Energy transition zones: the Irish Sea to the far Western Fells

Aims

To expand our awareness of, and attention, to energy and energy pathways (created, consumed, transformed, extended), as we move between sea and summit, and contemplate a transition from fossil-fuelled to renewable, low-carbon energy regimes. To move consciously with these energies while writing / making art, and walking / talking / thinking, in order to tame the draw of the peaks and attend to the transition zone.

This experiment has been developed in collaboration with Jonathan Skinner, author of four poetry books, numerous essays in ecocriticism, and founder and editor of ecopoetics journal (2001-2009). He is Reader in English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. The author and Jonathan are seen here above Ennerdale Lake during our expedition recce (see below).

Background

Most of us are aware on some level of the relevance of ‘energy’ to our enjoyment of the fells. We know how exhausted we feel at the end of a hike, or that we need to consume more calories to fuel our efforts. But how often do we reflect on where this energy has come from or is going (what is being converted, and how)? Do we think about how our energy is being transformed into experience, memory, art and conversation? "Energy is eternal delight," said William Blake, alluding to its inspirational potential. Yet equally, we consume significant energy in the process: the fuel we use for driving to the start of the walk, additional food production and miles, fell erosion, the energy photography relies upon to take, store and share images, the excess carbon dioxide we produce while exercising, and the fuel burnt in the pub’s fire at the end of the day. Yet this experiment is not about guilt-tripping. Rather, it’s about walking (running, wheeling) ourselves into a place of greater consciousness about energy pathways and transformations, and their impact. It’s only during the past fifty years that we have become collectively aware of "anthropogenic" global warming. What does it feel like to walk in this epoch, and how does this change our experience of the fells and how we respond to it in our writing / art?

Beyond our romanticised visions, the Lake District and Cumbria provide fascinating contexts for exploring these questions. Local mining goes back to the 12th century at least: slate, graphite, gypsum, hematite (iron ore), granite and limestone, and, of course, coal. The final west coast mines were closed in 1986, under Thatcher’s regime, yet remarkably planning permission for a new coalmine just outside Whitehaven was granted by Cumbria County Council in 2019 (the decision is currently under review by the UK Government). Meanwhile, slightly further south lies Sellafield, where at different junctures nuclear power and weaponry have since 1947 been produced, researched and more recently processed. Among the reasons for its location was a dependable water supply from Wastwater, and the site remains of huge economic importance to the area (it employs c. 10,000 people). Out to sea, the western horizon is also dominated by the production of energy through wind. Not far south of here, Walney Extension, the world's largest windfarm (87 turbines covering 145 square kilometers) is capable of powering 600,000 homes. In other words, our Lake District idyll is in fact powered by and borders upon sizeable industrial, commercial, state and militarised sites of energy production, with significant and contested environmental impact – there are environmentalists who support nuclear just as there are those who contest the landscape impact of wind. On a good day, Sellafield, Whitehaven (the site of both past and proposed mines) and windfarms out in the Irish Sea are all visible.

Turning to your creative response, many writers and artists have brought notions of energy into their practice. In the context of poetry, writers who have done so range from William Blake and Emily Dickinson to Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, Muriel Rukeyser and Lorine Niedecker, Allen Ginsberg and Charles Olson, Gary Snyder and Amiri Baraka. Poetry is language "charged with meaning," says Pound, while for Williams a poem is a "small machine made of words”, to cite two examples. This experiment encourages you to reflect upon how energy shapes your imagination, with what kinds of energy your own creative practice is entangled, and the cultural and social effects of your creative work. If, as Scree proposes, walking is itself is a creative act, then what social and environmental relations, what resistances and acquiescences, do your decisions and walking habits energize? And how do they relate to the context of Cumbria’s energy coast? You are encouraged to pay particular attention to the idea of ‘transition’ (how energy is converted from one thing into another, and how, in the face of climate change, we might best put our creativity into the collective task of transitioning to renewable, low-carbon energy).

