Indigenous

You know, I'm thinking still about the indigenous and colonial, native and alien ideas. Mrs or Ms B is definitely the former. Although passerines, I think, mainly evolved in what is now Australia and I doubt there were a hell of a lot of blackbirds here when the archipelago was covered in ice. Maybe humans came here first.

Though I doubt those humans were my ancestors. I have two grandparents who lived in the midlands but I have an idea my father's father was from Yorkshire. Maybe he was from Viking ancestry. For sure, many of his other grandchildren were white blond as children and some still blond. My mother's mother was I guess a Londoner and her father came from New Zealand... a family with mainly Germanic roots from what I understand. My cousin tells me the earliest name in the family tree is some guy in 1200 who was whatever Germans were then. Not a lot of Celtic blood, then.

However, I am not sure that heredity is the only thing that matters. Perhaps the relationship with place counts too. This seems to be one of the messages of the trees: that it is possible to root oneself. Fair enough, but I feel that my roots are in Devon rather than Northamptonshire, despite my peregrinations about this county and my engagement with the flora and fauna here.

How specific is place? Something I read... oh, what was it? Oh yes, Sad Planets, had this part about how we truly are Terran, of this Earth, and the suggestion was that some wisdom can be gained by accepting that. I resonated strongly with that. This plant isn't just home, it's mother father, womb and grave, playground, workspace, food-provider, death-giver. All that's in a human life is indeed given to us by this atmosphere-enveloped-globe.

I read this... and it felt right:

Ailton Krenak: Our planet is so wonderful. We cannot lose sight of the fact that life is everywhere. No one is a separate cocoon in the cosmos living this experience alone. You experience this with all the organisms that are in the planet’s biosphere. It is as if we were diluted in everything. We need to relearn how to walk softly on the Earth. When we learn to walk like this, we will experience wonder and nothing else will be needed. We must accept Nature’s invitation to dance with life. If we could have an organic mindset, which connects us with bees, ants, the grass that grows, the trees that shake in the wind, that shed their leaves and bring forth new shoots, we would understand that everything is constantly sprouting, growing, dying, being born.

This blackbird was shepherding around, or pursued by, a fledgling. They spoke to each other in whistles and clucks, sounding more like robins than blackbirds in their familial debates.

What elegance in maternity and what she risks to bring her young into this world. She steps lightly - except when landing on the fence and surprised at my presence below her. Then she lands loud as a squirrel and with frantic chucks takes flight into the honeysuckle.