Susan Cooper - Beats the Heather for Us

Susan Cooper was the opening speaker for 2011’s Gathering. She likened the task of being the opening speaker in a most original and apt way. 

In the tradition of English grouse hunting there are people with the task of whacking at the heather to flush the birds up into the air for others to shoot. These people are called “beaters”.

As the first speaker at The Gathering, Ms. Cooper saw it as her role to coax as many metaphors as possible on the topic of  “Home” into the air before us in preparation for our further exploration through out the weekend.

Susan accomplished this task with wit and compassion.  She brought us on a journey of her own memories and the eloquent words of others. Here is a sampling of the lovely conceptual birds sprung from her imaginative heather.

Home as sanctuary, refuge

• A plaque that hung in her house held a quote from John Ruskin:“Home is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home.”
• As  a child in WWII England, she spent time in a bomb shelter behind her home. She likened it to the kind of place the Mole from the Wind in the Willows would reside.

Home changes as you move from child to adult

• There is home of your origin full of the emotion of becoming who you are.
• The places you live after you leave home, even if comfortable can never be the same as the home you came from.
• In memory your first home doesn’t change.

Home is where you belong

• “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”  Robert Frost

Home is being with the people you love.

• “Home is where the heart is.”

Being apart from your home is painful

·         Immigrant form enclaves partly to maintain an essence of what home had been.

·         Susan Cooper introduced us to the Welsh word “Hiraeth” word to describe the kind of pain  being away from home.  Hiraeth doesn't translate well into English. It is a deep longing for home on the level of grief. It is pronounced with two syllables. The first is like the English here except that the r is stronger. The second syllable is like how a mathematician would pronounce i-th as in the ith row of a matrix. You could also say eye-th.

Home is something you must leave, but then also return to

·         If one is to grow home must be replaced over and over again.

·         No such thing as easy growth unless you are a dandelion.

·         Home can be an Octopus, snare, venus fly trap if you have no courage to leave.

Death is the final home coming – Returning to the Earth

• Susan ended with this gaelic poem.

“Thou goest home this night to thy home of winter,

To thy home of autumn, of spring and of summer;

Thou goest home this night to they perpetual home,

To thine eternal bed, to thine eternal slumber.

The sleep of the seven lights be thine, O brother,

The sleep of the seven joys be thine, O brother,

The sleep of the seven slumbers be thine, O brother,

On the arm of the Jesus of blessings, the Christ of grace.”

Please add more to this post! What metaphors or concepts did Susan mention that I failed to capture? What other concepts or metaphors of home resonate most for you?

SUSAN COOPER is an English-born writer best-known for her children's books, notably the fantasy sequence The Dark is Rising, which won assorted awards,  including the Newbery Medal.