+ Fairytale 1: Finding A Vision

Once upon a time, in a land on an island, which had known great prosperity for many years, there lived a woman who was neither young, nor old.

She was just in the middle. She lived in an ordinary house, in a little town surrounded by hills. To the south it was half a days walk from the sea, and to the north it was three days walk to the big city, where important people made decisions of consequence and the Queen sat quietly in her palace.

Now, since this woman ( neither young now, nor yet old) had been a small child, people had been saying that difficult times lay ahead. They said that the world was getting warmer, the wild animals were dying and that there might not be enough food in years to come, or that the waters would rise and many would have nowhere to live because of flooding, ( and don't forget, they said, we live on an island!). But in fact since then the land had mostly continued to get richer and richer and most people thought that on the whole everything was improving all the time. Some even thought the hotter climate might be an improvement.

However, when the woman had still been on the younger side it became clear to her that the plants and animals were being destroyed in a way that worried her a great deal, and she tried never to step on an insect lest there be none left.

Nevertheless, she and her husband had three sons, and were mostly busy living happily ever after. Then, when the youngest son was just five years old a great plague came to the land. And a decree was made that all people should not stir from their houses, lest they should fall ill or should pass the disease to another. Then for a time the land fell quiet, and some people had not enough to eat, and feared how they would survive, and others went jogging and worked from home. And the land seemed less sure of it's prosperity and many people died of the plague, and learned people said that indeed the death of all creatures and the warming of the world were in full swing. Then the woman looked out on the still grey town and the quiet furtive people walking in it and knew that she had to do something. She wrapped herself in a blanket and lay down, (only until it was time to cook dinner), and as she lay there watching the passing clouds from her window, she thought of all the people who were feeling the cold. The cold of not knowing what to do. They cold of not feeling a part of the story. The cold of sitting alone. The cold of being static with fear. The cold of having no voice. The cold of uncertainty about tomorrow. And she dreamt of a coat. A coat to warm them. To warm them; with a sense of what they might do, with being a part of the story, the knowledge that they are not alone, alone; a coat that would not be still, a coat to carry their voice and to comfort their uncertainty. A comforter, a carrier of sorrows, remembrances and a carrier of hopes. Stitched from the ragged past into a gentle armour against a sharp future. The coat would be a strange map to be read by fingers, and a promise that we do belong together.

And when she rose, she wondered how. For the coat would need to be made of many, many, pieces, fragments from every part of the land, stitched by every kind of people.

So, when dinner was cooked and eaten, and the children asleep, she brooded in the quiet.

She imagined a coat made of many pieces of blanket. Blanket, soft, blanket coarse, blanket old and maybe blanket new, baby blanket, granny blanket, tramp blanket, blanket embroidered, patterned, coloured, plain. Each piece should have stitch-work on it. A hope stitch, a dream stitch a prayer stitch, a stitch of remembrance, a stitch of grief. And all the pieces sewn together tight and strong. She imagined setting out in just sleeves and collar of blanket coat and heading north, inviting the inhabitants of the next town, to stitch blanket pieces and add them to the coat, for one of them to wear forwards, the coat growing town by town, worn on it's way by children, women, men, old and young, of every stature, every hue of hair and skin. She imagined it in the distant north a huge cloak with its ragged regal train.

Then, would there be buttons? How could this come to be?

The coat must be carried by it's unwritten story. The coat must be grown by the song of what it could become. The coat must call out for belonging to people up and down the land, make me, and make me your own. And the coat must be begun...

Once upon a time a woman, neither young now nor yet old, took her scissors and cut the corner of her blanket and with thread red and thread green began to stitch a pattern and a word...

+ Fairytale 2: A Lived Fairytale

- written at the works end ( written for Artway.eu)

Once upon a time there was a world on the brink of devastation. A world once mainly hospitable to life,where changes in climate happened slowly over hundreds of human lifetimes allowing its creatures to adapt and change.

Some of the humans of this world found themselves uncomfortable, and strove for a longer and richer life, and in this pursuit they created machines, the running of which emitted endless gasses, increasing exponentially, as “the many” sought to attain the comfort of “the few”. Now, these gasses were making the world's climate unstable to the point that before long, perhaps most would struggle to maintain food and shelter, yet the wealthy people could see no way to stem their greed. All feared to lose what comfort they had. And in the north of a small island the leaders of all peoples came together to decide a course of action...

And in this time some people made a coat, a pilgrim coat, patchwork of blanket pieces. A coat which made its way to that gathering too. Worn and walked, from the sea on that islands south coast, by hundreds of people over hundreds of miles. A coat which carried, stitched into it, hundreds of pieces of blanket, collected on its path, each one embellished with the griefs, remembrances, prayers and hopes of a person or a community for their local landscape in the face of this climate collapse.

This coat traveled with a song to declare its work:

THE SONG OF THE COAT OF HOPES

Ask me where I'm going

Ask me what is my purpose

Ask me what my name is

They call me the Coat of Hopes

Ever northwards to Glasgow, both worn and walked I'll be

Upon the back of anyone who'll choose to carry me

Through field, village and city, day by day from town to town

To where leaders are gathering like rooks before the storm

Ask me where... ( Chorus)

What is it that I'm taking to the one who will decide

If as a world we'll do all in our power to survive

Only pieces of blanket I've collected on my path

With griefs, hopes, prayers, remembrances

for the lands through which I've passed

Ask me where... (Chorus)

So here's my invitation - come and make me who I'll be

Come mark your hopes on blanket and I'll sew them into me

A coat that's made by everyone, for everyone to wear

To feel my warmth, and the weight of responsibility we share

Ask me where I'm going

Ask me what is my purpose

Ask me what my name is

They call me the Coat of Hopes

All along its way, patches were added to the once blank coat, until on the final night before the great meeting began, seven women sewed all night long to include all the remaining patches, and the pilgrim coat grew a train, and became regal.

From then on each morning the coat walked to the gates of the place where decisions were to be made, with drum, standard bearer, train bearers, song, and a sewn invitation to the leaders within to put on the coat.

And each morning the invitation was declared full clear and with dignity. “Feel the weight and the warmth of our hopes, stand in communion with all who have made and worn this coat, stand in kinship with all life, wear the promise that we all belong together” and many who made their way to that meeting place did put on the coat.

Some wept, and some danced, some stood still and closed their eyes, as time and time again the coat song echoed outside those gates. But the leaders of nations did not come out.

I was the guardian of the coat of hopes in those days, and when my voice was all but broken and gone, after so many declarations and so much song, the coat and I left that city. We boarded a train heading south again amidst much love, much joy, much sorrow, much determination and of course much song.

And all is not yet told. For now we sit, folded, silent, waiting... The space which the coat holds open for you who would wear it, is that of the protagonist in this climate breakdown story. A space we must each step into, if our ever after ending is to be a happy one.

This is an invitation.