‘The third light of Advent is the light of beasts, the light of hope that we may see in the greatest and the least.’
Steiner Advent verse
Yesterday was the third Sunday of advent. Frost covered the whole world outside our small home. I stepped outside to walk the dog and found a coal tit — frozen — laid beside my favourite piece of mint green sea glass on the window ledge. My partner and I have, for quite some time now, been burying the creatures that we find dead. Creating a form of ceremony around their loss; marking their lives in the only way that feels right: quietly , and with beauty.
The winter and spring we spent in Cornwall —the ones that have just gone by— delivered more creaturely loss than I had ever before encountered. Our landlady kept hens, and had no desire to keep the foxes out. She butchered too — roosters, deer, pheasants, rabbits —as a vegetarian I’d never been in such close proximity to such activity. Never before had I been so close, so regularly, to the beginning & the ending of life. The lives of animals. In her front porch were skulls & bones, feet & claws, wings & horns. The bodies of animals. I was profoundly moved by it. By the whole experience. I shocked myself by the manner in which I responded, over & over, to the nearness of such organic loss. She told me, just days after we met, that she had spent the whole night dreaming of the stag that was lying under cloth on her butcher’s table waiting for her to cut it into pieces of various size to freeze for the fallow times she knew were ahead. In the dream the pair of them were in dialogue. She spoke of it so bluntly, so affectingly, that I myself dreamed of the stag too. The longer I spent in her company the more I understood that I had ( I have) so much still to learn about being human. About being animal. About being a mammal.
In the early days of the pandemic my partner and I began clearing and planting our first garden, the one in which he found—just yesterday—the frozen body of a coal tit. One day I came back from walking the dog to a gift from him, laid on a beautiful pink moon saucer, made by a dear friend I have never met in person. That piece of pottery is long returned to the earth; given to the soil in the garden we planted , just moments after it shattered on the concrete floor beneath my feet—a thing of beauty—dropped, gone. The gift was a bone— small and oddly shaped. I turned to Twitter, and within an hour it had been identified as the pelvic girdle of a rat.
I’m still not sure why I’m so attached to this bone. It’s certainly got something to do with the time and the place in which it was found; a visual reminder of the year all of our lives changed forever. Cacophony of Bone tries to mark that year in a quiet, truthful way. I spent lots of the time writing it thinking about what it means to pay tribute to the ordinary in our days. The quiet, the small, the often overlooked. And what it means to pay attention to other creatures; one animal to the other.
In The Second Body, Daisy Hildyard writes ‘Humans do not see themselves as animals in their day-to-day lives’, and I want to redress this strange, unsettling truth best I can. I’m not sure, by any stretch, how to do this. I’m not even really sure where to begin. I tell myself that through the desire alone I have placed myself on the path; that awareness alone is a percentage (certainly nowhere near half) of the battle. I fail even when it comes to wording: there is no need for any battle. Quite the opposite, in fact. In order to move towards a sense of equality in our dealings with the other animals we are lucky enough to share this planet with; the overriding word that springs to mind for me is : peace. Pure and simple. Learning how to be at peace. Within ourselves; within our animal bodies.Learning to be at peace with change; with anxiety; with loss; with everything. Striving to be at peace with every other creature we meet along the path.
Peace is, the older I get, an increasingly tricky word. How best to be at peace in a world so set on destruction? On a planet so aching; so wounded; so astonishingly beautiful despite it all? How might we continue to care; to grieve; to love— whilst still keeping our human hearts intact? I read somewhere — likely an Instagram page I don’t even follow— that to be a mother is to walk around with your heart on the outside of you. Right there, on the very surface of your skin. I can’t speak for anyone else , but I think I was like this even before giving birth. However it does feels different now. How could it not? I don’t think the heart I wear on my freezing skin these days is even the same heart I had before: I don’t recognise it’s songs; it’s dances; it’s fears — all of these are brand new to me—and I am still trying to learn this new heart’s tender, unapologetic language.
