Digging, shovelling, sowing and growing

Growing gardens, stories and wonder
Botany Bay project, summer 2022

We are

Diggers and shovellers,

Weeders and waterers.

We are strawberry-savers

And raspberry-tasters.

(Medlock Primary School, Manchester)

 

Hurst Drive, 1

We had started with plans. There were discussions, visits to museums, to gardens, visits from storytellers, gardeners, cultural experts. Our new gardeners sowed ideas, watered imaginations, got carried away. Eventually there was earth and digging and grubby hands and seeds in pots

 

There were successes. There have been disasters. There have been slow starts and reluctant germinations, but gradually our Botany Bay gardens are taking shape. 

 

We’re proud of our team

And all our hard work

We’re proud that we can deal with our problems.

We want to start eating the food that we grow,

And we want to grow to help each other,

To help our school, to help the animals that visit us.

(Oswald Road Primary School, Manchester)

 

“BOTANY BAY is a Participation and Learning project, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.  The project makes use of the migration histories of plants and crops, and their Indigenous cultural heritage in relation to ecology and reciprocity, as a way to stimulate young people to explore new ways of living.  The Covid-19 pandemic and the climate crisis have made a re-assessment and recalibration of human relationships to the non-human an urgent necessity, and young people have to be at the heart of this process, forging a future for humanity and the planet.” (Introduction from the ORIGINS website)

 

I was one of those early visitors and this summer returned to 4 of our gardening schools. I was shown round vegetable beds, introduced to sunflowers, had a club's organic principles explained to me, sampled raspberries and commiserated with one group who had seen all their work trampled by other children at their school – not maliciously, just people who did not realise that these were seed beds and not just bare patches of earth. 

Hurst Drive sunflower

We have a garden waiting

Like an idea in the dark of the earth,

Children waiting to dig,

Seeds waiting to grow,

Dreams waiting to flower

Into a garden of wonders. 

 

Our garden will be a bright garden,

And have a beautiful blossom tree

And there will be strawberries…

Juicy strawberries,

The juiciest strawberries in all of London!

And when our strawberries are ripe and ready 

We’ll pick them and wash them and eat them.

(Cavendish Primary School, London)

 

Part of my role within the wider Botany Bay project is to help the Gardening groups build the stories of their gardens. On this trip we were looking at words: harvesting, tasting, enjoying words like strawberries. In the autumn or winter, we are planning on creating Garden Ceremonies – or Sharings or Events (we’re not quite sure what!) and the collective poems that are growing out of these sessions will feed into those occasions….

Oswald Road gardeners are also poets and artists

For now, I’d like to share some of our words and some pictures of progress with a round of applause for all our gardeners (schools are listed below!) and with many thanks to the teachers, support staff, volunteers, and simply everyone who has been helping these gardens grow!

 

In our garden

Chamomile beams a sunny smile
And garden queens grow ivy-white crowns.

The massive hearts of squash leaves

Shade their sisters from the sun

While sunflowers grow as bright as the sun and stars

And the forget-me-nots never forget us.

Here rosemary grows with frosted leaves

And chives are spicy although garlic is best.

 

We are proud of this garden and

How quickly it grows, and

How richly it flowers, and

How friendly it becomes, and

How delicious it will be.

We are proud of our garden and all it holds,

We are proud of our gardeners and all their hard work.

 

In our garden,

Everyone deserves a crown

We are proud of our garden. 

It deserves to be treated with respect and love.

(Hurst Drive Primary School, Waltham Cross)

Woven into all this digging and sowing is an awareness that when we plant a garden we are also planting stories and connecting to cultures - both our own and cultures and communities in far away places. We hope  that if we listen to the stories that belong to those people and their plants it might help us appreciate our gardens more deeply and grow those gardens more effectively. So we know we are growing stories as we grow gardens: old stories, ancient stories and brand new ones of our own.

In our garden,

We have snail-rails

And parties for bees,

Logs for woodlice

And tree-stumps for beetles...

In our garden,

We are growing a team,

Who work together,

Who help each other,

Who support each other,

Who care for this garden.

(Medlock Primary School)

With many thanks to the Botany Bay team and to our schools and their gardening teams

Cavendish Primary School, Chiswick, London

Chiswick High School, London

Hurst Drive Primary School, Waltham Cross, Herts

Medlock Primary School, Manchester

Oswald Road Primary School, Manchester

Totem Latamat's next chapter

Totem Latamat in the spring

The Crichton, April 2022

When does a story end?

