Over the past few days I have dipped in and out of Feather, Leaf, Bark & Stone. I wrote a final piece and it brought back to mind some of the why and the wherefor of making this writing in such a way. 

Today I walked to the top of the hill, to think, to look, to visit the places where stones have been for almost a year. The lane to the top of the hill is still, warm, heavy scented with gorse. It is like a portal to peace on a day like today.

On a tree there is lichen that glows in the shadow, looks like a satellite map of a forest.

On top of the hill I found two of the stones that have been in the wild for long enough that the weather has become part of their patina.

We sat on the rocks and the texture of birdsong and the hush of a calm sea were the only sounds. Lark, high in the sky. Chough by the cliffs and a raven song. The chatter of small birds, goldfinch and linnet. Out at sea bright white gannets hunted and fulmar coursed the cliffs.

Leaving the rock I spotted something in the grass. A smooth sea stone. Turning it I found another stone I had left and forgotten. 

This week I had also taken a stone, gilded with a labyrinth, to leave in a tide-carved font of a bowl for a far away friend, who once came to visit from over an ocean, called by the stones and the creatures here. When she returned home she made a book of her images of the Stones of St Davids, and then took to making and shaping in clay. She's walking a different path now. One we all take, eventually but somehow it seems too soon. Too vibrant a flame to be gone. And maybe someone will find this stone, or maybe by now the tide has taken in. 

Walking back with an empty head we passed the place where the violets are, shy in the grass, and bluebells live and once a snake lay basking. Soon the wild bluebells will flower. The foxgloves too. And yesterday there were swallows.

Home now, manuscript sent to publisher..... many things to do. I want to write some more haiku for proof sheets, need to think about nightingales and writing about them, the Christmas card for Help Musicians is settling in my head. I think this year's is a love story, perhaps a duet. And I have birds to paint also, and I really need to clear my desks, all of them. Because there is the chaos of creativity and there is where that chaos tips over into mess. 

Meanwhile, I still have proof sheets for sale on my blog, only two left, for a very good cause, so please take a look. I will be adding some more as rewards for feather Leaf if I have time to make them, but I want to offer this one to someone who helps me to spread the word about this book. 

It is stitched and typed with a haiku I wrote yesterday. If you would share Feather, Leaf, on social media, talk about it with a friend, however, and leave a comment here on this post ( maybe tell me how you are doing in these curious times, or something beautiful you have seen?) I will choose someone to send this proof sheet, signed and some other things like postcards, gathered from my tidying of my desks today. 

I have bought an old inkstone on eBay, and some inks that are old also. Looking forward to playing with these when they arrive, and taking the stone to the Natural History Museum on April 27th. I have been playing with the shape of foxes, and need to do this more as the performance approaches, to ensure the words and the shape of the fox are in my blood and bones, and the words of the otter spell still work too. I was given a tiny paintbox that belonged to a friend's grandfather. It now contains a 'Red Fox' set of Deep Deep Light paints. It's a beautiful box, with a history of kindness, so I have decided that each piece that is drawn from this box has to be given away or sold for charity, so there will be some tiny foxes soon on my journal, for sale for the Trussel Trust. And I need to practice a larger fox with the tins of paint Deep Deep Light sent me for using on stage.

 

Leave me your comment. It's good to hear from you. Maybe the fish will swim your way. In the meantime, here is Ivy, goddess of the rock. The sky today is the bluest sky blue and the air so still in places that the bells of the cathedral call across the land.