Psychology of the poem;
Getting to grips with perspectives on communities spread throughout towns, and villages across a regional landscape in central England, I started to imagine a pond.

Listening in to Racheal from MAKE/SHIFT speaking on how working regionally, within and between boundaries determined by councils, landlines, communities, and the heritage of each of those communities living within areas within the region, and how on maps that identify various depths of the earths surface, how Derbyshire’s geology transitions between the Carboniferous limestones of the Peak District and the Coal Measures clays and ironstones of the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire coalfields, also plays a role in the way the land is boundaried - but also, what struck me most, is how areas within the Amber Valley are managed by multiple expressions of councils - which all creates challenges and difficulties in producing a project that works across all of these boundaries and challenges and still supports communities to reestablish relationships and power through creativity and, essentially, social-change for the benefit of Amber Valley’s communities. Expressing these in the framing of counter mapping and bioregionalism, and how MAKE/SHIFT - moving at the speed of trust - were trying to get to grips with how best to compassionately create unity between the different constituents.

After hearing Andrea share how she created a counter map with an important member of the community within the Amber Valley, meeting them through a mutual friend at a music night, to then sitting together to COUNTER MAP the strengths of the community, and how through intentional, active listening enabled Clare to express everything in her head regarding her role and what was happening within the community and region, Andre uncovered a COLLECTIVE of important, actibe community members (one might term CORNER STONE SPECIES) who Clare gathered together to facilitate a recreation of the counter map with Claire but on a wider, collaborative, community council which represented a variety of different professions and ways of being (essentially, not an actual council as we see them being ran at the moment) counter map with the collective which mapped out places of strength - working from the MICRO to the MACRO.

With this storytelling from Angela thread in post discussion from Racheal at MAKE/SHIFT, I could see the layers of it all, land, people, organisation, council - all of it as a pond, and the MAKE/SHIFT team as a HERON, a pond as an image for the landscape and community and the life of the pond as the communities, landscapes, geology and systems at play within Derbyshire. For me, the pond became the container for understanding and the heron and reflection of the pond as a guide for how best to operate accross a region. Imagine then Amber Valley as a pond, with all of its plant life and animal species, and MAKE/SHIFT - as liminal as the name suggests and might I add a brilliant expression of the

asthenosphere-

1. the upper layer of the earth's mantle, below the lithosphere, in which there is relatively low resistance to plastic flow and convection is thought to occur.how the tectonic plates

which at first I imagined the divisions and boundaries of different geological land masses press up to eachother much like the dividing tectonic plates but on the upper most layer of the earths crust - anyway, I also think MAKE/SHIFT is to make a pond, shift with it.

I had no idea at the time that there was actually a pond on the SIGNAL chat image from Amber Side - a pit lake - created in the wake of a mine. The sentience of the land, the more than human, the gathering of us all in residential

Reflections on the language of the poem itself -

I say ‘I am thinking on a Pond’ not of a pond because, essentially the image of the sky in the pond is the imagination, the theories, the birds eye view of the land, the thought processes on where and how to land in relationship with both the people and the region, but also because I landed on the image of a pond when I was trying to make sense of what I was hearing. The Pond helped me make sense of the topics in discussion. Putting myself in the perspective of Racheal articulating boundaries, council structures and community differences (with heritages / family descended from mining, farming, services) I saw the beings - the different species in the pond as metephorical respresentaions of the people of Amber Valley and how the blurred edhes of the pond represents the blurred edges of the boundaries of the land and the blurred edges of organisations community work. I am in the scene as the beings, but the ‘I am’ is also Andrea, Racheal, Izzy, Clare landing liminally as heron but also in the pond as community members.

The story of the pond, submerging myself in the potential of the earth, to heal wounds with life, more than human life, to make havens for our recommoning of land, to give power to all who live, but also the potential of being invited by life in the pond to be one with it before the people come - Heron as MAKE/SHIFT stepping in and waiting - at the speed of trust.

Racheal also shared with me the maps of the geolocial make up of Amber Valley and told me about how they fill these mine wounds with rubble and waste and then sell this to property developers who build on top of the sites, a dangerous way of building homes that leads to sink holes, gas leaks and other risks - the pond is also potential, as is landing on an idea or act of creation or route to map out how best to introduce and engage all of these said communities in ways to council, become empowered and establish connection and deeper relationships for the Understory.

in my minds eye, the image I had was of a bowl, like Amber Valley was carved out with a pick ax, and with all the conversations with FLAX, making one big sail across the landscape with communities as a way to weave all together whilst paying homage to Flax Seed heritage of the area, I wonder now if this is a boat that could float accross the pond, and if the people knew they had a pond to keep in order to mast that sail and make it across time shifts as a way to heal and take action for the life, the home we’re contributing to the destruction of…