Basic Instincts….….
I have always held the thought that the right living / working environment creates the atmosphere for peace / calm and creative thinking. The mini solo was our afternoon challenge (Monday) ; leave the tepee after three rings along, cross the threshold of the tepee and walk to a place where you feel a calling and sit there till dusk and return to the tepee crossing over the threshold to signal the completion of the mini solo.
My previous solo was last done in Knoydart and involved getting up at dawn and carrying out the task for a period of 10 hours returning at dusk. The impact of the solo was great on me and over the time period a lot of writing, thinking and sleeping occurred…making me grateful for being given the valuable commodity of time ( see my previous blog)
Leaving the tepee I decided to travel along the river bank and see if I could find a spot that would be suitable. The contrast between the two areas was light night and day…or kodachrome and colour. The climate was cold and dull and a wind was blowing down the river valley making me very aware that my choice of site had to be a sheltered spot that would offer a shield against the cold western wind. The river had flooded its banks and the whole areas looked as though it was dead; grass was flat and dull, trees were bare and broken and some animals lay dead beside trees. The debris that had been brought down stream with the flooding had lodged itself on the branches of trees and was strewn right along the river bank……a scene of chaos and destruction. Fortune would have that the flooding had caused a large trunk to be jammed against a large tree and all the smaller branches and grasses caught in its branches providing a great sheltered screen which I could side against and shelter from the cutting wind.
The area was dressed in a black and white (kodachrome) backdrop and with the cold wind and the desolation around the basic instinct was for survival. I had decided earlier that the focus for me was to examine my impression of Utopia and Dis-Utopia; a session we had done in the morning in the village hall looking at two environmental views (visually presented) of what I perceived would be my idea of what both would look like. I had been immediately drawn towards my new community and represented it in two visual drawings; one in black and white – the other in colour.
Although the spot was comfortable I quickly had to get inside the survival bag as coldness was setting in and the bag was pulled over my head to shut out the escalating wind and the cold that it brought. The area was blanked out and my basic instinct was to fall asleep and I did very quickly. The coldness in my legs brought me out of the sleep and hot sips of coffee and food reintroduced heat back into my body….this continued throughout the rest of the day. Short periods of writing poetry filled my boredom but I could not think about the task I had set myself….the atmosphere, the lack of light, the coldness…..made this an unwelcomed experience.
The session made me realise very quickly that the environment that surrounds us daily influences our thinking, our disposition…our creativity…our attitude to life and living. Although I am a very optimistic individual and see my glass as always half full I was fully aware that my environment was affecting me greatly – I suspect the same must be for all individuals. It made me think of my Dis-Utopia – my picture of individual isolation, destruction, hopelessness, fear, etc….I had a great appreciation of my Utopia in Knoydart …..colour, creativity, peace, energy, etc… I placed myself back into my real world and into the shoes of people living in their Dis-Utopia environment and how it impacts on their daily lives, families and hopes for a better future. It brought to me great empathy towards them and challenged me to think of ways in which I could engage with the community. Maybe this in how I will engage with natural change…maybe we need to start with “natural change” on a very local, mico level that starts with the needs of the individual first and from this might flow the environmental issues….if someone is poor, has no job and lives each day hand to mouth how can the issues of environmental change be on their radar…
The walk back was done feeling the fence wire and looking after ones basic instinct of safety ….on crossing the threshold the warmth and glowing embers of the fire in the tepee was a lovely satisfying feeling and lifted my spirits again.