Route Instructions

Map part 1: Click on the image above to open an interactive version of the map on Outdoor Active. Otherwise you can download the GPX file of my route here (© OpenStreetMap contributors)

This route has been plotted to highlight how the landscape transitions from sea to summit, through the between-zone where the coastal plain and Ehen river valley meet the fells. It crosses Dent as well as Grike and Crag Fells (the westernmost Wainwrights) with good views of Sellafield and Whitehaven on the coast, and wind turbines out to sea. It starts in the outskirts of Cleator Moor and passes through forestry plantations in Ennerdale and at Black How – sites, respectively, of historical (iron ore) and present day (timber) extraction. The walk also partly follows two rivers, the River Ehen, which drains Ennerdale Lake and runs to the coast at Sellafield, and Nannycatch Beck, which drained Ennerdale during the last ice age, creating a deep cut into the slopes between Flat and Swarth Fells. The aim is a route which provides an opportunity to reflect on energy in the fullest range of ways, while navigating an overlooked ecological and socio-cultural "transition zone." An optional visit to the St. Bees Head RSPB Nature Reserve, Seascale Beach and/or Arrowthwaite Woods near Whitehaven is recommended, either before or following the walk, to complete the sense of transition and to encourage you to reflect on the production of energy both now, and into the future. One of the above three locations would be ideal for the slow-walking exercise, which can also be completed periodically throughout the day.

Map part 2: Click on the image above to open an interactive version of the map on Outdoor Active. Otherwise you can download the GPX file of my route here (© OpenStreetMap contributors)

Route: Difficult (13 miles, 2,877 feet of ascent) - nb the route can easily be shortened to half of the above length by only doing one of the loops of the figure of 8, or doing them as two shorter walks on subsequent days.

Starting point: there is parking in a layby at Hen Beck bridge, in the outskirts of Cleator Moor.

Accessible alternative: The sense of travelling from sea into the high fells can be explored via three short accessible walks (a) along the promenade at St Bees or Seascale (b) up and back along the river from Calder Bridge to Calder Abbey, and (c) and finishing with a walk from Bleach Green car park in Ennerdale. Please note that part (c) is characterised as a Route for Many on the Miles Without Stiles website so is not be accessible to all.

Alternative 3 or 4 day backpacking route: the initial plan for this route experiment was for a multi-day expedition, starting and finishing in St Bees. Unfortunately we had to cut our recce short due to timings (so I can’t provide a GPX file or mapping here), but I strongly recommend the hike as an extended way of exploring the ideas outlined above…start in St Bees and follow the coastal path to the site of the new mine outside Whitehaven. Follow the coast-to-coast path inland over Dent, before veering off to head up Grike and Crag Fell beyond the Cold Fell road and down to Ennerdale Lake. Cross the high fells via the Ennerdale ridge of Steeple, on to Scoat Fell, Haycock, Seatallan and Middle Fell, and down to Nether Wasdale. Follow paths, bridleways and short sections of road back to the coast at Seascale, and then catch a train back past Sellafield to St Bees. I estimate the route is c. 40 miles long (??), but please do undertake your own calculations / precise route plotting before setting out! Click on the below image taken from the summit of Haycock to open a slideshow of images I took during our incomplete recce to whet your appetite!

Route instructions

Writing & Art Ideas

Writing exercises

This prompt has two parts: the first is an "extreme slow walk" exercise, to attune ourselves to the full range of energies at work in the body. The second is a meditation on energy and transition (in 3 parts!)

1) Extreme Slow Walk / Slow Walking

We tend to strive toward an upper limit of speed/ movement, but how often do we attend to the lower and slower limit of our range? Can we expand our consciousness to include not only awareness of each step, and of the different parts of each step, but of the transitions between the parts?

Find a nice quiet grassy place near the start of your walk. Ideally, take off your socks and shoes to achieve maximum connection with the ground. Perhaps set a timer for 3-5 minutes so that you can forget about time and really embrace the challenge that, no matter how slow you are walking, you can always go slower. Keep your gaze soft, eyes focussed on the ground a few feet in front of you, and mind focussed on your breathing (if you aren’t familiar with meditative breathing, you might like to do some research in advance or click <here>). Can you slow down enough to fill one step with several breaths? When the timer goes off, stop, breathe, and then (slowly) look back to see how far you have come from the centre. If doing the exercise with others, walk in different directions from the centre and afterwards compare how far you’ve come. Extreme slow walking is not a competition (it could be), but it's always interesting to see how, just as at the upper range, what is a lower and slower limit varies considerably from person to person.

