Metabolising pain into hope
“And how is the River Dore?” A startling question from an elderly man in a butcher’s shop several villages from mine, last summer.
“The River Dore is very, very sad. I answered.
“Yes. He is,” was the response.
Mind you, this was in the summer when all rivers around us were parched, all fish stunned, removed, and taken to a body of water with water, because of the seemingly-endless drought.
I didn’t know then that the Rivers would respond. Rain has poured upon us all during autumn, and the rivers have re-found their original beds which now could be a road, turning it into a waterfall onto major transport arteries. The flood plains around us, kept free since medieval times because they were flood plains, now contain construction work for 82 houses, standing knee-deep in lakes on the land meant for draining. Rivers have a memory, and will go back to their origins, be it a flood plain, or a butcher’s shop, or apartment buildings (as in South India).
“Is a river alive?” asks Robert MacFarlane in his book. Yes, Rob, he is.
Indigenous people have always considered rivers as Beings, and the elderly man was right to call the River Dore a “he”.
Every UK river is polluted: Healthy rivers: 0%. In poor condition: 15%. In worse condition: 85%. With 3.61 million hours of sewage pouring into them each year, who can blame them? Their condition has worsened after they were denationalised. Funds for monitoring have regularly been cut back. The only way that rivers can be saved is through Community Groups. (I don’t know how many different sources have told me this.)
One bit of comfort. Despite the uncontrollable masses of phosphates flowing into our rivers (leakage from fertilisers off the fields), some fish seem to be okay. In these stormy distressing gushes of rain, they just sink down below the raging waters, to the calm places below.
Tah Dah! The heroes!
MacFarlane has always been enthusiastic about Friends of the Wye, http://friendsoftheriverwye.org.uk with their River Guardians (“born of passion and love”) , and their Citizen Scientists (retired scientists who are using their knowledge to help others monitor the condition of the rivers). “Despair is a luxury”, he says, “hope is a discipline. The geography of hope lies all around us. Convert the negative into the positive– metabolise pain into goodness. Just because we can’t save everything doesn’t mean we can save nothing.”
You can’t be uplifted by his positive approach. “Re-imagine ourselves from the Technozoic to the Ecozoic Era. We are talking only to ourselves, not talking to the rivers, nor listening to the wind and the stars. We have broken the great conversation.”
I lived for 40+ years in one place and never became acquainted with the rivers around me. Why not? It was never on my radar. Why not? Because it wasn’t on anyone else’s around me. Now, if I look on a map, I see that every village, town and city was built by a river. (Of course.) Why didn’t I notice it before? I don’t want this to happen to me again.
So…. what “geography of hope” can I offer? “To change a landscape for the better you must first have the ability to dream – to dream a good dream,” says Raju in MacFarlane’s book. “Before landscapes die, they first vanish in the imagination”, says Bhavani Ramen, also quoted in his book. That must have been what happened to me.
I need a good dream.
I could encourage the community to become more alert to their own river. I could/can
- Collect people’s childhood memories of playing near rivers, and write them up for the community
- When people say “I’m from….” I can ask, “and what is the name of your river?”
- I am already pursuing a dream that the bridges in our village will have signs, telling the name of the waters flowing beneath. Knowing a name brings relationship.
- When the time is right, I can invite the primary school to adopt a river.
- Here is a beautiful suggestion from someone who lives on a houseboat: “Go to your river and treat it as a sacred thing. If you can’t, just go to your river and spend time with it. If you do, you will learn to love it. We protect that which we love.”
Can you tell the story of your life in rivers? I get refreshing extras from people I thought I knew well. Try it yourself.
Wherever you are, may you find blessing from your river.
(Note: quotes come from Is a River Alive? Robert MacFarlane, ISBN: 978-0-241—62481-4, and a podcast with Amol Rajan advertising the book.)
Coffee Cake
I made this for the River Maps meeting yesterday morning . It is American, and is a not-too-sweet cake to have with coffee rather than being a coffee-flavoured cake. (But perhaps you already knew that.)
Oven 180 degrees C. 375 degrees F.
Streusel Filling and Topping (My scribbled notes tell me to make this first. Not sure why.)
Mix ½ cup (4 tablespoons) brown sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, ½ cup finely chopped nuts (or 3 tablespoons ground almonds) and 2 tablespoons melted butter. Mix well. Set aside.
Cake
1 ½ cups plain flour (180 grams) with 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder OR
1 ½ cups self-raising flour. (180 grams)
½ tsp salt.
4 tablespoons soft butter
½ cup milk (4 ozs)
1 egg
Mix the cake ingredients together to make a thick batter. Spread half the batter in a well-greased round cake tin, lined with paper.
Gently spread on half the streusel filling. Add the rest of the batter, smooth it out, and blob the rest of the topping on the surface.
Then the rest of the topping. At this point, you can sprinkle flaked almonds on top (wish I had done that).
Bake 25 to 30 mins (check after 20 minutes) until batter is delicately browned.
Serve warm. Despite its looks, the coffee cake was eaten with alacrity.
foodthatbuildscommunity.com 