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| Imbolc 2008 | click to return to festival page |
signs of spring
its still frosty and even icy, but spring has sprung:
Not only snowdrops in College Wood but also:
a bee collecting nectar and pollen from the snowdrops!
the bee's knees (maybe ...)
the old oak and surrounding ashes -- and honeysuckle catches the sunlight
hazel catkins
and, of course, the first lambs
(almost certainly born at Imbolc but it took me over a week to be near their
field when there was enough light for photo op.)
this squirrel wove through the hedgerow ...
and although we're celebrating the coming of spring again, decay continues,
and feeds life
and not to forget that Tim died this time
last year
This isn't festive or celebratory, but it is a feature of the season:
The badgers and other beasts are waking now and getting killed in sickening numbers on our roads, even on quiet roads where you might expect slower, more careful driving. There's a line in Tom Robbins' poem "Stick Indians" that talks of "roadkill for their totem" (in Wild Ducks Flying Backward, p.146). He's an astute man so he may be fully aware of the resonances of the line. Anyway, I want to think about the implications of this use of "totem" in relation to animism (see elsewhere for a start on that thinking). But for now, here are the bodies of three badgers abusively discarded in a ditch by a road. I'm doubtful that these are "roadkill" - I suspect something more deliberate and more despicable. There are no cattle in nearby fields but maybe one of the local farmers (probably claiming to do so much to protect the countryside) gassed them.
I moved the body of one
from the sticks on which it was impaled.
The dead should be treated with respect.
May the killer(s) rot as fast as the killed.
the fact that there's rubbish / litter / cast aside refuse beside the badgers is eloquent of our alienation and folly
last changed 24 February 2008