Saturday 12 October 2024

Lost Species Day, Buxton


 
Lost Species Day

November 30th 2024

Free event in Buxton


We have lost many species of animals and plants over the last few hundred years. Some by human action, some in the more natural way of things, but we know that now our human activity is accelerating the loss


Monte Verde Golden Toad, Moroccan Bustard, Great Auk, Du Toit’s Torrent Frog, Galapagos Amaranth 


There is a lot we can do now as individuals, as communities and as a species ourselves, to slow those declines but this day and its events offer an opportunity to pause and reflect


Join us for a Lost Species Day event at the Green Man Gallery, Hardwick Studios, Hardwick Square South, Buxton, SK17 6PY

Times: 11:00 - 15:00

Follow on fb: https://fb.me/e/2ylY3MR7P


Steller’s Sea Cow, Levuana Moth, St Helena Heliotrope, Giant Fiji Ground Frog, Stubble Quail


Step out of busy lives and Saturday busy-ness and take to time to stop. Think about the plants and animals we have lost. Find your own resolution to act: on a domestic scale, a local scale or on engaging with something bigger. All sorts of action helps from planting bumblebee friendly window boxes to active membership of conservation, environmental or social justice organisations. Just talking about it all helps: keep the thought active, keep the conversation alive, pursue your local councillor down the street or wave a lost frog flag at your MP


Caribbean Monk Seal, Little Swan Island Hutia, Kalimantan Mango, Montane Hutia, Puerto Rica Hutia


But mostly, this day is a chance to take time to pause and reflect on why these animals and plants matter to you and which of the current ones you’ll champion.

In UK, Scottish and Welsh devolved governments have set up species champions where MSP and MS individuals take on campaigning on behalf of their chosen species…maybe you could be your own Species Champion

https://www.scotlink.org/link-campaigns/nature-champions/

https://waleslink.org/category/species-champions/



We’ll be inviting participants at our event to add the names of the species that feel most strongly connected to to our “determination list” and offering participants the chance to make their own memorial to those who have gone - or to create their own little Determined Shrine for those species they will champion



  • We’ll be making triptych Icons and Nichos like the ones illustrating this post
  • This is a free event and materials are provided
  • Just come along for an hour or so and join in
  • The Green Man Gallery Christmas exhibition will be on then as well so lots of lovely things of all prices will be available


Jamaican Wood Rail, Parana Pine, St Kilda House Mouse, North Island Little Spotted Kiwi, Aurora Frog, McPhee’s Shrew Tenrec, Rodrigues Solitaire, Dodo


Banner on the first paragraph features images from the 

Extinction Files by Ruth Evans: find  out more HERE





Thursday 10 October 2024

Witches, wizards and wonders

 

Witches, wizards and wonders

Wirksworth Wizarding Day 2024 


They gathered. Wizards, witches, young students, aged crones, occasional babies, the venerable and the unspeakable.... And I was there, spilling a hat full of stories...Wirksworth Wizarding Day was back!  This is always a lovely day and I miss most of the action....I heard about magical markets and the excitement of buying wands, about places to eat, a London Double-decker bus to get on....lizards, snakes and dragons to meet (I suspect that was before the actual moment when anticipation was running high). Someone had seen a Dementor. Someone else wrote a spell to turn people into zebras and was going to go and sit in the market place and try his spell. We reckoned if people didn't change on the outside they might change on the inside and find themselves sitting down to meals of grass....

 

And I was there telling stories: a day of non-stop tale-spinning, yarn-calling, and spell-shaking. Tales of mystery, malice and strangeness: a reminder that we live in a world full of wonders and enchantment even if we don’t see witches, wizards, and dragons as often as we might wish

 

In the aftermath, scraps of wizarding books were found on the floor, in corners, tucked for secrecy into recesses or hidden under chairs...We thought we should share them...