And so here is all I seem able to do well these days; I go outside. I allow myself to be led into the world outside my stone home; my animal body taking its place beside all the others in these freezing, almost midwinter fields. I watch bats in the barn as the sun drops down into the deep puddle behind us with my young son. As the finches & tits, robins & blackbirds, arrive to the feeder I listen to the glee in my child’s voice as he eats his porridge just across a thin pane of glass from them. When the snipe lifts up from the hard frost into a pink sky full of the cold moon & invisible planets; I don’t break his silence. As he begs me to wander further down the lane : ‘ horses, horses, horses’ — I do not allow myself to ignore him; to encourage him home, instead, to the stove and hot oat milk. Who am I to dull down this desire in him—so insistent as to be a need — to check on the five creatures I understand, listening to the relief in his young voice— he has been worried about. How could he know they would make it through this day that started with him burying a frozen bird? How could I know? When did I forget to care in this way?
I hold my son’s hand and give thanks for the life of the wee bird. I explain to him how much I loved the ash that used to grow from the stump in which we place it’s fragile body; how much I still do. I allow the animal of me to respond how it wants to. I hold nothing back. That night , before he sleeps he makes the sound for bird as he drifts into sleep and I wonder if we will dream of it’s wee body in our hands. I wonder if we will be changed by these moments in ways that might make some form of a difference. I wonder if in learning to see myself more truly as a part of this kingdom —both big and small — I might find ways to give voice to my own needs. The mammal in me; the mother; the animal. In trying to give voice to motherhood; I am trying to give voice to mammalhood.
I’m incredibly grateful so many of you have decided to walk this path by my side. Being a creative, a writer, one that tries to give voice to the world around them, feels so different since becoming a parent. Since becoming a mother that hopes to keep their child as close to them as possible, for as long as that child would like. Motherhood has changed everything for me, but most of all it has reshaped the way I am able to make work. For that is what these words are to me—work. I don’t mean that in any way I view this as hard or taxing—merely that I turn up to the page full of the hope that this labour will translate as something good; something light; something full of hope —which is needed more than ever.
I have added the ability to be a paid subscriber to this page. Either monthly or annually, but I will not ever have anyone left out from this space. I understand that is not quite how it is supposed to work: I’m supposed to leave some content for only those that can afford or wish to contribute financially; therefore allowing me to pay my bills and continue to write. However this does not sit right with me. I would encourage you, if you like this page, and have the means to contribute financially please do. I’ll write a letter or thanks to anyone that does— so if you’d like to offer the gift of story to anyone for this special season — that can be arranged. If you can’t contribute financially but want to keep reading, please message me.
There’s also the choice to Buy me a coffee occasionally if that suits at all.
We will find a way no matter the circumstances.
I don’t have a room of my own, or even the time let alone space to turn up as much as I’d like here but I will post biweekly. It is providing such deep nourishment for me. I don’t know how the future looks for social media , but I have such faith in the power of community to deliver what is needed in times of deep change.
Thankyou for being here , whether you decide to become a paid subscriber or not. I am so grateful for every ounce of this space, and am proud of the changes in me that have allowed me to place value on my work; on these words that are born in a heart that grows more animal; more mammal, by the day. X
I’m new to your writing Kerri but I just wanted to say that I’m currently reading your first book during these final days of the year, in a thin place of my own as I wait for menstrual cycle to begin again. The way you write is breathtakingly, achingly beautiful, every page is so rich with meaning.
I finished writing the first draft of my own memoir just a few months ago and I only hope it will be received half as well as yours has been ♥️
Thank you for this, Kerri. Beautiful food for thought. You write in such a way as I can almost envision the scene in front of me - the details like naming the birds, the porridge for breakfast.
This was my favourite part:
"Who am I to dull down this desire in him—so insistent as to be a need — to check on the five creatures I understand, listening to the relief in his young voice— he has been worried about. How could he know they would make it through this day that started with him burying a frozen bird? How could I know? When did I forget to care in this way?"
It really spoke to me, and reminded me - the thought that I was once a child like that, so singularly focused on seeing the horsies, or whoever it be. The worry, then the relief.
The reminder that there was a time when impermanence was a concept beyond our understanding but that maybe the inkling is naturally there, he doesn't understand yet about what to expect when he wakes up, whether who he loved last night will still be there this morning.
And, now, in hindsight, the realisation that we're so rarely immersed in the minutiae like that, totally focused on something in nature, something that matters probably more than most things we worry about.
Sorry for such a long response- your words just always dislodge something in me (in a good way!), and I feel compelled to share the feelings that came with that