Repeat the exercise as often as you have time to, and at the end of each ‘leg’ endeavour to write the most beautiful sentence you can about your experience and the thoughts / words that flitted through your mind. To paraphrase Paul Klee, “A poem is simply a line going for a walk.” Pauline Oliveros enjoins us to, “Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears” (this exercise is derived from Oliveros’s Deep Listening practice - see Further Reading below for more info). “Breathe, take a mindful step, and arrive. We are already at home,” says Thich Nhat Hanh. You might like to incorporate this experiment into the route itself, stopping every half hour to slow-walk and write some more. If you can, maintain awareness of the relationship between breathing and walking as you hike: how many steps per breath? For an example of poetry made from beautiful sentences composed on a walk, try Mei-mei Berssenbrugge's "Green."

2) Energy transitions

a) Transition

Rather than walking from point A to B, from trailhead to summit, summit to valley, viewpoint to viewpoint, fatigue to carpark, hunger to meal, and home at the end of the day, the aim of today’s walk is to travel the *transitions between* these points, locations and states of being. Focus your attention and writing on the energy that emerges *between* things, words, lines, and sentences. Don't try to fill the space; rather, charge it with your attention. Doing so might be a matter of editing, interrupting our tendency to focus on what lies ahead or behind us, by attending to what we notice here and now. Focus upon both language and landscape transitions.

Linguistic: focus your attention on the space between letters, phonemes, words, lines, sentences, and pages. The Surrealists realized the value of chance in interrupting and energizing language habits: as you compose lines or sentences from your notes (moments of attention), try drawing words from both the bottom and the top of your page, or try flipping randomly between the pages of your notebook, to bring together unexpected combinations of thought, perception, and language. If you are walking in a group, you can try an "exquisite corpse" method of composition, writing two lines (or words) on a sheet of paper, then folding it so only one line (or word) shows before passing it to the next walker, who in turn adds two lines, folding the sheet so it shows only one line to pass on to the next walker, etc. The laughter or intake of breath as the resulting poem is read aloud in a group can be a release of energy.

Landscape: use the walk to shift habits of attention. Just as you become aware of the transitions between your steps, you might begin to notice transitions in the landscape: from plain to valley, valley to forest, forest to moorland, moorland to summit. Ecologists refer to these transition zones, like that along a river's edge or at the edge of a boggy area, as ecotones, particularly energizing to biodiversity: slow down to notice the forms of life (they might be very tiny) that thrive at the ecotone. Make some notes on these "tiny energies."

b) Energy

As you gain height on this walk, you gain access to some big views, including views of sites of energy production (extraction, conversion, transmission) conducting flows of power at planetary scale. Try writing some short poems (3-10 lines) that bring together in one reflection a tiny energy at work in the landscape with an energy involved in conducting the vast flows of (human-centered) power. Don't try to fill, rationalize or explain away the gap between these different scales of energy: let the focus of your composition be to make audible, visible, or otherwise sensed or felt, the juxtaposition of scales. Again, shape the *spaces between* words, lines, and stanzas (groups of lines) as much as you shape the language itself, to energize attention to the differences. Notice what happens at the ends of lines and feel free to use the whole page as a canvas, moving away from the edge of the page, as well as from the governing structures of sentences. Don't write in sentences unless you intend to do so consciously: instead, write with words, lines, and groups of lines. For an example of poetry that negotiates the transitions between scales of energy, see Gary Snyder's "Tiny Energies."

c) Energy transformation

All of the above exercises are suited to writing on the hill. Back home, you might like to do some more detailed research on those kinds of energies you explored on the fell. How might you engage your knowledge and research into different social and environmental relations of production? Can you reimagine the transition(s) between different scales of energy? While suppressing the urge to paper over any unease this reflection may provoke, feel free to incorporate your imagination of alternate energy futures. Write a piece that "stays with the trouble" of energy transition.

