Browsing Category:

politics

Cymraeg Europe feature politics

Walking the borderlands of Y Mers

September 10, 2019

Sophie McKeand Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself.Walt Whitman I am in love with swallows. They have become the mascot of our travels as we follow their migratory paths: north for summer, south for winter. Standing at the borderlands of Y Mers (The Welsh Marches in south Wales) with fellow collaborator Mark Daman-Thomas, we watch summer swallows swing determined arcs from farmhouse roofs out across ankle-high grasses to take flying insects on the wing then sling-shot…

Continue Reading

Cymraeg nature politics travel Wales

four bodies

August 13, 2019

Walking the borderlands of England / Cymru for Y Mers project with Mark Daman Thomas @farmhandle. Thinking what it means to belong to a place, to be accepted into the old ways, & maybe how the new generations are shapeshifting traditions across time & space.  …

Continue Reading

creating Europe poetry politics travel

burn all the flags

July 29, 2019

Sophie McKeand Often I can only get at the truth of a thing by writing it down as poetry. It’s how I understand my heart, how I translate the world so that things makes sense. Sometimes all that happens is that certain contradictions become more pronounced. What can I say about it except that the truth of a thing contains its opposite? How else could anything exist?…

Continue Reading

creating dailyconnectionwithnature nature poetry politics

Dark Mountain 10th anniversary

July 17, 2019

Sophie McKeand The world is a beautiful, unfathomable being; an eternally shapeshifting spirit; a guide everybody can connect with on their life journey. We do not need wise men, religions or spiritual guides, we just need to be prepared to put the work in to understand our Selves on a deep & meaningful level. This means complete honesty about our situation. This means facing our shadows. This means manifesting joy even in our darkest hours. Our creativity is a gift…

Continue Reading

Europe OUTSIDER Patreon chapters poetry politics

children of gods

July 14, 2019

Words & image: Sophie McKeand We greeted the children of gods with operatic indifference.Having already slaved to make the world right for some time we promised the earth (as if she were ours to gift) & set them to work in call centres & factories & department stores & endless cafe chains & when they finally began to show promise we stacked debt onto shoulders already bowed with overwrought expectation shackled their imagination to the sum total of our experience then…

Continue Reading

Europe OUTSIDER Patreon chapters politics travel

The personal vs the political

June 28, 2019

We are travelling more quickly than usual at the moment. As I do this final edit, a heatwave has pushed temperatures to well over 35ºC in central France, which in turn has hurried us north. We have learned to position the van so that the sun shines on the driver’s side where there are no windows and the walls are super-insulated, which also means I can sit on my trusty step in the shade. Today we’re parked under a giant…

Continue Reading

Cymraeg Europe nature politics travel

Plygu

June 17, 2019

Travelling across Europe I am coming to realise how many more cultures exist in the liminal spaces between living people & history books; how many more words & stories grow like weeds in the manicured lawn of western cultural hegemony. I need to learn languages again. I don’t have any except English and Cymraeg (and my Welsh unravels a little more every day I don’t use it); although I can get by in French. I woke thinking of this older…

Continue Reading

Europe OUTSIDER Patreon chapters politics

Breakup: a tryptic

June 13, 2019

by Sophie McKeand control: when I see you in dreams / your grief is a moon harrying oceans / on black nights I am weather patterns stuttering across the sky / it is exhausting to be shifting in this way // I can no longer be the rivers of your tears / can no longer be the dam or funnel you towards beauty // I have built endless canopies as shelter from this lunar gaze / still, interference weeps like…

Continue Reading

creating Europe nature politics

Only a dream can kill a dream

June 1, 2019

Only a dream can kill a dream. How do we wake from the American Dream, the capitalist dream? It’s the dreamers who are prepared to step away from the system, who are not dazzled by it all, who know that we create the world each day anew along with the rising sun & we do it with poetry & song & art all woven into nature; we do it by planting seeds & mending ourselves & sharing & repurposing; we…

Continue Reading