Welcome to A Wild Green Heart. Thank you for being here. I'm grateful to every reader and every listener this week, because you are all taking on the role of witnesses, something my heart much needs this time.
This is not the post I was hoping to write for this week. The plan was to continue my explorations of the Imaginal Realm - which I began a couple of weeks ago - with some different perspectives about what it is and why it's important. But that will keep - though the Imaginal will also bleed into today's writing.
It felt a little odd posting last week's photo-diary from Pomona, because of what I discovered between recording the audio on Friday and the post going live on Sunday morning. Namely, that the men and their blade-wielding tractors had been back to Pomona, thirteen months and six days after their last massacre. This is the sight that met my eyes as I arrived:
Before I consciously took in the absence of plants, my brain was already screaming at me: “What's wrong? Where did all the colour go?” Because on a sunny morning like that, the first thing I'm usually greeted with is the blazing yellow from the young willows growing where the body of Pomona meets the road. All of them, gone. Sacrificed to the whirling blades of progress.
Those of you who've been following my dance with Pomona for a while will know that I made a whole art show, including some long poems, the genesis of which was when this devastation last happened in January 2024. That day I was called by Pomona to be there, to witness the cutting as it happened, to have my own heart shredded simultaneously. You can hear me talking about that, and the subsequent regrowth / resurrection of Pomona in a previous post, which is the audio for the second iteration of “Becoming Pomona”.
This time I had not been called. In fact, I feel like I'd been kept away! I had been intending to meet a dear friend at Pomona the day before, Friday 21st, to walk and to tell him a story that Pomona has given me. But on that day both of us felt really unwell, and it was obvious we needed to postpone. That was the day - I know it in my bones - that all this took place. So while part of me wished to admonish myself for not being present this time, I knew deeper down that I had not been asked to.
Just look at what a goddamn mess they made again. We will have another year without marsh orchids at Pomona after this.
The Becoming Pomona audio tells of my journey over five months of last year, from mid-January to mid-June. The grief and horror and powerlessness of watching my beloved be brutalised. The emptiness and depression that sat with me for the next couple of months. Then the increasing, marvellous joy of watching Pomona come back from the dead once more.
In the days after the first iteration of Becoming Pomona, following the summer solstice, I had my most wondrous and magical experiences yet as I sat at Pomona. Experiences that changed me profoundly, and that are still very much alive and at work in me now.
Today I want to tell you about the curious experience of moving through all those emotions in ninety minutes that Saturday morning.
The first emotion that rose up in me, powerfully, was a fierce anger. I took a quick account of the amount of devastation that had been wreaked across the body of my beloved, and I raged. Sights like the one in the next image poured fuel on the flames. This is one of my favourite corners of Pomona, packed until recently with grasses, rushes, mossy mounds and young willows. The way the light hit all that intermingled growth produced a great delight in me. And now look at it:
The rage lasted a while, as I walked around. When I arrived at the Heart of Pomona - where I had made a ritual circle of roses and placed my St. Brigid's cross at the start of the month - I found the whole thing obliterated. I had intended keeping the circle there for the whole of February. This is how I found it:
And this was almost the only evidence I could find that the circle was ever there:
I railed at the heartlessness and the injustice of it all. I swore blue murder at the systems and power structures that caused all of this. But. I did not - would not - curse the individuals who cut her down. I have learned that my tongue is powerful for blessing and praising; but I do not wish to use it to curse other beings.
Last year I wrote a poem about this, which has come to mind as I'm writing, so I'll share it in a moment. It's roots are in this portion of chapter 3 of the letter from James in the bible. I have a long, complex and uncomfortable relationship with the bible, one that I'm not going to delve into now. Suffice to say that I rarely read it now, but having read it multiple times in much younger years, a great deal of it is stored in me somewhere. Sometimes a piece of it will return to me forcefully and demand attention, as this did last year. Talking of the tongue, and how we use our words, James writes:
Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water?
There's something that speaks deeply to my desire for integrity in these words. And if, as I outlined last week, language is the gift that humans can offer back to the rest of the world in reciprocity, then we ought to be using it mindfully, even in our anger. I know this is something I need to work on, and I was grateful to have it in mind as I walked. Anyway, here's the poem:
Tongue
From birth, even the youngest
tongue holds strength to move
the earth, its fleshy curve,
wordless, yet when unfurled
loudly broadcasts need to others,
calls forth care and nurture.
Later, learning language,
this small, oft-hidden softness
can tear asunder hearts with
careless curses, or heal a rift
with kindness gently spoken;
a world of truth and lies, contained.
This soft and supple worm
a weapon, imbued with power
throughout our days, for good or ill,
dependent on our readiness
to discern: when to wage a war,
to soothe a storm, or, keep it still.
Some, with thoughtless threats
or casual hateful speech, can wreck
entire nations. Others, curbing
the burden of their words,
choose to loose them in blessings
that weave a world of peace. I made my way to Magic Pool next, because I know that this place has great power to hold and transform my emotions. It also gave me ample opportunity to use my voice to bless. There were many geese and a lone swan in the water, and they all came over - some of them in a rush, some of them slowly and gracefully - when I took out my bag of swan and duck food and began casting handfuls into the water. I prefer to offer blessings up close where possible, and to look my feathered friends in the eye as I speak.