When do we say goodbye?

Was that the end of the story? 

Back in November we took the magnificent Totem Latamat to its resting place at The Crichton in Dumfries. In accordance with the artist Jun Tiburcio’s wishes, we laid Totem down there to decay gently: a gift grown in the earth of Mexico and given now to the earth of Scotland. A “happy ever after” ending? 

Or maybe “and so it is over”. 

But of course, stories do not often actually end. They just turn a page and step into a new chapter….

 

Totem Latamat came to the UK to share a story, to offer an invitation and a challenge in the run-in to COP26 in November 2021. Commissioned by the Border Crossings' ORIGINS Festival, the Totem’s story started in a woodland on the eastern coast of Mexico with a prayer and a ceremony to a cedar tree. The story continued through a village carving its words as images, memories, hopes and fears into the wood and sailing the tall carved Totem, across the wide seas to the UK. Over the autumn, the Totem travelled the UK, reaching Glasgow in time to stand in the Hidden Garden throughout COP26. Then, Totem Latamat arrived at The Crichton in Dumfries.

 

Indigenous artwork, Totem Latamat has travelled over 9,000km from Mexico to UK for COP26. Moving up the country, the 4.5m Indigenous Mexican response to climate change is travelling to important cultural hubs across the UK including London, Coventry, Milton Keynes and Manchester drawing powerful links between Indigenous experience and local heritage. From the Border Crossings' ORIGINS Festival news about Totem Latamat. 

Find out more here:

https://originsfestival.bordercrossings.org.uk/

 

At the Crichton, I was part of the team who formally received the Totem as a gift, welcoming it this land, this sky, these people, this weather:

Totem Latamat, 

With the earth of our land,

The bones of our people,

The dreams of our poets,

The songs of our seals,

We embrace you. (Ceremony account here)

 Now, a season later, I was back to pick up the next chapter of that Totem story. Reclining on grass, Totem Latamat weathered the winter well: paint a little faded, a wing a bit cracked but a tranquil face still lay there gazing up at Dumfries’ spring clouds  and feeling the grass growing around it. We were quite relieved that the wasps we found settling comfortably into Totem’s hollows back in November had moved on and now we could sit beside Totem, sit on Totem, run toy cars and teddy bears along Totem’s length and enjoy having her there to interact with. (Her? Him? It? Them? I am not sure so I tend to shift to and fro!). 

 

With visitors, we made seed bombs: delightful cake mixes of compost and water and seeds. Some were planted here, tucked into holes beside the Totem, others went back to homes to grow in gardens, in pots in window-boxes, connecting Totem and its hummingbirds with the people of Dumfries. Over the summer, we hope these seeds will give Totem a new coat of leaves and flowers and invite butterflies, bumblebees and other pollinators to stop by. Then just as we find Totem a place to pause and reflect, so will these vital pollinators.

 

 

We also made finger-puppets, telling the stories of the animals that visit Totem there on the lawns of the Crichton. There were butterflies that perched briefly on coloured carvings. There were ladybirds crawling and mice scurrying. Dolphins and sharks sang strange songs from the Solway, echoing, whistling voices wandering in from the estuary. And when we were gone, when the gardens were quiet, beautiful, magical creatures, unicorns, dragons, and rainbow deer slip silently through shadows and gather round Totem to listen to the Hummingbird messengers, to carry the Eagle’s strength and the Seeds’ promise out of the gardens and into the dreams of the sleeping people of the Borders.

 

This was the second of our Totem Latamat at The Crichton events. I’ll be back in late August for a storytelling day there and an exciting winter event is planned with shifting shadows, flickering lights and glowing lanterns!

with dreams of poets and the songs of seals

with the dreams of poems and the songs of seals

Totem Latamat
Return to the Earth Ceremony at The Crichton

The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,

The joyless winter-day,

Let others fear, to me more dear

Than all the pride of May….