Visual art exercises

This experiment has been designed initially with writing in mind, but is easily adaptable to visual art responses. Please read the above text in order to gain a sense of the spirit of the experiment, before trying any of the ideas below:

1) Taking a walk for a line

This is the visual art equivalent to the extreme slow walking exercise above. Instead of writing a ‘beautiful line’ of writing, can you use this exercise to enhance your focus / attention to detail in the landscape, specifically by seeking out ‘lines’ in it? This exercise can either be completed at the end of each ‘leg’ of the slow walking, perhaps by completing the exercise 12 times (around the hands of the clock) and taking a photograph / making a sketch of any lines in the resulting landscape. Or else, you can do the walking exercise first and then apply this sense of slowing down / focus to your resultant image making.

2) Long slow exposures

Since this exercise is partly to do with slowing everything down, it’s a great place to experiment with long exposure photography. I suggest that such photography, in contrast to how we usually seek to ‘stop’ and ‘still’ a scene, is more capable of picking up upon its energy pathways (yet through a process of going slow!)

3) Drawing energy

Focus your eye during the walk on notions of ‘energy’ and ‘transition’, and reflect upon how you can capture these abstract states / notions in your visual art. Be aware, in the process, of what energy you are bringing to both ‘seeing’ and subsequently ‘transforming’ the landscape into a mapping of energy pathways.

Route adaptation for walk-from-home (and virtual exercise)

Rather than responding to the above hike virtually, on this occasion it might be easier to try and adapt the exercises to the inside of your house, or your walk from home. What ‘transition zones’ are there in the vicinity of your home? (which can include the transition from an indoor managed environment to outside). What energy exchanges are going on inside your living room? Do you know where the energy comes from that powers your home? What shifts in landscape exist nearby, and what do these signify? What about the transition from urban landscapes to rural ones - are these apparent, and what do they mean? There are a wide range of possibilities for experiment, both inside and outside your front door!

Collaborative poem

Along the edge of the caution horses

a seatless seat

and the folded retreat of peacock

Winter’s bonfire seasons in soft July sun

lambs rest below

impenetrable scrub

we walk around

peacock cries

Horizons holding water

clouds also contain

the grey, the damp, weight

screaming motorcycles

skylarking

What I hadn’t told you yet?

Amidst the overhead bracken I found bones

Above Nannycatch Beck a catch of the sea

“You’ve come far enough”

A chorus of sheep . . . all the parts sung between endless chewing

So many different voices of sheep eating

of sheep to eat

Ribbons of fire on the water rising mist obscures the coast

meandering on the Western edge

LB, JS, and KZ

Longlands Lake, over Dent, to Angler’s Crag, Ennerdale Water

9 July 2021

Jonathan’s poetry

No Release

as lens is to ridge
so bug to eye
and stirrup to ankle

the sun flowers
with tree fluff
and wheat fields

planted on fells
coal seams
fishbone the rock

catching drifts
of skylark carols
in turbines

wren notes
light the radium
bramble

reactors power
the fission in diction
activate steps

in a chain reaction
climbing cascades
tiny explosions

star the slopes
underfoot: bilberries
and fossil ferns

burn the candle
at both ends
clouds brighten

gathering cells
release a change
in the weather

a shutter's click
a brocken spectre
bathed in diodes

what constellate
our birth charts stirs
fire in loins

as foot meets rock
pedal to metal
at cruising speed

we are moved
by oceanic currents
by shifts in the wind

high above
a power plant
with no stack

to release vast
transfers of wealth
abstracting land

from its riches
valued in song
and relation

vibrational
communication from
insect to bird

a pulse in the grass
a second in the hour
of flowering trees

Save Your Energy

seen through a cataract
ridge lines blur

mountains and fells
blot colors

trees clump
bugs sail black dots
through the eye

what vibrates
through the ear

talk up
and down the spine
loses confidence

feet on their own
wobble on tufts

foxglove blazes
by the fire road

purple corollas
orbiting the sun

tree fluff
stars the wheat

what is natural
about the fells

this forest planted
at the top of a field

a brambly moat
blocks the way

plantations
march in unison

under the sea
beneath rock
a fishbone pit
cross-hatches
the coal seam

focusing on
hentilagets

the air rings
with skylarks

on the coast
a bit of bling
from the reactor
reflecting gold

in the woods
at the head of the lake
a wren repeating

trading stories
on the way up

by the river
walking in silence

water changes key
mid cascade

hauling our packs
up through ferns
over slippery
grass and rock
falling mouth first
into bilberries

