As we slowly move towards Springtime, when all the indigenous peoples of the land crawl out of their respective huts and caravans and start to travel the countryside in service of fun and frivolity, it occurred to me that it was time to start moving and shaking the Countryside Ancient Ways Legacy (otherwise known as CAWL) tree again and stick at least an updated balance on the interwebs – just over £2,200 – in a hope that this might again raise the profile of what is hoped to be achieved by this project and why I think it be important.
CAWL is more than just about finding a “home tree” for the wandering avatars, minstrals and bands of pantheonists, it is about gaining (I will not state reclaiming, a term that has been bent into submission by its as many connotations) and maintaining an area of land that can be regenerated and re-energised.
What do I mean by this?
Well as an ever growing and spreading population we do tend to take our British land for granted. It gets used and abused, the soil is farmed to verge of baroness and the mighty developers are ever ready to slap several feet of concrete over it may it never see the sun, and that is just the areas not already subjected to erosion and persistent flooding as Gaia grasps to regain her unsteady balance.
Personally I think we need to stop and respect our land more. It is all fair and well to continue to support the places of ancient relevance that still exist and protest to maintain their contextual landscape, but it is also just as right to want to rescue our neglected areas, and to rekindle their wildness.
It is a fact that the UK is suffering a form of deforestation. Many of the plantations that were instilled for their wood are now being cut down for lumber and paper and land clearance. Some are being replaced with like for like and far fewer are being regenerated as the kind of deciduous mixed woodland that used to cover much of England. Perhaps fortunately or unfortunately depending on your glass, this turnover tends to rely on government funding – a fickle financial beast of a kind forever changing its spots. Currently, the tendency is for plantation to be replaced by heath moorland, or marshland regeneration, all good and wonderful projects to help maintain British wildlife, but we also need to save our native trees, and give our native mammals somewhere to expand into.
My answering of the CAWL would be for re-planting on the scale that would once again create proper woodland and not just the kind of managed parkland so favoured because it has none of that untidy shrubbery, or obstructions to the dog-walkers with their pocket shears slowly carving out a new footpath daily (I have seen this happen!).
For this ambition to be realised there needs to be a place, a start, and as a by-product as way of a hook into a community with many already eco-centric and like minded individuals, as way of promoting ourselves and our intentions seriously, this land can be served by Pagans – used in its original context as “people of the countryside”.
This is a fine opportunity to establish our already green credentials.
However, there is effort involved … time and perhaps more importantly money… (now I never really got my head around why the subject of money should be regarded with such disdain that talking about it openly is regarded with some kind of inverted snobbery. Is this a Pagan or just a generally British thing?) … but money or rather “funding” for it is important to use the correct terminology, (in the same way as “regeneration” has fallen fashion to “renaissance”) is what is needed to buy this initial seed.
I know there are already many keen willing hands to do the planting and the maintaining and the trimming and pruning and all those enjoyable activities, the list goes on and on, but the only way to obtain the ground to turn a conception into realisation is via CASH.
So there you have it CAWL needs not just your support, as an organisation the Countryside Ancient Ways Legacy needs your funding. And in case you were worried that this might all sound like one of the particularly peculiar type of quangos, I can advise that all monies raised to date have been to the benefit of CAWL, mainly to launch the organisations first publication ‘Answering the CAWL‘ (what do you mean you’ve not bought your copy via Amazon yet?) in order to multiply funds and spread the word – call it Stage 1.
Find out more from the Facebook Fan page
(doesn’t require an account or a login to view)
I have bought my copies and not just because there are a few of my photos in there too, hehe, and have freely given many hours of time over to the setting up of social networking sites advertising the CAWL aims, and banged the tin at the local pub moot, for I believe that this project will achieve its goal.
But one individual, or group of individuals is not enough, we need hundreds of individuals to help raise awareness, do collections and sponsored events, or just donate a pound – think of all the Pagans in England that declared themselves on the Census, and if they just bought a copy of the book or donated just one pound how much this could ease this project forward.
Well it makes me think, and hope and wonder and perhaps dance a little, that there might be a grove of trees or habitat that my energies have helped, and that these places will be entrusted to future generations.
In fact, I have an urge to go plant a tree right now, and thinking on, donate the loose change to that which has such potential to be much greater.
Eclectic Badger's Settcetera 