Conjuring Wildness #27
On stretching, dampness and being a fire-animal.
Hi friends,
We’re a couple weeks past Imbolc now and the light is returning. The deep, deep darkness of mid winter is starting to lift. She doesn't really last for all that long - that deep, dark time for brewing and dreaming. The time of dreaming before doing. It’s so easy to fill a little too much of the darkness with doing and not quite enough of it soaking in the juicy darkness and dreaming. Perhaps you can relate?
Often I feel like a human of two halves. Half of me is so deeply embroiled in the rhythms of the natural world - the seasonal flow, the way the moon travels across the sky, the birdsong in my lungs and the moss growing over my feet as I root deeply into the river bed. And the other half of me is reaching into the conventional world, doing and seeking and trying with spreadsheets and emails and zoom calls. Like I am half swaying in the mystic and half rooted in navigating the status quo. Like I am a tree spanning worlds. Sometimes the stretch between the two feels so immense its enough to pull me apart.
One thing I know - this life is not about fighting yourself. What if splitting apart is actually part of the magic needed usher in the Great Turning? At the same time as we are the mighty oak, we are the acorn that needs to split apart so the new world can grow. This pulling apart can be uncomfortable, so it’s no surprise that the stories of these times seem to lean increasingly toward certainty - certainty about political ideas, certainty about identity. Fellow seekers and holders of magic, it’s our job to hold the tensions and nuance, the uncertainty and complexity. Even when these multiple sets of ideas are so potentially conflicting that they force us to stretch until we pull apart. Because only then can the light can shine through.
Plants & Kin 🌿
Larch (larix sp.) is a very strong soft wood - which sounds like an oxymoron unless you know that soft wood is the collective name given to wood from all the fast-growing coniferous species along with pine, spruce and fir. Rich in oils which makes it durable outside and resistant to rot. It’s a great choice of wood for outdoor wooden structures, roundhouses and the like. Larch was introduced to the UK around 400 years ago from Central Europe.
Larch is the only deciduous conifer, meaning that it loses its needles in autumn. This makes it easy to recognise for half the year. Larch needles grow in clusters and the cones can stay on all winter. At this time of year it not one of the conifers greening up the grey, but it is easy to identify.
It has a reputation in folklore for protecting against enchantments - a quality common to the rich oily coniferous woods and still evident in advertising for cleaning products today. The flavours of larch are a little milder than other conifers, but can be used in the same way to flavour spirits and cordials. A larch needle tea or vinegar is a traditional remedy for respiratory illness, and there is evidence to support this.
Rites & Practice ✨
This time of year in this part of the world is damp and dull. Months of dark and wet will do that to even the most fiery spirits. I’m a big fan of leaning into the rhythms of the year, but let’s face it - damp and dull is not a vibe. Fortunately for us the season is changing. The Celts call this moment Imbolc, the Christains Candlemas - it is the beginning of the farming year and the first returning of the light. So if you’re starting to feel a bit of an itch to get moving as the days start to get that tiny bit longer it might just be the millennia of farming lineage that is embedded in your DNA. It’s a bit early to be digging over your veg beds, so if you’re missing a few acres to call your own you might find that some guerilla land management could be the right medicine. Personally, I'm a guerilla planting some basket willow in a wet and unmanaged corner of a park near my house.
This time of year (in the northern hemisphere) is about the returning of the light. The trees feel it first so my invitation for this moment (if you are in the UK) is to head to the nearest woodland and light a fire. A candle is fine but an actual fire is always going to be more provocative. Light a fire and let the trees know that you’re with them. They are just starting to wake and I know for a fact they will be thrilled to know you are waking with them. As a human you have a magic power in the kingdom of the natural world in that you can wield fire. The land is missing our fire like she is missing our songs. The trees are asking why the fire-animals don’t come anymore. This time of year is damp and dull. We can bring a spark ourselves while we wait for the sun to return.
If you are in a part of the world that might just burst into flames with a single spark, the trees are asking for the fire-animals even more loudly.
Land & Justice ✊
Amazon deforestation decreased by 7% between 2023 and 2024. This is a snippet of a good news story wrapped in something much bigger - degradation of the forest increased by 497%, driven by wildfires that burned uncontrolled through the drought-stricken areas of the forest. The stark reality of this world at this time is that the conservative efforts of conservation are not enough any more. It's not enough to just actively stop doing harm, we need to actively regenerate this Earth. We need the appropriate technologies to do it.
Obviously fires in the Amazon are not an isolated incident. California's catastrophic fires have only just been contained. Southern Australia has been burning again. All of the AI in the world is still powerless against an actual bushfire. Yet the ability to tend fire is one of the most ancient technologies that we have as humans. Controlled burns are an important part of managing the landscape to ensure a balance between the decaying plant matter and the new life that will follow. This study shows that Native Americans mitigated climatic influences through active fire land management 3000 years ago. And this whole book is dedicated to an exploration of the advanced cultural burning practices of Aboriginal Australians. Indigenous people the world over have been knowledge-keeping fire-technologies despite being prohibited from practicing them in recent centuries.
Which begs the question - what other ancient technologies might actually hold some of the answers to humanity's current existential crisis? The power of song technology to unite us? The power of trance-state technology to alter our perception of what is possible? The power of lifelong initiatory ritual technology to give life meaning? The power of community technology? If only these technologies were as celebrated as some of those other tech things out there.
Encounters 🔥
Last week my band recorded 6 songs for our first Sequora & the Wolf EP in dbs studios in Bristol. All of the songs on this EP are inspired by adventures in the wild - there’s a song told from the perspective of a river, a song about shape shifting into a bird, a song told from the perspective of the Earth, disgruntled at her lost lovers the humans. This is a weaving of deep animist knowing into indie rock folk and I can’t wait to share them. You can find some behind the scenes pics and micro sound snippets here.
In an historic case, 13,000 Ogoni farmers are taking Shell to the UK supreme court to seek reparations for the crimes committed against their lands and their lives. Since the 1980s Shell have been extracting oil from the Niger Delta - killing people, decimating ecosystems and destroying the farming and fishing livelihoods of local Ogoni communities. The trial opened this week. I’ll write more about this next week but in the mean time talk about this case with people you know and if you have a socials platform, share something about it. This is an important case for climate justice and reparations so let’s make some noise about it. More here, here, here.