All the errors and follies of magic, religion, and mystical traditions are outweighed by one great wisdom they contain – the awareness of humanity’s organic embeddedness in a complex natural system. And all the brilliant, sophisticated insights of Western rationalism are set at nought by the egregious delusion on which they rest – that of human autarchy.

Earthwalk, Philip Slater, Bantam 1974

A collaboration with the artist Caroline Ross for Art.Earth’s Borrowed Time summit last November. When it became clear that Caro and I would be sharing a panel, I messaged her an audio file of the essay I’d be reading, wondering if she’d like to collaborate somehow.

Caro set the essay to Play on her phone and picked up her charcoal. Here’s her unrehearsed first take.

I love what happened here – which will become one of two Strandline Books poem\picture\prose chapbook collaborations with Caro in 2023.

A previous edit of this essay ran in Dark Mountain #17, in summer 2020: Black Light: on mourning, regenerative culture and the tangled roots of the Black Madonna.