Narroways, St Werburghs 11th June 2010
Walking with friend and artist Natasha Machin we stop to exchange breath with the other-than-human life around us.
Once upon a time the people resisted the proposal by a developer to build houses and roadways to a much loved and rare green space in the city.
Here today I breathe in the air infused with hedgerow trees, grasses, wild flowers, pee, cow parsley and memories that are not mine - of people who resisted schemes of road building.
The scent gives me a treat, one I could access everyday if I was disciplined or even create ways that I experience virile growth to be in my world. I see this action to breathe air that competes with the car culture of Bristol and the business flights, I see it has a privilege and I ask how can I pass this on? Simple not to those whose minds are occupied daily with the struggle to find a place to call home. And I am happy to acknowledge that I can access this because of the actions of the people from the past - a sure relationship between people and nature. I ask what is nature? Is it outside us or are we part of it?
Natasha Machin
Ants carry aphids their own size effortlessly up the red earth mound.
Translucent greenflies cling in a regular pattern on the underside of a sycamore leaf - the sun highlighting the print.
Grey brown old bramble stalks lay across one another in a scribble. A lizzard? A mouse? A shrew? A slow worm? Slithers through the gaps.
The hawthorn berries are hard green pellets, shiny in the light, the hope of pink around their edges.
Eve Houston