(Robert Burns, Winter: a Dirge)

Totem Latamat’s story began long before Jun Tiburcio and the people of Cuhumatlan approached a cedar tree in the woods of Vera Cruz. For us, this story really started then with images carved out of that scented wood, images that embodied elements of Jun’s culture and carried a message from them to the rest of the world as represented by the gathering of parliaments, countries, cultures, optimism and faiths at COP26

Indigenous artwork, Totem Latamat has traveled over 9,000km from Mexico to UK for COP26. Moving up the country, the 4.5m Indigenous Mexican response to climate change is travelling to important cultural hubs across the UK including London, Coventry, Milton Keynes and Manchester drawing powerful links between Indigenous experience and local heritage. From the Border Crossings Origins Festival news about Totem Latamat. Find out more here

There is a personal account of the Totem’s travels by Graham Harvey here. Graham visited the Totem in most of its venues across the UK

At the end of COP26, at Jun’s request, Totem Latamat was to be given to the earth: a gift from the earth of Mexico to that of Scotland. With this gesture, the Totem would invite continued reflection on the connections between communities, facing challenges and processes that cross boundaries, defy politics and affect everyone and everything: human and non-human alike.

Return to the Earth

Totem Latamat, we welcome you
With air and breath,
With fire and hope,
With stone and death
With love and passion 

 (From Welcoming, 1)

This sense of earth-reaching-to-earth and a gift that is offered to all communities informed a ceremony that came from an environmental (animist) awareness of the world. Creeping Toad, Border Crossings and other friends created a ceremony that belonged to no particular religious tradition but where there was space for individuals to find their own sense of connection and prayer as they wished. The imagery used was of these islands: speaking of weather and wildlife, of music and laughter, children playing and watchful grandparents. From fungi to birds, everyone was drawn into our reception of Totem Latamat.

Michael Walling from Border Crossings setting the scene

The Totem spent a week standing in the grounds of The Crichton in Dumfries and being used as a focus for discussions and workshops. With its expanding role as a centre for community activity, The Crichton offers the Totem a resting place where it will remain a centre for discussion, challenge and inspiration.

taking the strain

Totem Latamat, we rejoice in you
with playing children
with resting birds
with rooted fungi
with burrowing grubs 

(From Reception: how will we receive Totem)

On a wind-swept Saturday morning in the middle of November, we gathered round the Totem, speaking words of welcome and words of reception. Robbie Burns’ wonderful Winter Dirge” set the scene. Reaching out from human perspectives to the wider landscape, we invited the environs of The Crichton to embrace Totem, to welcome it into this world of wind and rain, high skies and flying geese.

Totem Latamat,
With the earth of our land,
The bones of our people,
The dreams of our poets,
The songs of our seals,
We embrace you. 

(From Embracing: a wider and older landscape than us)

We recognised the invitation and acknowledged the challenge that the Totem brings: inviting us to become our own Hummingbird messengers and challenging us to be the wide-seeing eagles with strength under their wings.

Totem under snow, late November 2021

Totem Latamat, may
Our dreamers,
Our thinkers,
Our talkers,
Our singers,
Our storytellers,
Our warriors,
Our poets,
Our grandmothers,
Our grandchildren,
All our people,
Each of our people,
Totem Latamat,
May all our folk
Be inspired by you 

(from inspiration, acknowledging and accepting )


And we toppled Totem so that when the ropes were dropped, Totem lay on the ground ready for flowers to grow around the hummingbirds, an open door for the wasps we found looking for somewhere to hibernate, an adventure ground for a cuddly rabbit and a child’s inquisitive fingers. The Totem will rest there on the lawns of The Crichton as the lawns around it are planted with wildflowers. There are already plans for a seasonal cycle of visiting workshops, creating new stories of connections between people and place, hearing of people’s hummingbird moments and their eagle resolution, of the ideas and actions they have planted of the upraised arms they have offered to their family, friends and the rest of the world.

some of the ceremony team

Totem Latamat,

Here, we offer you

Our friendship,

Our laughter,

Our silence,

Our reflection.

Totem Latamat,

Here we offer you

A long slow sleep on grass,

Under sun,

Under moon,

Under our wind and rain,

Here we offer

Dissolution,

The slow dance of decay

Of becoming everything else who visits you 

(from: Reception: what do we offer)

Visitors stayed. Lingered. Stopped to touch, to talk, to wonder. We found our first new residents of the Totem with the wasp queens mentioned above: looking for somewhere to hibernate. Reciprocity and respect lie within the Totem's messages and within many indigenous understandings of our relationship with the earth and it was encouraging to watch and listen and share with people their awareness of our need to give back - to acknowledge what is given to us so freely by the world around us. Without us saying anything, people left gifts: tokens from pockets and bags. People simply touched, stroked wood, felt the curves of a hummingbird's head, the folds of a wing's feathers and went away with a token in return: a red rag, a strip of cloth to wear as a bracelet, to tie up hair, to hide ina pocket until cloth, story and resolution are shared somewhere else.

