My clay Letter to the Earth

29th October 2022

I follow a wonderful organisation called Letters to the Earth @letterstotheearth_ which is a creative response to our climate and nature emergency.

They collect and share messages of love, despair and hope of what is happening to our world, offering a platform of collective voices to be heard and to inspire a deeper relationship with each other and the Earth. It is an opportunity to write our fears, frustrations and love, to process what is happening to the world and to create something new.

What do you have to say?

Here is my clay Letter to the Earth:

Dear Earth, dear Womb, dear Great Mother

I call upon your greatness, you of the dark soil and deep oceans, of strong mountains and all knowing rivers, I am lost and call upon you. Bring us your strength and courage so that we can stand tall again in honour of your greatness. Let these stones be cleared from our path, so that it can be made clear for us to walk on and to know what the path asks of us. Dear Mother, I am but made of you, soil and blood and broken bone, I walk without the shimmer of your stars to guide me. We are your lost children, fearful and stumbling in the dark, we have forgotten where we all once came from. Show us the light of the moon that is brave to be seen in her scarred and sacred ways, that the wounds we carry and spread across this path are also worthy. I am sorry that we have forgotten how to seek counsel from the wind, the setting sun, the ocean’s murmur and the river’s sense of knowing.

Dear Mother, I worry that we have taken too much, that the blood red earth has become too tainted with our clenching, our grasping, our senseless consuming. Great Mother I am sorry, please show us the way back to your shade, so that we too can find counsel in the rest a tree can offer and delight in simple bird song. We are but lost children dear Mother. You are the blood in our veins, the sun in our hearts, the humble soil in our soul. Dear Mother I am sorry we have forgotten. Please help us remember and come home again.

This ceramic piece is a visual interpretation of a Zulu Love Letter, a traditional beaded and creative way to say ‘I love you’, ‘I adore you’ or ‘be mine’. In KwaZulu-Natal South Africa, home to the Zulu people, Zulu women used coloured beads to express and ‘write’ their feelings in colours and symbols, as well as to communicate their marital status. These love letters are rectangular flap containing beads where each colour is carefully chosen to convey different feelings and meanings. For example, it is said that when white and black are used together, this usually refers to a message pertaining to marriage. If red is shown next to black, this portrays an aching heart. Red, black and yellow (from the red oxide, yellow and and manganese used in the ceramic piece) denotes negative connotations, suggesting that the relationship, (like that between humanity and Mother Earth) is not working and is in peril.

The image below from Zulu.org.za shows some Zulu Love Letter examples. (Copyright of image @Zulu.org.za)

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