The Ordination of Trees

photo by Geraldine Green

The Ordination of Trees: Since the Write in the Forest creative writing workshop in Grizedale Forest last Saturday (28th Feb) I've been busy doing this and that - collating poems and prose for the Living Words anthology, helping to organise and shape the Festival of Words and Music at Swarthmoor Hall - all good stuff! All the while I've caught myself reflecting on the ordination of trees, photos of which were on display in Grizedale Forest. 

photo of two of the writing group, taken by Geraldine Green (permission given to use photo)

We (the 'write in the forest' group) walked to Luke Duggleby's poignant photographic exhibition and saw, set in Forestry Commission woodland in Cumbria, the passion and dedication of Thai Buddhist monks and villagers in The Aereng Valley, Cambodia. Why were they carrying long swathes of saffron-coloured cloth through the Cardamom Forest? To ordinate the trees, to protect them from loggers. The idea of ordinating trees has been with me since then... how would we ordinate trees? What colour cloth? How would we honour the trees? What is the meaning of the colour saffron?

Tree Meditation

I was pondering on our next forest workshop, planning things to do... something I've been calling to myself 'tree meditation' is one thing I'll ask the group to do. Choose a tree to sit against, reflect and attune the senses. Listening, quieting the breath, letting thoughts drift in and out like birds... just allowing ourselves to be...

photo of Thai Monks by Luke Duggleby; photo of Luke Duggleby's photo in Grizedale Forest by Geraldine Green

I had no idea about forest monks, until just now, when I was researching the meaning of the colour saffron:

http://buddhism.about.com/…/theravadabu…/fl/Forest-Monks.htm

Dates for the next Write in the Forest Workshops:

Saturdays: June 6th, September 5th, November 7th

11am-3pm £25 incl refreshments, please bring own lunch

with thanks to Grizedale Forest and the Forestry Commission for the use of The Yan and also for the work they do.

Venue: The Yan, Grizedale Forest

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/theyan

info on Luke Duggleby's exhibition:

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-9ppeem

The photo exhibition by Luke Duggleby in Grizedale Forest ended on Sunday March 1st.

For booking: please email: geraldinegreen[dot]poetry1[at]gmail[dot]com

Visit my website: http://geraldinegreensaltroad.blogspot.co.uk

WRITE IN THE FOREST GRIZEDALE FOREST CUMBRIA UK

Write in the Forest - an exciting new writing adventure! In the heart of the Forest, in the inspiring English Lake District

Write in the Forest - a series of four creative writing workshops with local writer Geraldine Green. Drawing on the natural world and forests in particular, these workshops will help inspire your writing and get you back in touch with nature. Workshops will take place in the inspirational Yan Centre and also outdoors - please wear suitable footwear and clothing.

£25 per workshop:

Saturdays 11am-3pm

February 28th

June 6th

September 5th

November 7th

Booking essential. Adults £25 for each of the four workshops. Refreshments available. Please bring own lunch or use cafe facilities. Lunch is not included in cost of workshop

Venue: The Yan, Grizedale Forest

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/theyan

The first workshop will focus on the award-winning photos of Luke Duggleby, currently on display in Grizedale Forest, but will also include a variety of writing exercises and stimuli.

Info here:

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-9ppeem

For booking: please email: geraldinegreen[dot]poetry1[at]gmail[dot]com

Visit my website: http://geraldinegreensaltroad.blogspot.co.uk

With thanks to Grizedale Forest and The Forestry Commission for offering us the venue for the writing workshops and for the work they do to keep forests alive and thriving

WRITE IN THE FOREST, GRIZEDALE FOREST

GRIZEDALE FOREST WORKSHOPS

Write in the Forest - a series of four creative writing workshops with local writer Geraldine Green. Drawing on the natural world and forests in particular, these workshops will help inspire your writing and get you back in touch with nature. Workshops will take place in the inspirational Yan Centre and also outdoors - please wear suitable footwear and clothing.

Saturdays 11am-3pm
February 28th 
June 6th 
September 5th 
November 7th 

Booking essential. Adults £25. Refreshments available. Please bring own lunch or use cafe facilities.

Wildlife Trusts recognise the importance of nature on our wellbeing, which is why they've created the Nature and Wellbeing Act. http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/NWA

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/theyan

The first workshop will focus on the award-winning photos of Luke Duggleby, currently on display in Grizedale Forest

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-9ppeem


For booking: please email: geraldinegreen.poetry1@gmail.com
Visit my website: http://geraldinegreensaltroad.blogspot.co.uk/

Light, Darkness, Compassion and Reflection.

Rookhow, Grizedale Forest, Cumbria, UK

December 3^rd 2014

Spent part of this evening at Rook How, an early 18thC Quaker Meeting House in Grizedale Forest.  The room steeped in stories, scent of woodsmoke from logs burned, past and present. A time of quite reflection, smiles, handshakes, welcomes. Large log hefted into the wood burning stove and silence. Candlelit silence.