Totem Latamat might have "retired" but it is still telling stories. Its hummingbirds are still sharing messages.

You can watch a short film of the totem at the Crichton on the centre's website:   https://www.crichton.co.uk/totem-latamat-has-retired-to-the-crichton/

The full text of the ceremony will be available if anyone wants to see it, be annoyed by it, or adapt it for their own use shortly. A link for a download will be posted here

A big thank you

• to the Return to the Earth team: Michael Walling, Ian Buckley and Graham Harvey
• To Alex Alberda from Manchester Museum for deft application of ideas and scissors
• To the Open University for being there, supporting, encouraging, joining in
• To The Crichton team for their hospitality, warmth and imagination
• To the Border Crossings Origins Team for drawing all this together
• And to Jun Tiburcio, the artists, and the people of Cuhumatlan in Vera Cruz, Mexico who gave us the travelling wonder that is the Totem Latamat

Photos c/o The Crichton, Dumfries and Mike Bolam Photography

Notes

1: All these verses come from different sections of the Return to the Earth. Ceremony held at The Crichton on Saturday 20th November 2021

 

Rabbits, wolves and deer: Totem Latamat at The Crichton

Rabbits for quickness of thinking

Totem Latamat at the Crichton

Totem Latamat came the The Crichton to share a story, to offer an invitation and a challenge

The Totem’s story started in a wood on the eastern coast of Mexico with a prayer and a ceremony to a cedar tree. The story continued through a village carving its words as images, memories, hopes and fears into the wood and sailing the tall carved Totem, across the wide seas to the UK. Over the autumn, the Totem has travelled the UK, reaching Glasgow in time to stand in the Hidden Garden throughout COP26. Then, Totem Latamat arrived at The Crichton in Dumfries.

 

This isn’t the place to go into all the details of the Totem – you can explore the wonder of its travels on facebook or through its own page on the Border Crossings Origins Festival website.

 

The Totem carries figures: a rattlesnake, a skull, a person with her arms upraised, a cluster of hummingbirds. An eagle supports the whole edifice....Every figure, from plaited rope seedlings to that climbing snake, hold their own stories, their own messages to share. Here, I want to pick up the Totem’s invitation to become Hummingbirds – to become the messengers who speak, who share, who inspire; and the challenge to become Eagles. To be an Eagle is to act with strength and honour and to see the wider picture, to see the world as a whole, not as lots of individual people or towns or countries but as a wider connected world, where everything is connected to everything else, however distant.

 

Here, we will celebrate one day of the Totem’s journey: marking the responses of the children of Holywood Primary School in Dumfries. They spent the day with us on Friday at The Crichton, enjoying the grounds (best visitor shop ever, we were told. And it’s free! Triumphant pockets stuffed with pine cones, conkers and acorns), meeting the Totem: drawing it, touching it, talking about it…...…..what is the message? If they were telling this story what animals would children choose to best embody – not the action that is needed (reduce, reuse, recycle, etc) but the qualities we need to find and foster in ourselves to make those actions viable, embedded, enduring….

 

• Rabbit brings thinking quickly, acting fast, solving problems (well, you try keep in them out of your vegetables!)
• Wolves remind us that we are strongest when we work together
• Lions, likewise, need the family, need the support of their friends
• Godzilla tells us that sometimes we need to be fierce
• Mice remind us that we can always find a way into a situation
• Deer help us be strong and know when to watch, when to run
• Hedgehogs will bring cleverness, bravery and being ready to be loud
• And the Octopus will help us be intelligent, solve problems, be strong, and as an octopus you can help protect the world

There will be more Totem posts shortly, but for now, I would like to thanks:

• the artists and storytellers of Holywood Primary School, Dumfries
• To the Open University for being there, supporting, encouraging, joining in
• To The Crichton team for their hospitality, warmth and imagination
• To the Border Crossings Origins team for drawing all this together
• And to Jun Tiburcio, the artists, and the people of Cuhumatlan in Vera Cruz, Mexico who gave us the travelling wonder that is the Totem Latamat