About time: or, Letters to the Earth

Letters to the Earth publishes on Thursday. It is a collection of letters, brought together by four women and the book is a catalyst for conversations/ inspiration/ new ways of thinking about the planet on which we live. Of all the collaborative books I have worked on this one has touched my soul most deeply.

For the past four weeks, every Friday at 11 am I have stopped work to gather with people to read from this book, to talk about how we feel, to talk about what we can do. This week I was in Crickhowell in Book-ish where we gathered around coffee, tea and kindness. Passing the book from hand to hand we read. What a way to connect with people and the problems of our age, through creativity.

So far these events, that are not really events, just gatherings, have been small and intimate. My aim is to encourage people to begin their own versions to sit alongside the big public readings, like the one on the pink boat in Oxford Circus where Emma Thompson read my swallows piece ( thank you Karin Celestine for reading that this time, in Book-ish) I had been asked to go up to London to read this, but I have work to do and reasons to cling to my time at home in my studio, so it was rather wonderful to hear that my words had flown there. Like the ten hour one in Trafalgar Square, intimidated by police helicopters and sirens, the gatherings in theatre foyers, galleries.

Letters to the Earth has given me a way to connect with people again, at these small meetings, and I love that. But it has also given me some wonderful connections with the writers of some of the other letters. Recently I read Expectation by Anna Hope, the woman who first drew me into this. It’s a most wonderful novel, written from the heart. And then there is Nick Drake. His piece, The Future, haunts me. I heard it first, read by Andrew Scott, as part of the original campaign.

Listen.

‘I am the future, but before I appear,
Please – close the scrolls of information,
Let the laptop sleep,
Sit still
And shut your eyes.
Listen – Things are going to change’#Fleabag star #AndrewScott with his sister Hannah present @nickfdrake ‘s #LetterToTheEarth pic.twitter.com/UgpJmRSlKr

— Culture Declares Emergency (@CultureDeclares) April 12, 2019

I wanted to ask Nick about this, a piece from a much longer poem, part of The Farewell Glacier.

In it, Nick speaks at times in the voice of the glacier, at times in the voices of other explorers, and here as ‘The Future’… speaking as ‘time’. The voice addresses us,

‘Dear Mortals,

I know you are busy with your colourful lives..’

This suggests that Time, The Future, are immortal. I have been fascinated by the nature of time, trying to understand it, for most of my life. We measure it on watches. I watch it pass as sand through an hour glass, through the ebb and flow of tides, seasons, by the coming of birds and the leaving of birds. But I have always thought that it was finite. Not just my time. This is obvious. All of us face a limited amount of time alive, and so short a time it is in the grander scheme of things. But I had always thought that at some time in the future there would also be an end of time. So, Nick, here’s my question, do you believe that time is immortal?

Letters to the Earth is a book filled with hope. I love how the letters of the ‘famous’ writers sit beside those of young people, and often the young people’s letters are the most amazing. My own favourite of the moment, apart from Nick’s is by Jenny Ngugi, aged 13, which has about it a rhythm in the writing that shines. Also Thirteen by Tia Khodabocus, aged 15 which ends:

We have the answers, the solution and the methods. The scientists found them, the children cry them, and the politicians ignore them.

As we head towards an election I leave this thought with you.

If you live near St Davids, fancy a winter trip away, come to this. Get the book. Start your own group. Small or large, gather together in hope, active hope.

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