bláthnaid, because she’s younger and less self-conscious, is an unbridled stimmer. But so what? It’s who we are. It’s how our happiness bubbles out, and how our anxiety seeps. It’s just how we regulate our brains. You probably stim too, without realising. Ever bite your nails? Twirl your hair? Pull at your ear? Yep, thought so. Maybe we’re not so different after all.
minus ten celsius,
14 degrees F
It might be the year’s darkest day, but there is always light. Darkness and light. Both needed for respite, for regeneration.
Every year we watch The Snowman somewhere on the telly.
The Book of Dust by Phillip Pullman
dogfish egg cases – mermaid’s purses
fret
bodhrán
aeolian erosion,
The Dark is Rising
leucistic bird, all white,
It’s murmuration season.
fell runner
tors’
Seamus Heaney
‘Death of a Naturalist’:
When people ask me why I experience nature so intensely, the truth is that I only know I’ve experienced it when I’m writing it all down later.
Remarkably, curlews and redshanks have almost bendy bills. The final section can flex upwards, independently. It’s called distal rhynchokinesis, the way the upper jaw moves, and even when buried in mud or wet sand, the beak can open and grab food.
earwig with her eggs
toadflax (also known as mother of thousands).
dodgems:
Globally, we have lost sixty per cent of our wild species since 1970.
a ticking time bomb to extinction.
Is it any wonder that almost a quarter of young people are experiencing mental health difficulties? Our world is increasingly divided between attainment, materialism and self-analysis. We’re at a tipping point in the relationship we have with ourselves, with each other, and our world.
