A Basket of Gifts

Light, story, colour, words, music

Merry Christmas and Good Yule to all Uncivil Savant readers.

When you receive this I will hopefully still be fast asleep in a spare room at my mum’s house in Scotland, before a day which will probably include a quick hike up into the Ochils, then enjoyable hours in the kitchen cooking the meat parts of a celebration roast dinner for my family. Next door, at my sister’s place, the veggie side of things will be coming together, and my nephews will probably come and bring me a drink at some point, which will do little to improve my cooking timings, so good lists, written on paper, will be essential.

I am acutely aware how lucky I am to have family 500 miles away to visit and to live somewhere where I can jump on a train to go and see them. I hope you are equally blessed.

This week is a ‘between essays’ week, so here are a few gifts and good things, which I hope you will enjoy. I will be back with a longer piece next week.

All good wishes to you, Caro.

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A Story Gift

This time last year I posted ‘The Clay Ball Story’, probably one of my favourite teaching stories of all time. You may have missed it, if you were not yet a subscriber, so here’s a link to it. It is a traditional martial arts / Taoist meditation parable that I read many years ago, fell in love with, then completely lost the source book and have never been able to track it down. I created this version from memory, a decade ago.

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Colour Gifts

My debut book Found and Ground came out in June and has now been translated from the original English into Spanish, German and French, for publication early next year. It’s a how-to book about making simple, inexpensive, eco-friendly paints from found and foraged materials. I was surprised to receive a box of 4 samples of each book this week. I only need to keep a couple of each, I think. I’d like to give one in each language away to a place that would appreciate them and maybe wouldn’t have money to buy these books. If there’s a refugee centre, special needs school, community arts centre or underfunded library, etc, near you that you know personally, let me know by email by pressing ‘reply’ to this email newsletter. I’ll put names in a hat if there are more than one per language on 1st January 2024 and get in touch with the winning nominator. You don’t need to put the full address yet, just choose which language you want and write something like:

‘French. Montréal Community Open Arts Centre, Québec, Canada.’

You get the idea. I won’t look the places up, it’ll just be a lottery based on my readers’ personal suggestions. I’ll pay all the postage, worldwide. You don’t need to do anything else apart from give me the address if I get in touch with you, as it’s a gift. I’m doing the same on my Instagram, but it’s a very different readership here, so it’s worth repeating. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

UPDATE 01 01 2024: the English book was won by Pauline S of UK. There are still French, Spanish and German books available.

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The new Dark Mountain 24 book Eight Fires is now available, and I have a set of elemental drawings / diagrams in it which were drawn with sticks, stones, feathers, charcoal and reed. It’s a beautiful book full of hearty practices to take you through the year, as well as the usual excellent writing and art. You can order a copy here. The stunning cover below was created by my friend the artist, designer and calligrapher Candace Jensen.

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Music Gifts

I have been tending the Uncivil Savant Spotify playlist. Some weeks I don’t add anything, other weeks, it feels like I am piling the smörgåsbord high! Its vibe is ‘longing, joy and low-slanting sunlight’, as that’s frankly still what I need, most of all. I hope you enjoy digging-in. It’s already 310 songs long and guaranteed calorie-free, with occasional grooves between the yearning tunes that may even get you up off your sofa.

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This week’s good thing: The incomparable Low, once again. In the year where the world lost Mimi Parker, one of the greatest and most beautiful voices ever in rock, I think, I’d like to feature one of their most affecting songs. Listen here to If you were Born Today (Song For Little Baby Jesus), from their 1999 Christmas EP. The whole record is superb…

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Merry Christmas and midwinter holly-berry best to you all, Caro.

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