Scant Portions
[Following on from arriving at La Combe - an Eco-Research Center]
Although everything is parched, the air of La Combe is different – infinitely clear with a hint of freshness. It tastes like the cloudless blue above us. It is this we will be drinking from, water is precious.
I am already taking in my new home-for-a-week, in large gulps.
I do this every day, every morning, at home, here, now. And despite the background grind of traffic heading towards Salisbury Plain, my ears are tuned to the cooing of pigeons and the high pitched song of the lark which lends this place its name. The feeling is the same as it was back then, echoed by David Abram better than I,
‘How hopelessly insignificant the human is – a speck lost and blundering through the limitless depths of the macrocosm, drinking from the voluminous air, dazzled by reflected rays…’ [p.161, Becoming Animal]
As for food on our ‘holiday’?
‘Scant portions’ will prove an understatement.
I am a hanger on with hunger on. Bread is permanently off my menu since - like many with chronic fatigue - gluten only exacerbates the symptoms. This will prove problematic. Marthe has allowed me to come on condition ‘she must be willing to help.’ To give myself a more defined role (and special in my own eyes) I’m calling myself ‘Poet in Residence’. It turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy but not in the way any of us planned.
To best enjoy our adventure, I suggest you assume the guise of Bear. He’s an ambling-along-aged-black-dog, wearing what appears to be a perpetual grin. He's beloved of Marthe - therefore gets shouted at a lot - with ratting his supposed contribution to the farm. But really he does what bears do best – protect their family and find food.
This week, we are all ‘family’ with none of the familiarity and all of the unfiltered relating the word conjures up.
I hoped I was different to the rest of course. I was desperate to please: Chris, everyone else and of course most of all this character called Marthe.
Time for an introduction.
Marthe’s a lioness whose roar can be terrifying. She’s as short on temper with humans as she is in stature. Her stomp betrays a lifetime in the saddle and probably a few falls. Contrast this with being as long on patience with non-humans as the respect afforded her from her animal and sustainability peers. I’ve been tipped that she doesn’t suffer fools easily and suspect ‘fussy eaters’ might be classed in the same category.
My digestive system is already tied up in knots.
Marthe’s Chris? A miracle worker who doubts himself but perpetually effects miracles with machinery which he – rightly - considers to be as animate as everything else at La Combe. Together they are a formidable team.
I could wax lyrical about this couple I came to love, but they would both hate it. I wax poetically about Marthe in The Menagerie to a beat which has all the jauntiness of The Ascot Gavotte in My Fair Lady. We add singing the Gavotte to our goals, along with a number of other choral works. Deadline - within the next five days, as well as becoming ‘as one’ with our animal co-actors. Mine, I discover, will be a cow.
Swallow hard. That’s not all…
Marthe’s vision is not ‘just’ to get her supporting cast of friends and ‘WOOFERS*’ who have gathered to make Black Beauty a stunning demonstration of interspecies communication but to help host a conference as well. Attendees will be peers from across the globe. Part of their interactive experience at La Combe will include being fed…
The cooks? All of us. No exceptions.
Holy Cow!
It’s time to meet Velu.
Intrepid folk volunteering for 'World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms'
#France #ecocentric #impossible #gluten-free