Get to know your kith

Hello friends!

Here in the northern hemisphere, we remain in the depths of winter, fully six weeks before the hours of daylight begin to exceed the hours of darkness once again. The earth remains bound by a combination of frost, bitter winds and torrential rain. Hedges and trees show only the tracery patterns of their bare branches. Animals and plants alike endure their seasonal dormancy.

But if we pay close attention, we may detect the first signs of spring: the quaking delicacy of a snowdrop in flower; the subtle modulation of robin’s song from winter’s melancholy to spring’s joyful notes; a hint of increasing light.

It seems to me that, this year, these signs are less certain, more reluctant to make their appearance. On the farm there is no suggestion of blackthorn soon to blossom, primroses hold their delicate flowers tight, honey bees remain close in their hives. It is a tentative spring, cautious to announce its arrival, perhaps in reflection of our global uncertainty. And yet, in the traditional calendars, we are standing at a significant point in the year’s unfolding.

In ancient times, the 2nd February was the festival of Imbolc and signalled the beginning of spring and the stirrings of new life. It was celebrated with fires and candlelight, with cleansing rituals and the planting of new seeds – real and spiritual. These celebrations were later folded into the Christian festival of Candlemas which occurs at the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, the transition from the Christmas to the Easter season. It was traditionally the time to take down seasonal sprays of greenery in preparation for Easter’s flowers.

In our centrally heated, artificially lit and protectively insulated world, it may seem anomalous to celebrate as we continue to shelter from winter’s depths but the word Imbolc derives from words meaning ‘in the belly' or ‘lactation’ and was known in various dialects as Feile Brighde, the 'quickening of the year'. It suggests the expectant quality of this time of year, the life that is growing in the dark, the hidden potential getting ready to awaken, which if we are attentive enough we may notice unfurling day to day.

“The greatest of human discoveries in the future will be the discovery of human intimacy with all those other modes of being that live with us on this planet” - Thomas Berry’s ‘The Great Work’

The great 'geologian' Thomas Berry urges us to grow more intimate with our surroundings, seeing it as the surest way to reverse the devastation that our separation from the rest of nature has wrought on the world around us. In its ancient usage, the word ‘kith’ in the familiar phrase ‘kith and kin’ meant ‘your native land’ and derived in turn from the root ‘to know’. It emphasises the belief that it is vital to know our country as well as our kinsfolk; that we evolved to be in relationship not only with our fellow humans but with our more-than-human companions too.

If we can take the time to pay attention, we will see evermore distinctly, the seasonal, weekly, even daily changes that are now gathering pace. Over the course of this year, I'd like to invite us all to get to know our kith, our land, the world around us. Begin by giving yourself a few minutes to rest, allowing your attention to dwell on all the natural spaces that there are within 15 minutes of your house. These could include your garden, a corner of the local park, a path beside a river, a patch of woodland or a stretch of open countryside. As your mind wanders around these places, see which one you are drawn to most as a place you could visit regularly.

The next step is to go there! Meander around the garden, park, woodland or wherever you’ve chosen and see if you are drawn to a particular spot. If nowhere occurs at first, keep being curious; sooner or later something will emerge, some place will call you over. Respond to that call and find a place to be still and quiet, in this newly discovered spot.

Let your mind and breath soften. After 5 minutes or so you’ll notice nature beginning to stir. You’ll see plants and insects you didn’t spot at first. Birds, perhaps animals, will appear. The trees will grow more distinguishable. You are beginning to know your place. After you’ve been there for 10 minutes, see if you can find a way of recording what you’ve seen and how you’ve felt. Maybe you could make a note in a journal; perhaps you could take a photo; make a sketch; record the soundscape or write a haiku; find a way to capture something of your experience in this place.

“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?”― Rachel Carson

By repeating this experience weekly, we could discover our kith and build a lasting rapport with it. In time, this could lead to an intimacy which connects us ever more closely to the world we are part of and which is part of us. What happens to it, happens to us. As we move nearer to it, it moves nearer to us. If we take a moment to collect dropped litter, for instance, our place is healed and so are we.

This week, next week, you may notice the moment the hazel catkins, tremulous and glistening with raindrops, turn from matt brown to acid yellow; glimpse buff-tailed bumblebees as they make their first exploratory flights of the year; catch the first notes of thrush's spring song.

These precious, fragile moments are the first stirrings of nature’s rebirth and, in turn, can call our attention to what may be stirring in us. Take note of this too: allow yourself to transform as the world around you does. A hundred other changes will be glimpsed as the year unfolds, just as our worlds changes too. Notice these and we will become ever more familiar with the nature of our place and with our own nature too.

Snowdrop - Alice Oswald

A pale and pining girl, head bowed, heart gnawed,
whose figure nods and shivers in a shawl
of fine white wool, has suddenly appeared
in the damp woods, as mild and mute as snowfall.
She may not last, she has no strength at all,
but stoops and shakes as if she’d stood all night
on one bare foot, confiding with the moonlight.

One morning among several hundred clear-eyed ghosts
who get up in the cold and blink and turn
into those trembling emblems of night frosts,
she brings her burnt heart with her in an urn
of ashes, which she opens to re-mourn,
having no other outlet to express
her wild-flower sense of wounded gentleness.

Yes, she’s no more now than a drop of snow
on a green stem – her name is now her calling.
Her mind is just a frozen melting of glow
of water swollen to the point of falling
which maybe has no meaning. There’s no telling.
But what a beauty, what a mighty power
of patience kept intact is now in flower.