“We are often more tender to the dead than to the living, though it is the living that deserve our tenderness the most.”
– ROBERT MACFARLANE
Tenderness
From Latin tenerem “soft, delicate; of tender age, youthful”
It’s often from reading that we find the spark that ignites an idea within us, a perspective of an experience that can transform everything you once held as ‘true’ or simply a new vantage point from which to view. They can also provide comfort and solace. In the midst of creating this newsletter, the first of (hopefully) many more, the weight of imagined expectation had all but gagged me and with that my monkey mind had come to save the day. I stopped where I was and picked up Underland, Robert Macfarlane’s tales from the world beneath our feet, a poetic discourse unveiling the secrets She keeps within Her. The sentence quoted above reminded me that it’s not just others that deserve our tenderness, it’s ourselves too, perhaps most importantly.
And then I opened a new document.
Of the many uses and meanings of the word ‘tender’, several are of importance to us right now. Our man-built world and the societal structures within it are changing with the momentum of an avalanche, quick to swallow us up before a warning sound can be made, what we once took for granted, wiped out in moments. It’s happening physically and socially and seems wholly unstoppable.
This is where I am reminded of the resilience of our natural world and the way it works in partnership with each other. Trees are interconnected through a ‘wood wide web’ sending nutrients to those that are dying, canopies respectfully growing with space for their neighbour, seemingly hap-hazard hedgerows that grow bountifully without intervention. Flora and fauna take care of each other it seems and perhaps that is because they have no ego to speak of. It’s fair to say that societies at large (not all, but most) have lost their way and we face many threats to our survival. If we stand any chance, we must turn back to Nature, innate within us yet hidden under conditioning, the dictatorship of capitalism and trauma. Never has there been a time as important as now to remember who we are and how to live and She is around to teach us, even in the most scattered of pockets.
What is clear is that the world as we knew it will be no more. It’s possible that by doing what we’ve always done, will get us what we’ve always got’ isn’t true in the macro sense. The syllabus I was taught, you were taught, was similar to that of our parents, their parents. The most significant changes in the curriculum come from testing younger and more extensively throughout a childs education. It’s conditioning new generations to accept judgement and pressure to perform. Let me be clear about what I’m trying to say, masculine traits are being emulated whilst the feminine, i.e i.e Love are being denigrated.
"The female mind has grace, the male mind has efficiency. And of course in the long run, if there is a constant fight, the graceful is bound to be defeated and the efficient mind will win, because the world understands the language of mathematics, not of love."
– OSHO
So with all that being said, we missed our deadline for a June newsletter, our website is still in it’s infancy and before this first week in July, that seemed cataclysmic. Now, whilst we may not be helping ourselves in a material sense, there is a certain peace to the process and the enjoyment in the tasks replaced. We want to bring you words that resonate and make you feel less alone, We want to say that procrastination is a wonderful act in creation, we want to implore to you that taking time to ‘smell the roses’ is the unexplainable healing tonic to the soul.
Now is the time to remember who we are, it is essential. As a society we most often extend our tenderness to our young and vulnerable, to our pets; as a (flower) gardener, everything I grow, I nurture… with tenderness. Yet that same tenderness, the one that soothes with “there, there, accidents happen” or “I’m so proud of you, well done for trying” won’t be extended to our adult selves, all too often it’s the other end of the scale.
I’d say we have a long journey ahead if we choose to find Balance of Life on our planet again, the journey is mapped within us, hidden amongst varying levels of toxic debris and so that’s down to us individually and collectively to clear. Inside us, lie the same web of connections to each other just as the trees in a forest and Mother Earth. Let’s be magic again.
Healing trees at Avebury, a perfect place for the beginning of a new chapter x
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