Source material: Angela Greenwood’s Loving Earth panel

‘I experienced my creation “developing” almost on its own.’

My tapestry panel for the Loving Earth Project (above) is, I think, beautiful and chaotic. For me it evokes memories of a wonderful, creative, friendly and messy learning experience, in a serene house with my tennis club friends. I want to share how it all came about.

Increasingly over the years I have become interested in ‘life processes’ – in the little synchronicities that life presents, and how even difficulties and pain can bear rich fruit, if we just get out of the way. Our tennis club ‘Loving Earth’ session came about through a former member of our local Quaker Earth Meditation Group. Prevented from attending the group because of pain, they emailed me about an article in Britain Yearly Meeting’s newsletter. It was encouraging Friends to imagine, or go to, a local sacred place and contemplate its beauty and vulnerability. The Othona Community, set on the wild and beautiful Bradwell peninsula in Essex, just behind the mudflats, immediately came into my mind. After discussion at our Business Meeting I offered to organise a day there to contemplate the earth, plant trees, and meditate on its sacredness, beauty and vulnerability.

Following our Meeting for Worship at Othona, Kathy South from nearby Maldon Meeting told us about the Loving Earth Project, which asks Quakers and friends to create squares based on this theme, for a tapestry to be shown at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow. I mentioned it to several Quakers and, although they were interested – and some very skilled in tapestry making – for various reasons they were unable to commit to it.

But it stayed in my mind. Then I happened to overhear an enthusiastic conversation at the tennis club about the intricacies of tapestry making, and on the spur of the moment I asked: ‘Are you interested in climate change?’ ‘No’ Hilary retorted sarcastically, then ‘Of course I am. I have grandchildren!’ So I told her about the Loving Earth Project and she ended up leading a group in her house. It was perfectly equipped for tapestry making, with all the materials you could wish for – and in a beautiful setting, too.

Hilary happily and competently took the lead and many tennis club friends were keen to join. We had a wonderful, reflective and creative day. I learned new skills and experienced my creation ‘developing’ almost on its own into something more profound and disturbing than I could have imagined. It grew into storms, forest fires and chaos. It is messy, but somehow beautiful. It is moving me towards contemplating the pain – but also the necessity, and even the joy – of growth.

See more about the Loving Earth Project at https://lovingearth-project.

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