Lamenting the Great Unravelling by Jude Lally

At this exact moment, a Minke Whale is surfacing for air in the Hebrides. Her long back arching, as her small dorsal fin cuts through the water.

What memories does she hold? What knowledge is passed down through her lineage of the deep-diving ancient ones? How they must long for clean and quiet waters.

I gather her songs, winding them like yarn, into the weave.

On the Isle of Rum, with the last of the wild March weather, a Red Deer stag looks to the night sky, stars reflected in his eye. From him, I gather some of his blood-red velvet, which hangs like gruesome ribbons from his new antlers.

On Jura, a Barn Owl flies silently in the threshold of the day, a flash of white swooping down, talons grasping an unsuspecting vole.

I have picked up many of her pellets, undigested bone, and fur. Divination into the inky black night as I sew the bones onto the weaving.

As dawn breaks, a majestic Golden eagle takes flight. Her vision is so great she can see into the past and the future. I sketch out her vision, and roll it up tightly into a scroll.

Life is fragile, so finely woven together that a slackening of the warp can mean the weave will fall apart when taken off the loom.

This Bean Chaointe laments this great unraveling, yet whispers perhaps a new world awaits


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