The River Severn

12 members of the Earth Listening Circles of the Deep Adaptation Forum visited places local to them and did an Earth Exchange, as part of a global collaboration to listen to wounded places

As l arrived l saw someone had beaten me to it, and as there was only apparently one sitting space l wasn’t sure whether to stay. This burly young fisherman covered in tattoos and missing a tooth saw me with my stick and said that l should be careful as it was very slippery. I changed my mind on discovering a second place slightly higher up and over to the left of where he was and asked if he minded if l got my chair and sat there for a while. He was most polite and amenable so l did. As l sat staring at the polluted sad river l saw a butterfly, then a swan flew over making a loud noise, song birds were everywhere and l saw two long tailed tits. When l asked the river what it wanted me to know, it said it was surprised at my question because no one ever actually talked to it. Yes they came and used it. Power boats, houseboats and small pleasure boats came past, but the folks on board were speaking to each other not to the river. It really appreciated me taking the time to ask it how it felt, which included brown, dirty, poisoned, and sad. I agreed to visit again and left it a tiny posy of herbs including lavender, sage and mint collected lovingly from my garden earlier.