I also played “The Ballad of Pomona” - the song my friend David Benjamin Blower wrote for “Becoming Pomona” - to Magic Pool and its creatures. The song, telling as it does so beautifully the story of my relationship with Pomona - moved me deeply. I had a good cry, and found my anger shifting into grief. With a heavy heart, I got up to walk some more.
Wandering across what had been the marshland area, everything felt bleak and barren. There were a few thrushes feasting in the furrows made by the heavy machines, and several geese wandering around. But every scrap of foliage above a few inches was obliterated. I wept some more.
I mused for a while on the nature of love and suffering. Remember this Richard Rohr quote from my “Portals” post?
Love and suffering are the main portals that open the mind space and the heart space... breaking us into breadth and depth and communion. Almost without exception, great spiritual teachers will have strong and direct guidance about love and suffering. If we never go there, we will not know these essentials.
The way I see it, love and suffering are two sides of the same coin. If you choose one you are inevitably choosing the other. So it makes sense to me to willingly opt for both, and to be equally open to learning from suffering as from love. I would much rather drink from them both, deeply, than experience neither. This was the nature of the prayer I made as I walked.
After a while, I began to tell Pomona the shape of my grief: “My heart is shredded with every willow, buckhorn, bramble and bed of rushes…” but before I got any further into this, I was literally stopped in my tracks. Kestrel!
I had not seen kestrel at Pomona for a few months, and suddenly there he was, so close, so beautiful! He leaped from a post nearby, swooping effortlessly to the next one, a seeming angel of rich chestnut and gleaming grey, halo’d by sunlight.
I was astonished to discover that this moment of raptor rapture shifted my heart once again into entirely new territory. All at once I remembered the joy I experienced the last time Pomona grew back into wild abundance. I realised that this was the time to enter the Imaginal - to see Pomona through the Eye of my Heart - to experience how she Really Is.
So this is what I told her. “I see you always beautiful, always wild, always free! I see your abundance and your power!” And I found this to be entirely true.
“True Love (1)” - an image from Becoming Pomona
The point of the work involved with “Becoming Pomona” was - though I've not stated it this explicitly until now - to do just that. To become Pomona. To internalise her landscape and her spirit. To twine her wild green heart and mine into one. One thing this has meant is that I'm able to carry the spirit of Pomona with me wherever I am. That day I realised it also meant that I carry all of her seasons and wonders within me, no matter what shape she is in right now. I was, to my surprise, full of joy.
My next destination was the womb, about which I wrote last week. A secret, sacred place. I could see that the machines had entered this U-shaped piece of land, formed by the edge of the road on one side and a wildly overgrown mound of earth - made from exploratory earthworks a few years ago - on the other. All those protective brambles and buckthorn bushes were cut down.
However, the inner womb - a smaller, narrower space at the far end - was untouched. The machines could not get that far. I picked my way through the prickly undergrowth and made a shocking discovery. The roses - stems with multiple heads that I had stuck into the ground as shown:
had been cut down, seemingly by a strimmer. None of the surrounding vegetation had been touched.
It was only then I recalled the thought that had popped into my head as I walked towards Pomona earlier that morning - a thought subsequently forgotten in the wake of discovering the destruction: “You'll be surprised by what you find in the Womb today.” I certainly was, and to be honest, I can make no sense of it at all.
Walking from the Womb towards the far end of Pomona, I made another discovery. The machines had entered through a gate that hasn't been used in years. The massive concrete block placed in front of it had been moved, allowing them access.
This was a portal I had been ignoring, and had not felt inclined to make any declarations over. I felt somewhat cheated, but at least it made sense.
Before I left, I had one final encounter as I approached the entry and exit portal. I heard them first - an unfamiliar song from the trees overhead. As I was opening the Merlin app to identify it, I caught a glimpse of brilliant red and coal black among the leaves. My eyes confirmed what Merlin was telling me. It was a bullfinch! I've never seen one at Pomona before, so I took some time later to search for symbolism connected to this bird.
As usual, there was a great deal of material available, but this gem stood out to me particularly:
In some cultures, it’s associated with the Holy Spirit, while in others, it signifies new beginnings or rebirth. The bird is also linked to the concept of resurrection as it feeds on seeds from thorny plants, symbolizing Christ’s crown of thorns.
The text is from here
This was of great encouragement to me, reminding me of a stanza from the second part of my long poem, “Song of Pomona”
And so I ask myself: how can I hold a wake for someone who keeps springing from the dead, whose every iteration wilder than the one before?
I'm not naively hopeful. I know this gloriously wild piece of land is earmarked for building apartments, and that every time the machines come, it could herald the beginnings of further so-called “development”. Nonetheless, the Pomona I carry within me is always wild and beautiful and free.
The looming spectre of development
So, it came as a real blow to discover on my next visit, two days later, accompanied by my younger son, that the portal I've been using for the last five months has been closed up again with new railings.
