Independent journalism network Contributoria published an article about a new definition of wild. A friend who knows my writing well asked why I'm stuffing these articles so full of quotes. I am writing this way to show just how broad and involved the thinking around these topics is. In writing about interconnectedness and our relation to nature, I'm expressing timeless human questions. We all know this, and feel it, I believe.
A rare chance to spend time researching in the British Library. The illustration is a noaide drum.
The Eden Project gave me an incredible opportunity to spend four hours teaching 16 chemistry PHD students from Bath University. My brief was to challenge their world view, and through a series of activities and discussions I believe this was achieved. Due to the inclement weather, my part of the two-day course took place in the rainforest biome at night.
Cool to see a little feature in Carve Magazine this month, with accompanying shots by JBow. Extract:
We form a knowledge of the rise and fall of tides, the twist and play of the wind across the water, the bend and kink of the swell and the sand or rock below. These are lessons you cannot learn in books, from Ordnance Survey maps, off the Internet. These are lessons of exposure, grafted into our minds and memories.
Neat American/Japanese/French lifestyle website Terasu are carrying a range of my articles, starting with Peripheries.
My recent Huffington Post article, Nature Connection Will Be the Next Big Human Trend went viral, with 24k likes and over 6k shares. Please like and share if it strikes a chord.
photo Tom Kay
The film Edges of Sanity is now live on The Guardian. Below is the text of the poem.
Edges of Sanity
1.
It’s been said
On far shores, weary mariners hear voices
Songs so beautiful they cast a spell
There is no choice but to hear.
They claim these whispers hold a message
Each ear hears different music
But the same call hunts the senses:
Without risk, there is no beauty
Without chance, no adventure
Through suffering, wealth without limit
So we scheme and plan
And tell nobody of our dreams
Shuffle cards, chance vague variables
And tread endless road miles until
Close against cold ground we toss and turn
And summon black water
2.
For I am of the waiting deep
The great denier, the poised fist
Stalker of pitch oceans
Whose fingers twist about your throat…
I swallowed the sad pilgrims
Who fell to flat reef, their vessels sunk
Into water bitter as winter night
Beyond the edges of sanity
I am the waiting teeth of the rocks below
The grinning maw in the clouds
Bearer of the hourglass - killer of the short dim day
Who beckons you to dare
3.
The north song does not stop
Power in that promise
Goes beyond common meanings
You have walked in footsteps new
What was before will never be again
But memories of lined faces
And in the glowing after
Breaking bread the sweetest knot
All weight shed - light extraordinary
Until my whisper comes again…
And the future begs your listening
The future begs your listening
"The Wildering" A2 Acrylic, chalk, crayon, pen and wax on canvas.
The Ecologist recent published this article about the Wildfjords Trail.
The Inertia recently published a piece called Seeking Stillness about big-wave surfer Mitch Corbett.
Delighted for my poetry and painting to be published by Dark Mountain Project. If you don't already know them, please read their manifesto.
Agenda, one of the widest known and most respected poetry journals (founded in 1959 by Ezra Pound and William Cookson) have very kindly published three of my poems in their Broadsheet 22.
Found in a dusty old box...
My short essay 'Saltwater Blood' was published in the most recent Kinfolk.
Costa Rica, Iceland, Orkneys 2012/13 contact sheets.
My first novel, Shineland, is finished. Please follow @intoshineland for updates...
Molly Soames isn’t like anyone else. She’s carrying the Wakening, a remarkable power that helps her understand animals. When Mortimer Wyse starts stealing pupils from the eyeballs of the people she loves, Molly must go on a perilous journey into the world inside the pupil, Shineland, to seek everything she’s lost. If she’s going to survive, Molly must learn to truly trust her gift.
