Bwystori Bestiary
- TOWARDS A STORY OF INTERBEING

“We are only fully human when we act as if the life beyond us matters…
The Bestiary celebrates the beauty of being and of beings.
Our imagination is stretched to the utmost not, as in fiction,
to imagine things which are not really there,
but just to comprehend those things which ARE there.”
Caspar Henderson

Bwystori, Bestiary is a collaboration with Emily Meilleur (artist, poet and Biodiversity Officer for Cyngor Gwynedd Council) celebrating our “CYDFOD / Interbeing” with other species. It is a celebratory work in the face of the enormity of climate change, the “loss of 200 species a day”, atrocities across the planet, the destruction of the rain forest and the sense of a global crisis in which we can feel insignificant and hopeless.

“Right now, the earth is full of refugees, human and not, without refuge” Donna Haraway
“Without deep reflection, we have taken on the story of endings, assumed the story of extinction, and have believed that it is the certain outcome of our presence here. From this position, fear, bereavement, and denial keep us in the state of estrangement from our natural connection to the land” Linda Hogan

It is so easy to forget that we still live amongst species so numerous we can barely imagine them. And just one of them is human. Could we start to think of ourselves as a ‘keystone’ species, living amongst others in positive, symbiotic, loving relationship? What if we started to relate to all these species as relatives rather than resources? Might this new (to the predominant ‘Plantationocene’ way of thinking) but also ancient way of thinking might be part of the new story we need, to repair our separation from ‘nature’? So instead of thinking: Resource, crop, quarry, manage, control, study, conserve, boundary, demarcation, competition… we could start thinking: Relatives, flourishing, joy, play, storytelling, making kin, entanglement, uncertainty, rhizomes, connection…

How would the world be if we thought like that – CYDFOD – interbeing. What if we looked to other beings for advice on how to be in the world?

Bwystori comes from these kinds of questions. It is a way of bringing together and experiencing different ‘ways of knowing’ (scientific, linguistic, experiential, emotional, spiritual, artistic).

We have trialled the idea in Bethesda, as part of Gwyl Afon Ogwen River Festival, and the response was so positive (see below), that we intend to develop the project further. Each incarnation of the project would be a location-specific event or series of events that could combine elements of discovery (eg walks, forays), storytelling (close encounters, mythology), installation, performance and publication.

Bwystori was also used as part of the protest against the new Caernarfon bypass, highlighting the species that would be lost/impacted by the new road.

Let us know if you are interested in joining us/developing one for your locality.

“Generative multi-species work is as much about play, storytelling and joy,
as it is about work, critique and pain…
To be one is always to become with many.
Maybe, but only maybe,
and only with intense commitment and collaborative work and play with other terrans,
flourishing for rich multispecies assemblages that include people will be possible”
Donna Haraway

Bwystori Bethesda Bestiary

Our first trial of the idea was at Gwyl Afon Ogwen River Festival, September 28th, 2019, where we were joined by musicians Katherine Betteridge and Sioned Eleri Roberts AKA the Marmaladies, and a spontaneous performance by Bethesda Choir, Bonc Cathod. Catch a glimpse and hear the feedback in the video above :)

Dewch i ddathlu amrywiaeth lawen bwystfilod Bethesda,
uno'r holl fodau o fewn 1000m i'r safle. Rhannwch straeon, a chreu'r Bwystori Bethesda gydag inc afal derw hynafol.
Gyda geirau a gorymdaith o'r canlyniadau gyda cherddoriaeth a barddoniaeth am 4pm.
gyda Lindsey Colbourne, Emily Meilleur, Katherine Betteridge, Sioned Eleri Roberts

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Come and celebrate the joyful diversity of thebeasts of Bethesda, joining up all the beings within 1000m of the
site. Share stories, and create the Bethesda Bestiary
with ancient oak apple ink. With an incantation and procession of the results with music and poetry at 4pm.
with Lindsey Colbourne, Emily Meilleur, Katherine Betteridge, Sioned Eleri Roberts

Here is just some of the feedback we received:

“It was a totally, sensory way of doing this … you can put across – you can talk about - biodiversity, verbally, people will listen - but we were involved in movement, performance, working together. We all felt connected”
“Everyone wanted to read, it was really good. They were really engrossed, really focusing. They wanted to be part of it”
“Thank you that’s lovely. I loved it. I had to speak in latin, welsh and English!”
“I was just reading all those things that are there, in that little patch of moss and grass. I never thought that I’d be reading all those names as part of something artistic! I’ll never forget this moment – everytime I see these plants, this mosses, making music from them with nature rather than from my official scientific nature”
“Beautiful, enigmatic, mysterious and atmospheric. A wonderful work of art in Parc Meurig.”
“It was beautiful. Well done. Very special. Every time you do these performances, diolch yn fawr, thanks very much, please do it again”

Images from the day (brightest ones courtesy of Nick Pipe)