“We are only fully human when we act as if the life beyond us matters… The Bestiary celebrates the beauty of being and of beings. Our imagination is stretched to the utmost not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which ARE there.”
Caspar Henderson
Bwystori, Bestiary is a collaboration with Emily Meilleur (artist, poet and Biodiversity Officer for Cyngor Gwynedd Council) to celebrate our “CYDFOD / Interbeing” with other species. It is a celebratory work in the face of the enormity of climate change, the “loss of 200 species a day”, atrocities against human and other beings across the planet, the destruction of the rain forest and the sense of a global crisis in which we can feel insignificant and hopeless.
“Right now, the earth is full of refugees, human and not, without refuge” Donna Haraway
It is so easy to forget that we still live amongst species so numerous we can barely imagine them. And just one of them is human. Could we start to think of ourselves as a ‘keystone’ species, living amongst others in positive, symbiotic, loving relationship? What if we started to relate to all these species as relatives rather than resources? This new (to the predominant way of thinking) but also ancient way of thinking might be part of the new story we need, to repair our separation from ‘nature’. So instead of thinking: Resource, crop, quarry, manage, control, study, conserve, boundary, demarcation, competition… we could start thinking: Relatives, flourishing, joy, play, storytelling, making kin, entanglement, uncertainty, rhizomes, connection…
How would the world be if we thought like that – CYDFOD – interbeing. What if we looked to other beings for advice on how to be in the world? Bwystori comes from these kinds of questions. It mixes different ‘ways of knowing’ (scientific, linguistic, experiential, emotional, spiritual, artistic).
Emily and I worked with Sioned Eleri Roberts and Katherine Betteridge at Gwyl Ogwen Festival in the heart of Bethesda in October, to try out the idea. The response was so positive (see the video above) that we intend to develop the project further. Each incarnation of the project would be a location-specific event or series of events that could combine elements of discovery (eg walks, forays), storytelling (close encounters, mythology), installation, performance and publication.
Let us know if you are interested in joining us/developing one for your locality.
“Generative multi-species work is as much about play, storytelling and joy, as it is about work, critique and pain… To be one is always to become with many.Maybe, but only maybe, and only with intense commitment and collaborative work and play with other terrans, flourishing for rich multispecies assemblages that include people will be possible”
Donna Harroway
PS I even made a poem, more fridge magnet poetry really, from the names of the ‘full species list’ we compiled of all the species within 1km of Bethesda town centre (more than 400!)…. Shared here, just for the joy of the names!
Pu(“i”)mp my waxwing, white rim, yellow crust, salted shield.
Velvet Bent over my sweet vernal-grass Lady-fern.
Bluetit the bulbous, soft, slender lush rush
And swallow my musk-mallow vulpes.
Nuthatch my fox-and-cubs, Mouse-ear, morglawdd
Sweet Chestnut my Sheep’s sorrel wavy hair grass
Male-fern my red fescue giant marsh cuckoo cudweed
And sputnik the brittle salted Timothy tormentil.
Dingy Skipper my Holly Blue Ringlet
Net-spinning, short-palped, bizarre, bushtailed Caddisfly
Teasel the tortoise ragbag camouflage by
Hay-scented humming, my wild peppered nursery-web.
Soft Dwarf Linen Funnel, sheet weaver, casemaker.
Map my red lip shiny camouflage, little shaggy moss.
Striated, white, overleaf swans-neck navelwort
Drink my keeled-fruited Cornsalad.
Bronwen, self-heal evening primrose enchanter
Vetch my vegan Hoverfly finger
Saw, draw, drink, click, fever my nut-leaf mortarjoint
Lutra lutra to green-veined Scabious Polypody.
Plait-moss the speedwell, tiny, jewel, pixie, firedot.
Earwort my cock-chafer clustered haircap
Pepper my lemon-scented louse carnation pill
Bilberry my creeping navel heath, Cynffon Sidan.
Grug y Mêl, smooth, dust button painted cobblestone
Long-tailed bush-tailed barren lady, coch dan aden
Aquatic Leaf beetle my Sitka Spruce Flycatcher
Cnocell the gnat saddle Harvestman.
Ysgrech y Coed, Telor Penddu, Ji-Binc, Siff-saff, Cwcw
Ystlum Hirglust fy Nghribau’r-Pannwr Gwyllt
Buzzard warbler, neat, shaggy, clustered, forked
Tresgl y moch titw tick in Yorkshire-Fog.
By European Larch, Scots Pine, New Zealand Pigmyweeed, Japanese Knotweet, Himalyan Balsam,
Atlantic Salmon and Cornish Heath the creeping cinquefoil.
Hawk the goat Willow, swallow y gwennol
Sit in cats ear mouse ear dog’s mercury bedstraw
Mole up the feral pigeon Pedunculate Oak
Human the cwningen, Tamaid y Cythraul.
Wart white my wall wild Rowen
Tyme the Tamarisk Teasel fever Beetle
Flat sexton fungus phyllobius weevil
Woodcock the Wheatear tinwen y garn
Honey-suckle my inchworm honey.
Dipper the dung
Bent back Grey pug
Bog the dwarf orb oddfog.
Web the Dringwr Bach dryw eurben ywen eog
Fy maeswellt Rhedegog clymog bondo.
Y feddyges las, Milddail with Rhedynen Ungoes
Blodyn ymenyn, Llysiau Taliesin, Sgwarnog, saddle the sage.
Blunt the flat barren strawberry
Siskin the sharp-flowered cow-wheat
Eel the inlaid acorn gwennol ddu
Gliniogai Y Dinboeth Rhonwellt y Ci.
Bwystori Bethesda Bestiary 28.9.19. Photo by Nick Pipe.