Skip to primary navigation
Skip to main content

Regenerative Sustainability

Home
Blog
Books
Videos
Spend Wisely
Support
Collaborate

Looking for something?

Search

feminism

11 Ways To Be A Better Feminist … and human

March 8, 2018

Empowerment seems to be a buzz word these days, one which focuses on our own Western female empowerment, rather than...

Subscribe to my mailing list

@HOLLYROSE.ECO

Winter moon in bloom ♥

Winter moon in bloom ♥

Last weekend in the woods, as the reaping tide of

Last weekend in the woods, as the reaping tide of Mo(o)nday’s Summer Solstice crept up to cast our shadows into the light, I felt the flirt of possibility that comes with experiencing one small facet of the world I wish to see.⁣
⁣
Sitting around the hearth, just beyond the reach of our hardwired society, our collective shape mimicked the cross-section of the sweet chestnut tree we had coppiced together.⁣
⁣
Scraping away the bark (epidermis) the material in-between (cambium pathways) baskets are made from was revealed. A moist material made up of pathways that stretch from the root to the crown and back again, transporting nutrients and water through the body of the tree to balance life above and below ground. ⁣
⁣
Weaving the undulating local ancestral pattern which Ruby of @nativehands.uk taught us heartfully, reminded me of an ongoing conversation I had been having with my husband. About the ebbs and flows of life, which balance happiness and grief. And how without both present - alongside the spaces in between - life has no shape at all. It remains flat, untangled, without texture. ⁣
⁣
Like the basket, this pattern of ups and downs weaves our story, individually and collectively. It shapes us like the tides, grounding us to make space for new growth, humming tunes of solidarity, beauty, imperfections, and acceptance. ⁣
⁣
Yet over the last 700 years, this collective weave we learned to mimic through a once deep relation to the natural world has taken a different form. We stopped including all members of our human and non-human community in the cultural shape of our society’s basket. Choosing instead to create a tangled and erratic pattern, which leaves vast holes or weakened walls for beings to fall through. ⁣

As more truth about the genocide grounds (‘residential schools’) continues to come to light, we cannot ignore these holes. Purposefully created through repeated acts of supremacism, an ideology that breaks the natural pattern. Tipping death away from life.

This imbalance can only be healed through collective unraveling and reweaving. A job so big it requires every hand to join in solidarity to create unity, in pieces that have become fragments.

✺ HAPPY BELATED BELTANE ✺⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Yeste

✺ HAPPY BELATED BELTANE ✺⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
Yesterday I was out and about learning about mama nature’s various local offerings. For as long as human memory serves, on these islands, the 1st of May has been a collective celebration of the first day of summer. In thanks for the fertility and abundance of the soil, plant, wildlife and human beings. ⁣⁣
⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
When I was a kid, part of this ritual was centred around the maypole. Where an array of colourful ribbons became interconnected through movement. ⁣⁣
The dance around the maypole created a weaving of these ribbons, symbolically representing all the beings who dwell above and below, to create a visual representation of the interconnected web of life that upholds our reality. ⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Yesterday, as I foraged in the gardens of Kent, I learned a different kind of weaving, in the names and uses of a colourful array of life-supporting plant folk who dwell around us, hidden in plain sight on the riverbanks, verges, fields and churchyards throughout this country (and all countries). ⁣⁣
⁣⁣
These beings seem to thrive best when their ribbons of offerings are respectfully woven into the diet of heterotrophs (beings who can’t photosynthesize), offering abundance at its finest and freest. In exchange of the endless gifts they keep on giving, they ask little in return. Dimly that you treat them as kin, and take the time to listen and learn.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
A few weeks ago I wrote a half-digested thought out (in the slides and on my blog), on the balance between staying with the trouble while finding room to grow, leaving one foot in the world lost of meaning, and another deeply dug down into the magic we’re taught to miss. ⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Like all journeys into something other than before, there’s an element of embracing the imperfection of our evolvement. Accepting the dirty work of unravelling, of regathering, reworking, and reweaving. As we scramble in the dark to rediscover or invent the dance(s) we lost, the weaving we’ve forgotten the pattern of, the language of love we languish. ⁣⁣
⁣So we might learn to reweave our species back into the web of living beings.

A long time ago, when many were leaning away for d

Do we empower others to empower ourselves? Or are

Do we empower others to empower ourselves? Or are we empowered naturally through acts which contribute to other’s agency? ⁣
⁣
In this world rooted in hierarchy, I keep finding this split. ⁣
⁣
Some claim to fight for change but are really seeking power and/or popularity. Self-ordained leaders empowering themselves under the guise of empowering others. A me for we.⁣
⁣
Then there are those who are empowered through empowering others. Chosen to lead by those they serve, lifted by the collective they contribute to. Grounded in humility, wise from experience, harnessed by their humanity. A we for me.⁣
⁣
As advocates of ideas, are we practising what we preach, or just preaching? ⁣
⁣
One creates celebrity. The other creates collectivity ... I think. ⁣
⁣
Or perhaps we need both, a spectrum of everything. But if so, how do we cull the ego who dwells here blocking growth and perpetuating pain?⁣
⁣
We all glean the information we preach through a cascade of other’s expressions. Nothing is ever completely our own, our very existence the result of a microbial tide. Our words a cascade of language. Our opinions a ray within a prism of experience which has lived and died in the hearts and minds of time. ⁣
⁣
Like an anchovy, as my friend Lucy says; new, made old, made new again. ⁣
⁣
As we rise with this Libra full moon, we get to decide what we take and what we leave. How we evolve, and what it means to truly live in relation to other beings. ⁣
⁣
What would you choose if we could choose again? (and we can)

When the crown of a tree drops its leaves, it does

Follow on Instagram

Copyright © 2021 HOLLYROSE.ECO, Made by Underline DesignsBack to Top