Saturday 26 October: Sue Young

The day begins with a workshop, a graveyard, the re-enchantment of nature writing.

Moss shrouds cracked stone, greens the time-worn tombs.
Trees dapple a drizzled canopy to shelter the past and present,
Their leaves mirrored on the ground, gold, umber, sienna, copper,
To be absorbed between gravestones where dust becomes dust.

Plane trees oversee the centuries,
smog survivors,
shedding their skins in constant renewal.

Ash, weep for the injuries still to come, your gnarled trunk holds the story of catastrophic damage overcome. You twist out, up, round and reach down, graceful, ancient dancer, a leaf cascade to shade, shelter and entice. Will you survive in this urban sanctuary, draw strength from the web underground, the centuries of life intertwined in soil and root? Or waste, green crown shrinking, as the ancient mycorrhizal compact fails.

Beneath our feet, the remains of countless men, women and children, mostly unknown, or forgotten, epitaphs erased by the passage of centuries. If not forgotten then silenced – a chest tomb commemorates a woman celebrated merely for the deeds of her father, for her position as daughter, granddaughter, wife. Her life distilled to time and place of birth and death, only ownership between.

We muse on our connection with nature, the importance for our wellbeing to make and maintain those connections.

A theme echoed amid a joyous family workshop in Holborn Library, where the exuberant work of Dr Ayse Akarca connects science and art, to illustrate how the body reflects its environs at a cellular level. We are creatures of our environment.

In the heart of the city, the many squares of Bloomsbury provide a connection, with nature, with the past, with neighbours. New generations celebrate the importance of an escape from the chaos of the city, local parks, a garden oasis, and a story garden protected by a water dragon.

Not all who lie in St George’s Gardens are forgotten. In the echoing stillness of the Holy Cross Church, political and literary history combine to dramatise the history of publisher Charles Dilly. Radical, broad-minded, interested in everything, he epitomises the spirit of Bloomsbury past and present.

Finally, I tiptoe into the hushed and ringing corridors of uplit marble at Senate House to watch the marvellous performance of Ulyssa, which celebrates two female academics who changed the way history was recorded. At a time when women stayed at home while men explored the world, they refused to be silenced.

Sue Young visited
Therapeutic Nature Writing – Workshop – Reenchantment
The Art of Science – Exhibition – Dr Ayse Akarca
New Bloomsbury Set Silks – Exhibition
Dinner with Mr Dilly – Performance – Friends of St George’s Gardens
Ulyssa – Performance – The Pascal Theatre Company

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