A Grounded Sonnet: In the flow of emotions after the festival

One of the most rewarding parts of doing this podcast is hearing from listeners – from you. On this occasion, I heard from a listener who has also been a generous subscriber for a couple of years now. Vicky Winton is a credentialed archaeologist, with her own riveting story to tell. She graciously shared some of that story with me. I relay some of it here, though I’ll leave most of that telling to her some time. 

Here’s what I’d like to share from our correspondence, before I patch in what Vicki courageously sent me to share with you too.

Vicky wrote: ‘Grounded left me feeling sad in ways I can’t put my finger on. Not sure what to make of such a response. Hopefully some kind of galvanising. Seems taboo to mention sadness, like it’s disloyal to the cause of sorting things out for the better. Defeatist.’

This started our exchange, which summed to this - Vicky humbly, reluctantly, generously agreeing to record her reading of a Sonnet she had composed in the wake of the festival. And a bit more besides.

Title image: AJ, Heidi Mippy, Di & Ian Haggerty in the session at Grounded that became episode 281 (pic: Alan Benson).

Music:

Music by Jeremiah Johnson.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.

Chapters

• 0:06 A Listener Sparks A Postscript
• 0:35 Naming Sadness After Grounded Festival
• 1:22 Farming, Healing Country, And Feeling Stuck
• 2:28 Vicky’s Sonnet And Its Origins
• 3:30 The Sonnet
• 4:29 Dylan Thomas Reading

Transcript

AJ: 0:06

G'day, it's AJ here for The RegenNarration with a little postscript to the Grounded Festival series. One of the most rewarding parts of doing this podcast is hearing from listeners from you. On this occasion, I heard from a listener who's also been a generous subscriber for a couple of years now. Vicky Winton is a credentialed archaeologist, with her own riveting story to tell. Graciously, she shared some of that story with me. I might relay some of it here, but I'll leave most of that telling to her sometime. What started as a little correspondence from Vicky on Patreon arrived at me talking to you here now. Here's what I'd like to share from that correspondence before I patch in what Vicky courageously sent me to share with you too. G'day AJ, thank you for sharing Fred Provenza's life statement recording a while ago. I listened to it repeatedly. Such an antidote to the news. That was a little gift for subscribers a while back from my special guest in episode 123. Vicky went on to say, The Grounded Festival left me feeling sad in ways I can't put my finger on. Not sure what to make of such a response, hopefully some kind of galvanizing, seems to boo to mention sadness, like it's disloyal to the cause of sorting things out for the better. Defeatist. I wrote back, I actually feel like sadness is key to the movement. I feel like shutting it off is letting things down a bit. Though at times, of course, that might be best, but not all the time. So I'm really interested in how you came out of grounded feeling like that. Would you be up for sharing a few more words on that front? It feels important. To which, Vicky said, I think my sadness was partly feeling very moved by Heidi Mippy. The yarn with Heidi went out on the pod in episode 281. But also to do with feeling stuck and ineffective. I agree with Heidi when she says the biggest opportunity for Aboriginal people to heal country is to be involved with farming. I feel the responsibility to try and ease a way forward in my local area. And it's happening, but maybe a bumpy road. Just makes me sad how things are. Thanks for reading this, thanks for everything you do. I think it is sadness galvanizing into what I need to do next in my patch, reckoning with regrets that I'm not a classic leadership figure who makes things happen, but nonetheless there are things I can do. Then, she blew me away with this. A sonnet she had composed. So I asked if she'd record it to share with you. And with all the usual, I suggested healthy, reticence and squirming over hearing her own voice, she let rip with what follows. I was riveted. For good measure, she followed with a reading of the Dylan Thomas poem that inspired her. Poem in October. So I've included that here too, for your pure listening pleasure. And by personal request from Fred. Here's a little primer from Vicky. What I am trying to do in saying all this is connect my feelings, stuff I really care about, with stuff I don't yet understand very well, but which seems to be causing the feelings. Please debate me on what I don't understand, so we can move forward. Here's a poem, a sonnet I've written in response to Thomas' poem in October, in response to the plight of farmers fighting salinity, in response to a lifetime of thinking about the nature culture divide, and what trouble it has wrought, and in response to the grounded festival. Over to Vicky.

Vicky: 3:31

One man alone in shining tractor drives, his sons in rows at boarding school, a wife bereft, plotting far better lives. The empty country cries like a damned fool. Where trees grew once, as salt pushes up to air, the tang of it burns through and through and through, and tractors cannot shine in land laid bare, a legacy of dust with each assault or tear. And yet there is an edge to this sad tract in the wilderness beyond the border, where wilderness was never known in fact, and lives live to God or nature's order. They are coming from the edges slowly, bringing dignity back to land holy. It was my thirtieth year to heaven, woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood, and the muscle pooled and the heron priest at shore, the morning beckon, with water praying and call of seagull and rook, and the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall, myself to set foot that second in the still sleeping town and set forth. My birthday began with the water birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name above the farms and the white horses, and I rose in rainy autumn and walked abroad in a shower of all my days. High tide and the heron dived when I took the road over the border, and the gates of the town closed as the town awoke. A spring full of larks in a rolling cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling blackbirds and the sun of October summary on their hill's shoulder. Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly come in the morning where I wandered and listened to the rain ringing wind blow cold in the wood far away under me. Pale rain over the dwindling harbour, and over the sea wet church the size of a snail with its horns through mist, and the castle brown as owls, but all the gardens of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales beyond the border and under the larkful cloud. There could I marvel my birthday away, but the weather turned around, it turned away from the blithe country, and down the other air, and the blue altered sky streamed again with a wonder of summer, with apples, pears and red currants, and I saw in the turning so clearly a child's forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother through the parables of sunlight, and the legends of the green chapels, and the twice told fields of infancy, that his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine. These were the woods, the river and sea where a boy in the listening summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy to the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide and the mystery sang alive, still in the water and the singing birds, and there could I marvel my birthday away but the weather turned around and the true joy of the long dead child sang burning in the sun It was my thirtieth year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon, though the town below lay leaved with October blood. Oh may my heart's truth still be sung on this high hill in a year's turning.