Spring greens

It is taking me a while to get going with the work I need to do. Home distractions and getting nowhere with leads and contacts has meant I have been reluctant to get started with anything new, but I hope today will break this.

I decided not to try anything adventurous today but stick to my usual haunt and see what was new. There is always something interesting to see or experience. At the moment the new green leaves spearing through the leaf mold are the main attraction. I am particularly fond of ramsons (wild garlic), which is very tasty and grows prolifically around here. I made a fabric bundle from young green leaves and another from wood shavings from a recently sawn tree stump.

I spent a lot of time next to the river today. In the shelter of the riverbank it was sunny and warm; collecting shards of glass and patterned pottery, making another bundle with lichen that had fallen off overhanging trees.

In the 'tree cathedral' area of Hirst Wood, where the nests are, I noticed some new things - clumps of green synthetic glitter lying on the ground and tulips sprouting next to mature trees, forming a large broken circle. It would seem that the nests were built in an area that was significant for another group of people. I think this might be some kind of sacred grove for pagan worshipers? While this isn't something that I know about, I am interested in the idea that lots of different people could be drawn towards certain sites without realising why. Some landscape theories suggest that we are attracted on an instinctive level towards particular kinds of environments. While there is a lot of debate about this I can't help but think that we give these feelings different names or reasons but that lots of people share an uplifting sensation in open wooded spaces like this. It is interesting that Simon Schama mentions in Landscape & Memory that many early churches in England were deliberately established on the site of sacred groves. The Christian church aimed to become more acceptable through grafting the new faith onto aspects of the existing worshipers spiritual lives.

Anyhow that's a bit deep, but I think it's an interesting area of ideas. Below is an image of all my treasure from today, although I suspect the real treasure is the stuff you can't see - once again people have different words for this kind of thing, I'll leave it to your imagination...