from its high butte
a sheep follows
my every move

below Haycock
anvil of vapor
lit from within

save your energy
for going down

giving out
where ground
gives no rest

must lie down
no pitch in sight

negotiating viewsheds
on the camping ledge

it’s dinnertime
add boiling water

all night long
a string of stars
running down
Scafell

in the valley
car lights
making turns

scree gets itself
into deep water

enough to douse
the power plant

a lazy stroll
along the Bleng

too much farm
not enough capital

a silent lunch
under the sycamore

on a bend in the Bleng
where insects sing
a wren is ringing

rare music
by the spared hedge

enormous trees
grassy parkland

different peaks
come and gone

bull in field
but which one?

Lucy’s poetry & photography

I took a walk for a line
(St Bees Head, Aug 2021)

such
unlikely
gluten glue

of un-freed
landscapes
delimited by sky and sea

the transition territory
of Rosebay Willow herb
whose bee has long soon
gone to seed

and where were you
the day my mother died?

*

the barest cry

see far horizons
murky as the lee
of this harassment of a word-lost
breeze an unrequited memory

a distant Isle of Man
a distant Galloway
a not-so-distant loss of you in me

the bullocks breathe the barbed-wire
free the grip of toppling air
my outstretched limbs and sketch
out tramlines in the wheat of sky and we

uneased to please
anxiety

we seek
the foghorn building

unfettered as we set our sights to sea
foresee the lighthouse and the sloping
falling-off of grass to cliff
to edge so green a view so blue so blue
might we alight
the sky a cemetery of seagulls

Between Cleator and Crag

i.

between river and grass
and road – parkland

a seagull scavenges
the burnt-out bin

where the town is a moor
and the brow a bridge and
someone set the waste on fire

to the west of the river some
glacial erratics have been carved
into armchairs

ii.

tarmacadam: between every
single footstep I take flight

between road and forest:
no parking

between road and track:
danger stop danger keep off warning

between track and path and fellside:
brambles encroach the stile

between my momentary contacts
with earth: am I making progress

iii.

wild sycamore
wild rowan
plantation pine

long grasses draw the line
between my skin and sky

the fence between the over here
and over there dissects the hillside
to the summit

iv.

the sight
of the site
of the proposed new mine
does not belong to me

(between false summits

a declension: dent

I watch my neon shoelaces
propel my limbs uphill

the nuclear power station holds my
attention at the speed of breath-
extended gravity

the reprocessing of the by-products
of our spent-up emptied days

v.

between the fell
and forest somebody
has just lost Dave

a hypothetically valid:
where is Dave?

are we the only difference
from ourselves

vi.

nannycatch beck

the young child’s mentor
was caught a-beckoning?

between herdwick
between overhead bracken
between overhanging rocks
and tributary rivers

the map identifies the idea
of a non-existent path ahead

vii.

between black-faced sheep
and herdwick:
the boundary
of designated and protected beauty

between the mobile Covid testing unit
and an ageing campervan
(the Cold Fell road we call it):
one black hatchback car

between one side of the road
and the other lies
the other side of one or another

viii.

between eyelids:
the distance is receding /
impenetrable weather

Grike
Crag Fell
where is Pillar

fulfilled views of empty
somethingness and a sky
composed of liquid air
so thick I painted with it

a strand of twisted wire
a rotting gate
a quite unweathered stile

between you me and the gatepost
whistling irrespective

if you want me
you will find me where

ix.

the liminality of temporary
devastation

clearfelled trees

the path to the lake shore
shall not take me there:

between the uprights
of the bridge ahead

between you me
and the entrance
to the unsafe building

x.

between the brambles:

hogweed
meadow cranesbill
birdsfoot trefoil
rosebay willowherb
knapweed
buttercup

between the recommended
horse and car: at least two metres

Lucy’s photography

Click on the below image to open a slideshow of Lucy’s response to the ‘Taking a walk for a line’ experiment, as completed at St Bees’ Head. A response to the ‘Long slow exposures’ experiment is forthcoming.