26 10 07

It’s been a long time since anyone called me son, but the old woman was surely entitled to do that according to age. It’s certainly a splendid thing to be called son by someone who’s not my parent. It reminds of a time (maybe imaginary) when the elderly were seen as wise in the ways of the world; when an old woman could respectfully be called cailleach. The term has overtones also of nun & of a childless woman. This makes it all the more endearing – a real human exchange is made in the one casual word. It’s full of genuine humanity, a trust that’s often far from us, with our care for our own narrow self-interest & that of our immediate circle. When we discriminate against those who are not “our” children, it’s possible to close an eye to other children’s suffering. Pick up a magazine to see how we objectify the starving, maiming & sexualisation of others’ children, scarcely able to part ourselves from the SUV which takes “our” kids to school.
Vandana Shiva, the physicist & eco-activist wrote that we go to the woods to learn democracy. (I paraphrase from memory). In these woods here, is a co-dependent community of trees. That community is symbiotic with all the other communities, the microflora, the flora,– from orchids to lichens – each with its contribution to the general woodland structure; the fauna & small creatures that I’ve already written of here in the journal: woodants, spiders, slugs, along with the beetles & wasps & flies. I have no idea how many species there are in these woods, never mind individuals of each species: the number is incalculable. Yet here is true democracy, with all these creatures having the right to exist (unless tampered with by a landowner who sees them as subject to his whims & economic will) in & of themselves, valued (is that too strong a word? I think not where absence of one leads to the degradation of the whole) equally for their contribution. Our recently elected government wants a conversation with Scotland. If it were to extend that conversation to the commons – the woodlands, the heaths & bogs, mosses & mires; to the voiceless, then we might all begin to live deliberately. The curlew at dusk has more resonance than the bleatings of parliaments; the small sound of a dragonfly laying its eggs in a sidestream, the tok tok of a stonechat, and the kind word of an old woman.
It’s not so much that we don’t value the trees & their fellows, we simply don’t see them. What we see is largely economic. What price can we derive from timber. Of course there’s an increasingly recreational attitude: what fun can I have in a woodland, as well as the neo-sacred & neo-mystic: how do the trees enhance my personal growth & healing (& nurture my delusions). We seldom allow woods to be for their own sake; that would be to admit that we’re all on an equal footing, co-existing in a fragile & complex space. There are no meetings with remarkable trees – all trees & therefore all woods, are remarkable. The Sunart oakwoods are also remarkable in their survival of economic appropriation. I’d like to see them survive for their own sake; not simply because they’re a place of quiet vitality in a busy world – they’re part of that same world - & can refresh busy people & inject a little calm into folks’ lives (which they do), but because they have as much right to exist as we do.
Meanwhile, here at Ard Airigh, I’ve been soaked twice & dried twice walking through the woods today. I’ve tried to step on as few plants as possible, but they’re forgiving, my tread only marginally heavier than that of a hind. Glimpses of the loch through the trees & the occasional sun shafts releasing the last delicate flies from where they shelter, & I’m still carrying the old woman piggyback in my mind.