Footnotes to a Conversation, July 4, 2022
Rituals
If you’ve read Elly Griffiths’ books about Norfolk archaeologist Ruth Galloway, you may enjoy reading Seahenge: A Quest for Life and Death in Bronze Age Britain by Francis Pryor. Pryor has spent a lifetime exploring archaeological sites in Norfolk and he has the gift of explaining a technical subject in an interesting fashion. He is also able to extrapolate from post holes and scraps of wood to possible explanations for how the sites were used. He focuses on the rituals around death and the importance of liminal areas (such as the boundary between land and water). One of the sites he discusses is on the Norfolk coast and sounds very similar to the site Ruth Galloway is involved with in Elly Griffiths’ The Crossing Places.
The Power of Words
The words we choose make a statement. We used to talk about climate warming, but that confused people (“The world isn’t warming. Look what a cool summer we’re having in Victoria this year.”) So we switched to talking about climate change, but that has now become climate action to denote a sense of urgency. We also spend a great deal of time talking about sustainability, but that’s a rather bland, almost derogatory term signifying good enough. We would never use it to describe a fabulous friendship or lifestyle. What if we reimagined sustainability as environmental prosperity and embedded it in feel-good rituals rather than guilt-inducing commandments? [Mold]
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.
If you share my love of nature, check out EcoFriendly West, an online publication encouraging environmental initiatives in Western Canada, and Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.