So here I am, still sitting in my garden and listening. A couple of months ago, I felt inspired to listen ‘downwards’, to travel down along the roots that connect me to my land and see who I would meet.

I was greeted by a spirit who is familiar to me. I experience him as the spirit of this bit of land where I live: the tract of urban and suburban land that lies between Harrow on the Hill and the ridge to the north. This spirit is hard to describe. I sense that he is an ancestor who used to live here in the time that this place was an endless forest. Over time, he as become more estranged from humans and from the changes that have happened around him. He still lives in that ancient forest and has taken on the characteristics of a nature sprite. He is a gangly, puck-like creature who sits on tree branches and dances down the street.

This spirit came to me that day, covered head to toe in mud, in mud from this land. He seemed to be asking me to do the same, to learn about the spirit of the clay. Given that I live in a suburban street, my corner plot overlooked by many windows, I didn’t fancy getting naked and rolling around in the mud. So I decided to learn about the clay in as many ways as I could. Here are my findings so far.

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