Planting Hope: In Conversation with Bridgid Normand on the Use of Art, Seeds, and Words to Combat Climate Change

It’s no surprise that marginalised and vulnerable communities are disproportionately affected, and therefore, it is vital, that when considering the ‘intersections’ —the crossed lines, layers, and complexities of multiple forms of oppression—we include climate.   

Intersectionality is a phrase first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a civil rights activist and legal scholar, in 1989. Crenshaw introduced the term to describe how different forms of discrimination, such as race, gender, and class, intersect and create unique experiences of marginalisation for individuals.  

Those of us already working in social justice contexts are rapidly adopting climate action as another facet of our activism, standing against oppression in all its forms. Indeed, many have been doing so for decades. We have the luxury of choice (not everybody does) and with that comes the uncomfortable acknowledgment of our own privilege.  

Our choices are - ignore, deny, or take action.  

Many of us have moved between all three of these options. From denial, “this can’t be happening,” to ignorance, fingers in the ears, hands over the eyes, “la la la la” all the way full circle to, “there is something I can do, it may be small, but it matters.”  

It matters for our empowerment, it matters for our own happiness and our sense of connectedness with the planet, people, and place, it matters that we care with our hearts, minds, and hands. What we feel, think, and do. It matters that we slow down and ‘take our sweet time’ so we have the time to take that care.  

NESCAN Hub's members care, and I had the privilege of meeting one of our new members recently at Envirolution (read more about that here.)  

Bridgid Normand introduced herself to me while I had a sweet potato in one hand and a tube of green paint in the other. I can explain—we were doing some 'advanced potato printing' with children on a giant picnic blanket so their grown-ups had an opportunity to chat and connect with some of the NESCAN Hub team on our information stall. Bridgid and I exchanged information and arranged a catch-up.

For me, the single best thing about community work is the joy of hearing people's stories, so of course, I asked Bridgid to tell me hers.

Making a Difference—A glimpse into Bridgid's Climate Action Story

Bridgid is making the move from Seattle to the Kincardine and Mearns area in Aberdeenshire. She has chosen Scotland as her son and his wife now live here.

She's been concerned about the climate since 1971, joining scientists and luminaries in the call to answer the question, 'What can I do?' She has chosen to face the climate crisis without anger and fear, but instead with curiosity, compassion, and grace. Throughout her work, she keeps these two queries close, they dovetail in her mind's eye;

'where is the life force?'

and

'where is the love?'

She asks if we, too, can hold these questions close and then move into action from that curious place of love and life force.

She told me about her involvement with the Red Rebels - a silent, activist, global performance movement - who adorn themselves in red garments and silently channel the grief and rage about the climate emergency and the love we feel for our planet. The solemnity of the group performance brings with it a particular air of peace and power.

Bridgid has also engaged in performance art through her work as an Earth Being, where a group dress in blue and green with flower headdresses and hand out wildflower seeds in an invitational act, a metaphor for what the Earth herself is inviting us to do, in order to open non-confrontational conversations around pollinators and biodiversity loss.

At one point, over the course of our discussion, I said to her, "So, you're an artist?" She neither confirmed nor denied my assertion but then I asked her if she writes poetry, and she said she had recently taken up the practice. Something she said reminded me of Andrea Gibson's poem, Love Letter from the Afterlife. So, we agreed to exchange poem (sometimes poets do this as a way to strike up a particular kind of friendship).

In that moment, I was reminded of the way Elizabeth Gilbert describes the way poems come into consciousness and onto a page - like 'catching ideas as they fly by.' In her book, Big Magic, she recounts what the poet Ruth Stone shared with her. 

When she was a child growing up on a farm in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the field when she would sometimes hear a poem coming toward her - hear it rushing across the landscape at her, like a galloping horse...she would "run like hell" toward the house, hoping to get a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough to catch it. That way, when the poem reached her and passed through her, she would be able to grab it and take dictation, letting the words pour forth onto the page. Sometimes, however, she was too slow, and she couldn't get to the pencil and paper in time. At those instances, she could feel the poem rushing right through her body and out the other side. It would be in her for a moment, seeking a response, and then it would be gone before she could grasp it...But sometimes, she would nearly miss the poem, but not quite. She would just barely catch it, she explained, "by the tail." Like grabbing a tiger. Then she would almost physically pull the poem back into her with one hand, even as she was taking dictation with the other. In these instances, the poem would appear on the page from the last word to the first - backward, but otherwise intact. 

When Bridgid is dressed as an Earth Being, she hands out the packets of wildflower seeds and offers questions for reflection. She invited us to sit with our questions and to nurture them as if they are seeds. To enable them to grow in our hearts and minds and allow our thinking around these questions to grow and change too. Instinctively, she understands that having the questions on a piece of art rather than a scrap of paper or a flyer would increase their value in the hand of the receiver and be kept for longer, maybe magnetised to a fridge, pinned to a board, or used as a bookmark for a while in the home of the receiver. She created collages and printed them as postcards and her postcard series asks:

• What kind of ancestor do you want to be?
• What does the Earth require of us?
• What kind of legacy do you want to leave?
• What are the children of the future asking us?

Have we forgotten that we are nature? That our struggle to be more fully human, more fully and joyfully alive, is bound up, tightly wound, with the struggle of our planet, our only home, to regulate itself.  

We have forgotten our humanity, ourselves as part of nature, as part of the earth, we have forgotten that we do care.  

But we can remember to care again.  

To care for ourselves, the earth, and each other. We can remember that we too are Earth Beings. 

What if, our capacity to look after each other is only ever as great as our capacity to look after the Earth? What if the epidemic of loneliness, isolation, and disconnectedness is directly proportional to our capacity for care?

Be Part of the Change 

NESCAN Hub is a dynamic and growing network of individuals and groups passionate about addressing climate change in their communities. We enable communities to take the meaningful steps and actions needed to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change where they live and work. The strength of our network means we are a leading voice for community climate action in North East Scotland and a go-to resource for information, education, and collaboration. We’d love you to join us – find out more here. 
 
In Kincardine and Mearns, NESCAN Hub is embarking on a narrative inquiry research project so that community members have a safe and supportive opportunity to share their stories, to be listened to, for their fears, hopes, and heartfelt action can be documented and shared. It’s vitally important that society does not lose or underestimate this work. The compilation of stories will contribute to our growing archive of materials communities produce in the honourable struggle for a Just Transition and just like Bridgid we take on this struggle with love and curiosity, your stories become seeds in the minds and hearts of readers.  
 
If you live in K&M and would enjoy the opportunity to talk, to share your story please contact claire@nescan.org for more information.