Miranda Whall

At 8.50am I stepped through the window of my lounge out into my abundant, fecund, lush green patio.. I went ‘in’.. to my patio and veg bed, the extension of my home that has opened up to me during lockdown, as if it were a mountain. In Nan Shepherds words I ‘walked out of my body and into the mountain’ to visit as though one would visit a friend, just to simply spend time with it, in the hope of seeing and listening, deeply . I wanted to be with the oak tree, to hang out with it in its time and to be seen being. While I wasn’t staring I was in my tent. I lit a BBQ and cooked vegan burgers and sweetcorn, I made tea and I slept a little. For the 158 people that joined the live stream it was either a truly unremarkable, astonishingly dull and meaningless experience or it was a profound and moving experience to drop in and out of this orchestrated scene and virtually share in its unfolding moments. Or strange and absurd perhaps to witness the simple act of just one single human staring at one single young oak tree, a tree that could grow to live a thousand years. Whatever the experience was for all of us involved, there it was, there we both were, there we all were, caught in moments of stillness together, in relation to each other. Photographs by Ashley Calvert and Live stream screenshots by Helena Garland