Angharad Wynne

It is not by accident that the word ‘nature’ flooded the languages of Europe and transformed meaning rapidly during the Renaissance, a period in which European philosophy and spirituality began to shift from sacred reverence to intellectual detachment. While artists celebrated natural beauty, they simultaneously developed tools to measure, categorise, and dominate it, setting the stage a century and a half later for the Scientific Revolution

Deep is the magic of fire-tending through dark hours, of giving a night’s sleep as an offering: a sacrifice for a prayer’s flight. It effects change. Things that were ordinary are no longer so; we commune with a night and its fathomless wisdom, with all its tides, hoots and howls.

These days artists, writers and makers are celebrated for ‘their creativity’, but this idea of creativity being located within an individual is a recent departure from an ancient understanding of inspiration as a sacred gift, drawn from all life — a communal resource able to be brought through skilfully by those who could listen deeply and who had honed their skills to bring it through in service to the community.