Legacy in Green #56 #cong24 #legacy

Reading Time in Minutes

3

1. Impatience vs. Natural Time
2.  The Richness of our Natural Environment
3. Alternative View of Construction
4. Redefinition of Legacy

I am, amongst many other things, a mother, a carer, a creator, a tinkerer, a crafter, and a lover of nature. My happy place is to be in the woods or by the sea. I believe that talking the key to everything.

You can see contact Aileen by email

By Aileen Howell

I want to build a forest. No, you read that correctly – I don’t mean plant/grow/cultivate – I mean build. I don’t want to sit around and wait for it. I want people in hardhats, wearing hi-vis jackets and carrying clipboards stuffed with papers to walk around the empty field waving their arms and gesturing expansively to each other.

I want to awaken to the sound of heavy machinery moving in, working quickly and noisily to transform the landscape in a matter of hours. I want to see pallets
rolling in, stacked high with leafy Oaks, slender Elders, sturdy Ash and expansive Chestnut trees all waiting their turn to be slotted into their place with perfunctory efficiency. I want to watch in wonder as the landscape transforms from a flat green plain to a sensory wonderland of trees, bushes and brush. I want to pass each day and wonder at the changes wrought in 24 short hours. I want to see the moving vans pull up and unload unruly families of deer, badgers, rabbits and hares. I
want to see them pick their spot and settle into making it home. I want to wonder at the speed in which they create their own community. I want to watch as nature paints the woodlands for the seasons.

No gaudy, flashing lights and tinsel – just the brilliant palette of verdant green, glowing yellows, warm oranges and soft browns morphing into sharp greys and glittering frosty whites. I want to watch the tiny green buds appear and daily push outwards before bursting in the world in the gentle explosion of leaves and flowers. I want to watch in fascination as entire eco-systems evolve in the blink of an eye. I want to see the crumbling, dead carcass of a fallen tree teem with life – the springy, yellow jelly of Witches Butter, the impossible whiteness of the glistening porcelain mushrooms, the frantic skittering of the busy woodlouse. I want to know why we can build a towering block of flats, stripped of all expression of character and flair, in the space of months.

Why we can transform a bare strip of land into a bustling thoroughfare filled with people, pets, noise and lights in the turn of a season but to create something of nature, to generate peaceful progress, to mend the space, to turn over possession of the land to Mother Earth we need to wait. We cannot simply dream that peace into existence. We cannot fill out the correct forms and permits and wait for the trees to spring forth.

Legacy is so often associated with the tangible, physical, man-made evidence of our existence. I want my legacy for my children and their children after them to be something worth so much more than bricks and mortar. I want my voice to carry in the wind that brushes through the leaves. I want the memory of my life to be felt in the strength of the sturdy tree trunks that covers and protects the microcosm beneath its canopy. I want the wisdom of my time to be felt in the soft, yielding forest floor that gives life to so much beneath the surface. I want to be remembered in the silent stillness of a woodland in winter.