Becoming Lichen - irregular diary - part 5
Part of Becoming Lichen - a research project by Simon Whitehead
Solstice
21 December 2024
KEEP AHOLD…CADW GAFAEL
My North country grandfather would say this to me whenever we would part. Towards the end of his life I began to understand more deeply what he was saying to me…
Keeping ahold suggests an ongoing ‘keeping’, or caring for this life. A light holding and a slipping through of a living force.
In the recent winter storms, the trees have released their ‘dead wood’. Lichen-bejewelled twigs now pattern the earth.
Lichen attaches lightly to its host, often returning to the earth itself.
These ‘twig lichens’ now adrift, are living their lives differently, a new process of decomposition begins. A light holding, a slipping away, making anew…
ARBOREAL JEWELS SCORE
As the winter storms remove the dead wood from the trees, so we see the ground bejewelled with scatterings of winter lichen.
Pick up a lichen that appeals to you, place it somewhere else as you walk, redistribute the pieces, changing the pattern.
(They survive longer if they are above the ground)
If you wish, you may wear some as decoration on your hat, or your coat as you walk.