Today
publishes her electrifying, exquisite, elegiac new book WEATHERING.What a book to bring into the world right now. It really feels like this one will ripple right out; the impacts of it will be felt for a long time to come.
This is a telling of a life spent looking, listening, learning and loving. Ruth is a psychotherapist who works in the heart area of the wild both within and without. She is a geologist, too, and this dance between rock and trauma; stone and healing; landscape and interconnectedness is really something quite special indeed.
Ruth’s work came to my life just when I needed it most. This book really speaks so much to the idea of time & change & so much more. Things that are so important right now.
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How do we weather the storms of our life, she asks us. Rock is affected and affects the landscape of our planetary home as time passes, both deep and transitory in turn, but we change too. We are affected by the goings on of this world.
Are we as resilient as rock?
Might we hold as much wisdom as ancient stone?
What do we do when things feel heavy as rock, when the light is held away by thick clouds of uncertainly and fear?
This is a book that feels worldly as well as spiritual; solid as well as shifting; realistic and deeply hopeful too.
It is also a book that looks to the world in wonder and awe and reverence; reminding us that we are part of a glistening, ever growing, always unknowable whole.
It reminds us of the gift it is to be alive and to bear witness, no matter how short the time spent here may feel.
‘Sometimes we find feathers. Signs of life, now gone. A bird flown leaving some of itself behind. In it we find a person and their legacy. we pick it up and smile, remember. Stow it away for safekeeping. Put it in a jar on the desk. And sometimes we find metaphor in the delicacy of a bare umbellifer…Or in the numinosity of a pale moth’s wings…’
It is a meditation on the gentle, tender act of paying attention; a skill we might need to hone now more than ever:
“Deep listening is a willingness to put aside our preconceptions and move inwards. It requires a hearing-heart that can always be surprised.”
“Listening is how we love better.”
This book made me think so deeply about the ways in which books, like stones, can be carried through our lives for comfort.
How they, too, might act as guide.
How important books have been to so many of us at times of unsettling change, unspeakable grief, harrowing sorrow. Ruth’s message of the true nature of change is a gift in and of itself:
‘Change is not a fearful thing, but a natural phenomenon echoed throughout the universe on every conceivable scale, though it rarely arrives quickly, or stays forever. Being committed to the long process means looking at your place in the world through a longer lens, and being willing and able to change your mind, follow shifting intuitions and be more patient with yourself (and others) as you navigate your life and the challenges it presents along the way. Apprenticing ourselves to the long process also means staying open in the face of suffering, patient in the face of urgency and exploring how to live better with the rest of the living planet’
In this wee gem of a book,Robert Macfarlane talks of the gifts of both reading and of passing books on. Himself a writer of landscape, deep time and the liminal spaces in which humans and the other than human world meet, I find his take on books so moving. He says :
‘During the solitary months and years spent writing a book, it can be easy to forget that it will…enter the imaginations of readers and thrive there, that your hook might be crammed into pockets or backpacks and carried up mountains’.
This stone illustration by Mat Osmond in STONE, Atlantic Press, is so beautiful to me insofar as it reminds me of a nest; reminds me of the changing, metamorphic nature of stone, something I very rarely ponder actually.
But as Ruth shares with us, stone’s very being is one of deep, constant change.
I am confident this book will have a long life up mountains, in valleys, on lichen and moss and more. I am certain, too, though, that this book will be read after therapy sessions with faces streaked with salty, animal like tears. It will be read while breastfeeding in the wee small hours, as a new mother wonders when she will ever get back outside her front door let alone into the mountains. It will be passed between women in circles silently. It will be given to geology students who decide that actually perhaps they would much rather be a writer, or a tour guide, or a grower, or nothing at all for a wee while.
WEATHERING is not at all like any book I’ve had the joy of reading before but what I will say is that if you love books by women who love the land and all who dwell in, on, under, above, alongside and with her, then you will love this as much as I do. I found myself returning to a few beloved books after reading Ruth’s book and I’ll share them.
The pages above are from the wonderful WHEN I SING MOUNTAINS DANCE by Irene Solà; a section on geology that moved me beyond words.
A few more books below that you can turn to after you’ve read Ruth’s book, which really is a gift I feel everyone should have in their days and their lives right now.
MOVING MOUNTAINS edited by
is an excellent, exceptionally inspiring collection of writing the natural world through illness and disability. In Kerri Andrews’ essay she writes of returning to mountains with a diagnosis of haemochromatosis:‘I’m here where my body—my mighty, mutant body—has brought me. I’m here where I most belong.’
In the essay straight after that one, Roman Jaines writes of endometriosis, infertility, maternal narratives and the Peak District, where WEATHERING is a love letter to. Jaines talks of the stories embedded in the rock, how they can deliver solace in hard times as well as speak powerfully to the lore that spans time, place and creature alike:
‘The Dark Peak was formed by Mam Tor and her children from a loss, a slipping away of material from her form…The White Peak is neither a daughter nor a mother, and yet it’s submerged geographies are home to both life and concealed histories….The Light Peak has given me an alternative maternal narrative’
Shepherd’s THE LIVING MOUNTAIN is the book Robert McFarlane gives most as a gift and is one of the most beautiful mediations on mountains I’ve encountered. She ends the book like this :
‘Knowing another is endless…To know Being, this is the final grace accorded from the mountain.’
WEATHERING is an ode to BEING.
Utterly beautiful, honest, raw and true, Ruth gives us life and the processes that make and mould it in such a striking, lasting way.
‘I want to trust in the ripple effect of small stones tossed into the water.’ ….
This book is one of those stones. 🪨 🖤
A huge thanks to all go read my work, it means the world. If you’ve been on the fence about a paid subscription, some very exciting offerings are in the pipeline for spring and summer, including monthly members’ circles and early access to a brand new writing course, so now might be the time!
Brightly.
Kerri x
Kerri, this is one of the most unbelievably generous moments for me and will long linger in my heart when the day is done. You are such a beautiful soul, full of abundance and care and generosity. You lead the way in how to be so utterly companionable and kind, with not an ounce of withholding ever. I find you so inspiring. I love your words here, your kindness about Weathering (you're right it is a bit different isn't it) and the way you have situated alongside many books that I also love. Everything in that photo. You are wonderful and precious and you have made my day today, thank you one hundred times. I feel honoured to know you and be in your sphere 🩶🖤
Thank you so much Kerri for introducing us to Ruth and this book. I can’t wait to read it x