Ritual for a Burnt Forest TRT: 00:16:35

The collective Mouries shared three days in a burnt forest on the island of Evia, experimenting around the creation of rituals to accompany and support the regeneration process. Mingling our bodies together with the clay, water, plants and sky we imagine, discuss and put in practice ideas for meaningful ways to mourn, connect, and heal with our forests. This encounter is inspired by the recent fires in Greece, and is an open invitation to those who, like us, feel the need to do “something” without knowing exactly what.

Funeral for a burnt forest

We have gathered here today to make a ritual for the burnt forest. Rituals are social procedures that accompany changes in the phases of biological life. Birth, death, coming to age or marriage need to be accompanied by rituals. Otherwise, life goes by without us being able to keep up with it. What happens in real biological life has to be brought to the realm of the social through rituals. For this burnt forest of Evia, I would like to conduct a funeral. Here there has been a disaster and there has been death. Death is a normal part of life. Fires in forests are naturally happening incidents that affect and sometimes end a forest life. The tree may grow again and the animals may come back, but for now, they have been lost. In general, life may be continuing, as there is death, there is always birth. But, still, in this general life, we care about particularities, because we are particulars. We note and connote the loss of people that we know. We make joint funerals for the people that we know. We have been in this forest now for some days and we have gotten to know these beings. We have met them in this state between life and death, where there are mostly dead but not gone. There are present here with their burnt trunks and burnt branches. Some of them have already resin falling on their trunks. We will accompany them on this journey that they are taking, going where dead trees go. There is no heaven and there is no hell. There is a place for all the dead and all the unborn. All beings are one being on the matter. Some of us come to this earth as trees. Some of us as birds. Some of us as humans. Some of these trees may maybe become our grandkids. And maybe we, one day, will be a tree in this forest after a bee carries our dust to this ground. We all come from one and we all go to one. The task of the living is to be aware of this eternal return, and to be there present for other beings as they carry out this eternal return. 

Now, I want us all to turn and face the forest. Let´s take a moment to remember all the life that has been lost here. Trees, animals and insects, and livelihoods. This forest has become one with the universe. May all its beings find peace where they are and come back to us in eternal return. May this forest regrow. May these trunks that still carry traces of life on them be relieved from their suffering. May all have the ability to see all living things with one and the same eye, care for them and accept them to care for us. May our presence here today soothe them. May our breath give them a final touch of tenderness. Hope that they accept us as we have accepted them. 

Now I want you to go to a being around you in this forest and give it your breath. We are humans, breathe is how life passes through us. The life that passes through us right now we must share it with other beings. So now, go to a being that you see in this forest and breathe into it. Remember that in your breath there is life. That life is one. That life and death are part of each other. And that all life needs care and company. Let´s tell them that we are here with them by breathing next to them.  Text by Mouries’ member Sanem Su Avci: