Being of Earth - Paperback

Longland, Stella: - I was born on a farm in Suffolk, England, just after the second world war. The ancient house was a wreck with no electricity and no running water; fields of nettles, three foot high, grew right up to the front door. On the adjacent farm, the cattle still lived in the ground floor of the house supplying, during the winter months, a form of underfloor heating for the people living above. We had cattle too, three Jersey cows, sweet-natured beasts, and I remember, at about the age of three, riding on their shoulders to the cowshed, held in place by my beloved friend, the farm foreman. My older brother and sister were not very keen on me; tagging along behind them, I held up their games. They were playing Cowboys and Indians, and I was given the role of the Red Indian. I remember saying that I wanted to be called Prairie Rose, they laughed hysterically, replying "Prairie Mess, more like!" and so I became a Buffalo chip. In those days the number of cars was steadily increasing, I could never bear to see the bodies of the animals that they killed lying in the road and would often shout from the back seat for my father to stop the car, which, of course, he did not do unless the carcass was causing a road hazard. I would always bury and hold services for any dead animals I found or for any pets that died, and, to this day, I do not know how this practice came into my life. I was sent to boarding school at the age of ten, and slowly my deep loves for all animals and the land of my home, faded out of my daily life. After I left school I worked in Repertory Theatre for a few years, then, deciding on a career change, I retook my A-levels at Cambridge Tech and went on to Lancaster University, getting a BA in English and Classics. Work on my PhD was interrupted by my having a baby, and, bringing her up on my own, I started to make soft furnishings to create an income for us. I thought it would be a temporary job but it was twenty-five years before the time came when I could change my life. My daughter had established her own life and did not need me anymore. It was traumatic; the choice was stark, stay in the life I had forged and was successful in, or dismantle it and do something else. Staying looked like a slippery slide into a comfortable chair; leaving looked like a jump into an abyss. I jumped and moved to Morayshire in Scotland where I live and write books. My books are a tribute to the miraculous experience of being alive, of having a body that houses an identity that has the ability to expand space and time in the search for personal awareness. I am indebted to Beautiful Painted Arrow, Joseph Rael, for the visons and teachings he has given to help us make sense of our Time. I support his visions for a peaceful world, and run a couple of websites: www.peacechamber.co.uk; www.somethingdoeshappen.co.uk