I write things in my notebook in the midst of the changeable weather of things so I tend to forget what I’ve written – my own words and other people’s – until three months later I trawl through to see what’s there. It’s interesting to have the chance to re-visit my own mind in this way, as if it weren’t mine – a beachcombing process that helps me hold things lightly and trust serendipity, recognise I’m much less in control than I might think I am – in my writing and in my life.
This quote from US poet Nikki Giovanni rang true for me back in August when I transcribed it and it rings just as true now while COP 28 rumbles on in Dubai and we wait on tenterhooks to hear the outcome:
The state of the world is so depressing and this is not because of the reality of those who run it, but because it just doesn’t have to be that way. The possibilities of life are so great and beautiful that to see less wears the spirit down.
Nikki Giovanni is the only poet I know of who has a species of bat named after her, for which I am rather jealous. Giovanni's Big-Eared Bat, also known as Micronycteris giovanniae – a leaf-nosed bat found in western Ecuador – was named in her honour ‘in recognition of her poetry and writings’ in 2007. And by the way, I can’t help mentioning, I have a bat poem in the upcoming Modron magazine (Issue 3) you might like to check out.
To return to the great and beautiful possibilities of life, I was grateful this week for Chris Packham’s legal challenge to the government for reneging on their original carbon budget timeline. I was fascinated and inspired by his Channel 4 programme considering if he needed to break the law to exercise his democratic right to peaceful protest. It’s interesting to see where his investigations have led him.
Chris’s bold move reminded me of Ursula Le Guin’s acceptance speech for the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (as relevant now as when she gave it in 2014), when she reminded everyone that capitalism isn’t inevitable and exhorted writers (and those in the publishing industry) to remember their responsibilities:
Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality.
Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.
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Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
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We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom.
[Copyright © 2014 Ursula K. Le Guin]
One of the other times/places words reappear from the past is when I’m down on my knees lighting the fire. I read articles missed or forgotten before screwing them into oblivion and laying them beneath a layer of kindling. This week’s favourite was the Young Guardian Country Diary, written by Amaya, age 10 and Rufus, age 8. These two are paying close attention to the beyond-human species around them and write about them with great wonder, wisdom and a sense of lightness I find incredibly inspiring. What I’d give to see a white hart – or even some curl grubs.
The moon is waning and there’ll be another Writing into Being Writing Hour for the New Moon on Tuesday 12th December, 4-5pm GMT. It’s thought a Sagittarian New Moon brings a sense of optimism and trust – good energy to bear in mind and heart as we enter this magical season of light dying and returning. If you’re not already on the list and would like to come, please subscribe (it’s free) and let me know so I can send you a link.
Last offering from the notebook – cycles clearly in the air: ‘Nature revolves, but man advances.’ Edward Young, Night-Thoughts (1742).