 

Wherever possible original spelling has been retained

 

 

 

WIZARDING DAY SPELLS

 


FANGTOOTH by Sia

Do not even go neer to a Fangtooth or it will eat you bit by bit. first your feet then your legs and soon and soon. There are not that many left in the wild. there is one left but it is the most dangerous

 

SLYTHERIN

Sly, cunning and mysterious

Like snakes we are

You can't hide from us

Though you have a lightning scar

Harsh and mean we'll be

Even if you do fight back, or

Run, or fly away
In the end, you'll
Never win

 

Peter the grobllin

To turn into a black panther

Although this is written as a single recipe, it feels like 2 voices: try it with one person reading the yellow words and a helpful friend (who is rather worried!) reading the black!

 

Put black lizard tales

And poisoned frogs inside (a cauldron)

No-one has every survived

The potion won't be easy

Herbs and spices will not help (but stir anyway)

Eyes from a hungarian horntail (finish the brew)

Run for your life!

 

FROG SPELL

Get a caldron

and fill it with water

add 3 layers of brown paint

add stinking socks

add a newt's eye

boil for ages

Drink.

Start hopping.

 

A Summoning Spell

 

From deep ponds, I call you

from Rippling stream, I call you

Out of garden wall and flowerbed, i call you.

Great creatures of a damper world

Squat before me now!

 

As the moon rises and

Night draws in and the

Darkness fills the world

Touch my enemies with nightmares,

Once a night,

And every night,

Disturb their sleep with

Slime.



 

POTION OF TRANSFORMATION

This brews a lotion to rub on a wizard’s feet and turn him or her into something else.

No-one has ever watched this potion in action and been able to report back on what it does!

 

Take

 

1 long tail of a rat, and

2 handfuls of crushed snail shells, throw in

3 bones, well-chewed by a dog, and

4 egg cups of graveyard dust

5 whole chillis will make the brew strong and

6 cups of water will fill the cauldron but

7 matches are needed to light the flame

 

Brew the cauldron

Over a dried moss flame, and stir with an

Ivy-wood spoon and never, ever

Lick that spoon!

 





useful advice from a Witch's cupboard
Mice and
Umbrellas and

Green
Wellies will
Often
Result in disastrous
Toasted marshmallows

 

 

Wirksworth Wizarding Day is an annual event in October that transports the small town of Wirksworth in Derbyshire into a more magical realm

Find out more: https://www.wizardingday.com/

https://www.facebook.com/wizardingday/


With many thanks to Coach House Studios for giving us such a lovely space for stories and to all the eager ears (and associated bodies) who joined us for storytelling, who shaped spells, who laughed, groaned and 

were suitably (or unsuitably) excited by everything!




 


Friday 27 September 2024

Words and Ash Trees



Words and Ash Trees

poems, puppets and reflections 

on the woodlands of Buxton


We are the trees

Who shed slim grey dresses

For coats of green and brown and lichen,

Who comb the air,

Who dance in the wind,

Who grow hope from seedlings.

(From We are the Trees)


Watching our woodscape change as ash dieback worked its way into the trees, we asked people if these woods were special to them and if so, why? We turned that question round and asked people to look at the world as the trees might.

Gathering responses, back in 2020 as various waves of lockdown tripped up public events and hands on workshops,  Stone and Water and Creeping Toad took all those words and shook them up in a word-blender (like a food-mixer but with a stronger dictionary-drive). As the summer went on, we also gathered pictures from visitors to the woodlands of Buxton (thanks to Buxton Civic Association for all their work keeping our woods open, accessible and beautiful)... eventually all this grew into a pair of poems: "We are the People" and "We are the Trees". Then those pictures on cloth and paper grew shoots and faces and became a pair of tall trees with the help of visitors, Two Left Hands and our Stone and Water team

 


Our Tree People have gone on to have their own adventures...

 

Now, as their leaves begin to fall, it felt like a good time to celebrate our Tall Trees and the poems associated with them

 


We are the people

Who walked,

Who wondered,

Who laughed,

Who talked,

Who held hands,

Who strolled,

Who held their hearts and loves and hopes

Under Ash trees.

(from We are the People)

with many thanks to all the members of the public who added to our collections of words, phrases, thoughts and images, to the makers, painter, wild imaginers and reckless puppeteers and to James Lampard for wonderful saxophone playing to wake our puppets, 'way back when