Candover Brook – being or is it just there?
Tim Sykes
This is harder than I thought,
reframing my relationship with Brook.
It’s always been “My Brook”:
I protect and conserve my Brook
in my job and my relationships with local people.
I thought I had intrinsic and relational values for it:
it survives and thrives for its own right beyond
what people take or borrow from it,
and I bestow meaning on it for the feelings and emotions I feel….
but does Brook actually give or am I just taking, or imagining?
Am I in fact imposing instrumental and utilitarian values instead?
This is harder than I thought.
Certainly, I feel profound emotions when I am with, especially in Brook.
Gleeful, grounded, deeper, mindful more alive when my feet are wet.
But am I just taking? Is this just a one way ‘ship?
Brook speaks to me, I think, through light and water
water-crazed sun rays dancing on the dappled steam bed
a chaotic light-lattice on my cold numb feet
and fleeting shimmering stars of reflected and refracted light
dazzling and mesmerising my eyes and brain.
Heavenly as this is to me, is it a conversation?
Am I receiving or taking? What am I giving?
Now that I stop to think, this relationship looks anthropocentric.
This is harder than I thought.
Reframing starts by sitting quietly on the bank
Not just wading in as usual.
Meditative, searching for meaning of place and time
Is the Brook an It or Being? What does be-ing mean?
More-than-human makes sense as words but what does it mean?
Beings, some of which are human, quoted Peter -
makes sense, but am I too shallow to see and feel that deeply?
Who is seeing in this relationship? What does being mean if you’re not one of the humans?
Sentient ….really? It’s just H2O and geomorphology and time isn’t it?
For sure I love it, I feel it, I miss my Brook like a friend,
but is it, can it Be-ing?
This is harder than I thought.
Maybe I can’t do this? Want to but incapable.
If it’s real, is it only accessible to shaman-like portals?
Back when people lived as, in and with nature for survival,
and wilderness could kill you, all day every day, life was transient and unsafe
maybe then the connection was so strong, innate, real in body mind and spirit that
Indigenous people really were connected to place – inseparable intertwined natural spirits.
But now, I am remote. The land is so controlled, the Brook depleted and polluted,
it all feels so inanimate. Life exists, of course. Beautiful life. I am thrilled by seeing signs of otter activity – I don’t ‘need’ to see otter to feel connected, signs of life are good enough
and I can see and feel dynamism in Brook – energy, power, and time – Brook was here before humanity and will be after civilisation,
but is it a sentient being? I need to explore, understand what that means.
Will the Candover Brook help me to see beyond myself?
This is harder than I thought.
Through the inquiry Tim persists in experimenting with poetry rather than scientific reports, going beyond what is conventional and comfortable.
I offered an informal posy of bluebells to Brook. I took my time and softly spoke to Brook about the gift and why I was there… I think that made a difference … Today I saw more than just water. I think I saw, or felt, the soul of Brook. Brook felt old… as in ancient and wonderous… Alive even. Yes, alive… I think Brook spoke to me in a tangible expression of joy that I sensed without the need for language of any sort. This was new.