Together we are giant

On the Radical Ritual of gathering in community

Once upon a time there was group of artists and activists who cared deeply for the landscapes they shared as the most vital element of what it is to live as a human in the web of the vast natural world, our universe. These humans came together to stand around a hearth, as humans have done in every time, on every land, on every shore, to find warmth, to find heat,to survive and tell stories in communities.

Artists are humans who spend long hours pondering giant thoughts, dreams, beings and histories present and past. These particular artists lived in times where many people had been displaced from their homelands and even those who went about their lives: school, work, businesses within clear sight of a giant in their midst, had become disconnected to the land.

For sure there were those humans in this time who claimed they were giant truth tellers… others claimed the land as their own, building tall borders. The times these humans were living in led them to find meaning in giant screens where information spread as fast as light,but many had lost track of their connection to the ancient wisdom of the earth. Sunset and Sunrose and often these humans would forget to look up.

Many were beginning to see the consequence of this gulf between humans and their habitats… many humans young and old failed to thrive, they lived in warring times … the radical among them felt deeply that there was healing to be done in pigments of love.

One bright Spring morning the giant itself opened its eye lid and sent out thought rays – that seemed to say these are times for new radical rituals. So those humans in these times who were so often left behind were invited to make a new giant mark in art. Children and adults who saw and felt the world through their unique gaze, who were seldom invited to take time to make their giant or even tiny dreaming marks in art, were invited to play a giant game of dreaming – a game for our times, bringing heads, bodies, branches, tentacles, roots, flower heads, wings…to unravel giant meaning and re-connect to their landscapes. Those seeking refuge found welcome in the scent of a herb, the long view from the hill, sharing a picnic, sketching inspiration in notebooks, finding a fossil, picking up chalk, the trill of birdsong, grinding it into paint… a visceral re-connection to this one earth sharing its lore.

Here these humans came beating out the rhythm of a giant drum, they travelled with the giant back in time. On a journey walking the landscape, sensing the scenery, feeling the people who trod those paths before- enchanted by a dragonfly, a cowslip, encountering the rare sight of a butterfly, named after a duke, but that belonged to no one but these landscapes in need of rewilding. These lands that taught young hands and hearts to know not to pick the flowers that feed the butterfly, to protect their habitats … to tread lightly.

Printing, stamping, scouring, river walking, grinding chalk into paint, making pigment with precious rock from ancient caves – this global tribe of artists in their time gathered to make their marks, they travelled, they talked, they dreamed, they drew and they shared tales and sought meaning to forge a new giant inspired my myth and legend, the wealth of nature’s store.

And listening with a giant ear the artists of that time heard the people of that time speak.

‘We, who live under the vast canvass of this universe are less than fleas biting on the back of time. We, who are small, who have ever felt small, made to feel that we do not belong… have scoured a new story from the essence of the old. We have chalked in our presence, chalked in our essence… making footprints, making imprints, making our mark in art… and in sight of the Cerne Abbass giant we have certainly grown a new tale … a tale with tails and wings, and trunks and fins!

Walking on the earth today wracked by conflict, hunger and war and the threat of climate chaos we came and planted healing footsteps on the hill, walked together in the footsteps of the giant, investing hope seed in tomorrow… with soil beneath our fingernails, new names of insects, birds and butterflies on our tongues, one of us never before first to step up, sensed, by some miracle of lore, the elephants who walked these paths before.

We ask of you that when the new giant, containing all our stories, our heart work, our sense of home, our joys our tears, our laughter is unveiled and laid out beside the old – come sing together, stand together on this land that holds us, has always held us… if we can only bring ourselves to be nurturers.

Together we are giant 

Together we are strong 

Together we weave magic  

For the future in this song 

Sita Brahmachari

3/ 8/ 2025