The Lily
This land is my memories. For two thousand years this valley
has been mine alone. I know every rock, every stream and every
tree. I know the forces that shape this land and the people who
inhabit it.
A billion years ago this land was a migratory trail for the
animals of Western Europe. They roamed freely across the huge
land of one continent. Millennia passed as the rivers washed
silt to the ocean and the sun raised rain to the sky. At that
time the mass of Eurasia was joined. The tectonic plates shifted
and islands formed, raising proud, green peninsulas on green
water, thrust out to the ocean. Long before my time the forces
of nature battled along the coasts of Western Europe. From the
Southwest, the Gulf Stream warmed and opened the land with
summer heat. From the north, ice raged and cracked the rock of
what would become the British Isles.
The land tells me it was an epic struggle. The generous heat of
earth, venting her spleen, the wash of the water, cooling and
circulating air. Rain succoured the land and ran back to the
sea, endless cycles, repeating endlessly. The earth shifted,
chasms opened and the sea swept in, submerging areas and
separating the islands of Britain and Ireland from the mainland.
Spouts of boiling lava spewed from the molten centre of earth to
create granite formations, a source of wonder till the end of
time. A great rift opened up what is now the Bristol Channel and
the Irish Sea, separating the land into distinct areas. Many
characteristics still connect Brittany, Ireland, Wales, and
Cornwall. Their joining can still be seen in place and people.
But veins of power run through the sea, a matrix of energy
criss-crosses the land and reaches out around our planet.
The