After all my faithful blessings and declarations here, this felt like a kick in the teeth. Have all my rituals and words been powerless? Has Pomona chosen this time to allow this enclosure? Or is there a third way, another possibility that I can't see?
The two of us took a wander around Pomona together, once we'd walked to the far end to shimmy around the fence by the canal.
I was thankful that the new railings seemed to be the only apparent new fuckery since the weekend. It was quite possible that the workmen would do as last time, and return with handheld machines to cut all the corners and edges that can't be reached by the tractors. But for the time being, those places were intact, and gave me much cheer in the early spring sunshine.
Gleaming goldenrod
We lingered in these places, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the beauty of the plant life.
Grasses and moss at the edge of the Ancestral Grounds
I returned again to Pomona on Thursday 27th, this time with a greater sense of having been called. The weather was as forecast: cold, but with bright sunshine and blue skies. I walked the long way round and clambered around the fence. This is close to the Womb, so I made that my first visit. I could tell even from a distance that they had returned to cut it all down with hand-held machines.
The inner womb, along with everything else, was hacked to ground. I lingered a while, glad I had responded to the inner nudge to bring an extra candle and a jar for it. I lit the candle and made some blessings before moving on.
I wasn't at all surprised to see a white van in the distance, and the figures of workmen in the Ancestral Grounds. As I drew closer I could hear the noise of their industrial strimmers grinding away. It seemed foolish to venture there while they were cutting, so I decided to walk elsewhere. As I rounded the corner of the road, I caught sight of a bird on top of one of the poles. They let me get close enough for a good look: song thrush, their creamy, speckled breast gleaming in the morning sun. A reminder of the one I encountered last June, and their powerful, timely message:
“It is time to sing the song of your life!”
Encouraged, I walked across Pomona to Magic Pool, to sit in the sun. There I fed a pair of swans and mused over what I was supposed to do. I was expecting to feel all kinds of emotions, but in reality I simply felt numb. I need movement.
With the workmen busy cutting everything down, blocking access to where I wanted to go, I opted to walk to the lock, then followed the path beneath the tram tracks along canal. At Pomona tram stop I shimmied around the fence and carried on along the canal to the bridge, crossing over and making my way back along the far side.
I knew I would pass Pomona again from the other side of the canal, and might be able to see what was going on. But what was going on was more disturbing than I was ready for. A canal boat was moored at the bank, and a man was at work with a roaring chainsaw. My heart sank, as it seemed he was going to cut down the mature silver birches that grow there - beginning with my favourite stand of them.
A little further along I could see that just a lone workman was in the Ancestral Grounds, seemingly on a tea break. So when I arrived back at the bridge, above which the newly-barred portal lies, I decided to clamber up the wall and back onto Pomona.
Sure enough there was just one person visible, at work again with his strimmer, his back turned to me. So I opted to sneak into the Ancestral Grounds from the road, staying hidden behind the denser growth. By this unusual route I arrived at my ritual circle and was able to light the candle and make my Remembrances. I hoped that the circle would remain untouched, but felt this was unlikely.
Having done what I intended, I snuck back out of the Ancestral Grounds and left Pomona.
Locks, from the other side of the canal
I still had time for one final February visit the following day, the last day of the month, in spite of my day being taken up with other things. It was a short time, but a sweet one, made doubly so by taking place at golden hour at the end of a bright afternoon.
My first stop was at the Ancestral Grounds, and though the whole piece of land adjacent to it was cut to ground, as shown:
the entire area that I use for ritual was untouched, at least for now, and looked utterly resplendent:
Encouraged, I hurried to the bank of the canal, where the man with the chainsaw had been working, to survey the damage. More relief! Though there were piles of sawdust on the ground, the trees were all standing! I suppose they must have been using it as a place to cut up and grind down pieces of wood from other parts of Pomona.
Talking of pieces of wood, this small fragment from the destruction caught my eye as I walked the path towards the canal:
It was encouraging to spot this little reminder of the symbol for love tucked away in the centre. I took a quick wander around Pomona before heading home. The mess of the march of “progress” was still heartbreakingly evident; but the light was so glorious, and my relief so fresh, that it was hard to feel anything other than delight.
Oh, and kestrel was there again, swooping from pole to pole in the golden light. Such a beautiful companion for my final visit.
It's fair to say that my permaculture design project, about which I talked last week, has been put on hold by the events of the last week of February. However, my question to Pomona at the heart of it - “How do you want me to express you to others next?” - has begun to be answered, and I'm excited to have received a portion of story from Pomona this month. That story - as potent as it is precious - will undoubtedly form part of my next artistic expression of Pomona. It will also keep the fires of my heart burning bright throughout whatever happens next at the place I love most in all the world.
I want to finish by saying thank you to every one of you who has read or listened to this post. As I mentioned at the start, this is an important role - witnessing the relationship I have with Pomona, which mirrors so vividly the relationship that humans have with the rest of nature in our hyper-capitalist times.
As always, I'm deeply curious to hear from you. What stood out to you today? What do all these happenings at Pomona remind you of? Which places are you deeply in love with? When has an encounter with a creature caused you to view the world with new eyes?
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