Hi friends,
Two things.
Firstly, I’m pretty ill. So, with massive apologies to paid subscribers, the audio version of this post will be late, as I currently sound like rocks chucked down corrugated iron.
Secondly, this week’s post is a scene I wrote for two mates. Jordan Riley and Blake Hohenhaus are former students of mine but now head up ‘Lunch Friend’, an indie theatre company. For the Anywhere Theatre Festival this year, they invited many writers (and opened submissions) to write a concise scene. It had to, in some way, be about the weather.
Below is my contribution for your enjoyment. A fair chunk had to be edited for time, but below is the uncut version.
The production ended up winning the award for best theatre of the festival. Nice!
Love,
Dave
This scene is a ritual.
One or several leaders may share the leader text among them. The remainder of the text may be projected or somehow shared among the audience. It is suggested that the leaders pre-select several ‘speakers’ from the audience ahead of time.
There’s nothing particularly ironic or tongue-in-cheek about this. It’s a sincere marking of time, and a space to give thanks to the planet.
LEADER Hello. And welcome to this - a secular liturgy for the end of the world.
This is a space where we can come together, acknowledge some truths, and give thanks and praise to Gaia, Mother Earth.
Before we begin, we gather here tonight in truths that we believe are self-evident and unchanging.
Please stand.
SPEAKER(S) It is true that human beings are not separate from, nor superior to, the natural world that surrounds them. That we are bound eternally together in a sacred relationship.
It is true that human beings have wrought great damage to the natural systems of the planet, both by accident and with deliberate intent.
It is true that an apocalypse is coming. The scale of this is unknowable, but a great change is certain. Continents will change shape. There will be danger. There will be rebirth.
It is true that within this change humans will awaken from their great forgetting. They will remember what we have always known. That we are a part of the natural world, and it is a part of us.
ALL Nothing is tamed.
Nothing is wild.
All simply is.
Praise Earth.
LEADER Please be seated.
Thank you all.
We will now lead a meditation. It will begin with music. From 1920, in London, in the midst of the industrial revolution and in the shadow of the howling sounds of the first world war, Ralph Vaugn Williams was moved enough by birdsong to compose this: The Lark Ascending. Please close your eyes.
Some music is played for however long you can manage. (Be fucking cool if it was live.) Then, the leader speaks:
Consider:
The sight of wind moving in the treetops of a vast forest.
The feeling of warm sand between your naked toes.
The deep and pungent smell of rain.
That feeling, on a hot summers day, of lying under the shade of a tree, your eyes to the sky, and the weight of the planet behind you. Feel how it holds you. Feel how it keeps you safe.
The music fades.
LEADER You may open your eyes.
Praise Earth.
ALL Praise Earth.
LEADER To close we offer a blessing. If you would like to receive a blessing from fresh rainwater, please come forward.
Much like communion, there are bowls of fresh rainwater (if you can), and these are offered to people by simply marking their forehead and then: ‘The Earth supports you. The Earth wants you to be here.’
Once the audience have had their blessing, the elected leader may receive theirs, in which - just for fun - they get a decent amount of water poured directly onto their head.
In conclusion:
LEADER Thank you. This concludes the liturgy. We now have a space to give thanks. If anyone would like to step forward and offer a special thanks to any particular aspect of the weather, the climate, or of Mother Earth, you are welcome to share that now.
A space is offered.
We leave here with new energy, reminded of the great forgetting. We leave here in praise of Earth, as the earth praises you. Praise Earth.
ALL Praise Earth.