I stared at the log in the wood burner. What kind of tree was the log that was burning? Oak, I think.

This led me to recalling John Wyatt's wonderful book The Shining Levels that I read oh ages ago, when I was in my late teens, early twenties. How he spent time living in the forest.

How he knew the heft and feel of each log he burned.

Ash incense bright. Holly, hard as iron - a good back burner. Apple its scent saved for special occasions, Christmas. The log tonight was, for me, very much an elder. Not the Elder tree, no, but an elder, shaping the time we spent, sitting in silence.

At first the red glow appeared to me as a heart. Then the heart split in two, became an Owl became a tree, looked like an Ash tree. it burned and sparked, we sat in silence.

The Ash tree turned into sparks. Someone gave witness, spoke of light, mirrors, compassion and reflection.

The log on the fire, it just burned away. Turned, for me, as I watched it mesmerised, into a Bull's head. Two eyes sparked from it, until it then shapeshifted into a Wolf then a Bear and the Bear had fire sparking from one eye. One Bear eye of Ursa Major glowed red and steady. The other, pale green-yellow sparks a shower, as if sprayed from a rainbow.

I got to thinking of dark as well as light. Positive dark, I mean, not fear or terror.

But the dark that is needed. Sleep. Rest. Germination. Hibernation. The dark that is rich soil, composting ideas, allowing germs of seeds, or ideas, to come to fruition.

The log subsided onto its side. The meeting ended.

A Wing and a Prayer 

Geese practice their own form of meditation              
a wide-winged song
that the supplicant hands of the horse chestnut reach out              
to catch.

photos: Geraldine Green, Firepit Swarthmoor Hall 11th/12th November 2014; Sunrise from Birkrigg, 28th October 2014
"A Wing and a Prayer" poem from a new pamphlet collection of that name to be published by Swarthmoor Hall Spring/Summer 2015

Geraldine Green

Writer-in-Residence Swarthmoor Hall

Associate Editor Poetry Bay

https://artforhappiness.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/interview-with-a-cumbrian-poet/

http://poetrybay.com/fall14/index_fall2014.html

http://geraldinegreensaltroad.blogspot.co.uk

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY: NOVEMBER 2014-AUGUST 2015

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY: November 2014-August 2015

November:

7^th-9^th Writing Retreat Brantwood Coniston Cumbria, Geraldine Green and guest writer Pippa Little. One-day option available: Saturday 8th November £60 incl lunch
email: enquiries@brantwood.org.uk
brantwood.org.uk

16^th ‘Living Words’ 2-5pm Creative Writing Workshop  Swarthmoor Hall 2-5pm  “Healing Well” Swarthmoor Hall
info@swarthmoorhall.co.uk

22nd Write to Roam creative writing workshop Jane's farm near Kirkby Lonsdale 10.30am-4.30pm £30 incl. refreshments, please bring own lunch - all welcome!

December 1st 10.30am Monday writing group Milnthorpe

Currently working on her sixth collection Geraldine’s latest collection ‘Salt Road’ was published September 2013 by Indigo Dreams Publishers Indigo Dreams Publishers, you can find details here:

http://www.indigodreamsbookshop.com/#/geraldine-green/4579511138

Planning ahead, 2015:

January 6th: workshop and reading for Suffolk Poetry Society delighted to be invited for the third year running, from one Peninsula to another.you can find more info about the workshop and reading, here

February-June: Write on the Farm -  writing workshops Jane's farm, near Kirkby Lonsdale: cost £35 incl refreshments, please bring own lunch
February 22nd, March 22nd, April 25th, May 23rd, June 27th
Note: April 25th with David Burbidge (tbc), May 23rd full day workshop on Piel Island

February 22nd Write on the Farm, 10.30-4.30pm £35 incl refreshments, please bring own lunch. Morning session: indoors writing exercises. Afternoon session: part of it outdoors, part spent on quiet writing time. Suitable clothing and footwear advisable

March 22nd: Write on the Farm Jane's farm, near Kirkby Lonsdale

April 
16th 2.30pm-4pm Launch of Arachne Press Anthology 'The Other Side of Sleep, Grange Library, Grange-over-Sands Cumbria Arachne Press

May 23rd Write on the Farm Jane's farm, near Kirkby Lonsdale

June 
12th-13th: Midsummer Festival of Words, Swarthmoor Hall, Ulverston, Cumbria
 Swarthmoor Hall mini Literary Festival celebrating my time as writer-in-residence at the Hall and also celebrating work produced on the Living Words workshops by participants - all welcome!

19th-21st  Midsummer Poetry Course with Penelope Shuttle and Geraldine Green  Brantwood Coniston email: Brantwood - early booking advisable

June 27th Write on the Farm Jane's farm, near Kirkby Lonsdale

Poetry Trip, North America:

July

18th Acorn Books, Dover, Delaware with George Wallace, host Ezzie Mondragon
Acorn Books

August 5th

William Carlos Williams Centre Rutherford New Jersey, host Claudia Serea
William Carlos Williams