Roisin Markham

As January draws to a close the first month of the first quarter of this century ends.

I write these notes to reflect on my week, I do not use AI so please enjoy the oddity of my language, errors, spelling mistakes, grammar etc, consider them a gift. They maybe awondering but that’s also part of my own discovery and exploration, my process and practice in reflection.

In Ireland we are at the edge of Spring, culturally not meteorologically. Our myths and stories of old, pre-christian, before the 5th Century they tell us the story of winter ending at this time and Spring beginning. Without them I’d still notice the change in a tree, ripening buds & catkins, wild garlic emerging, an earlier sunrise a stretch in the dark short days.

As an Irish woman this weekend is Spring, the day after January ends. Saint Brigids day 1st February. This day is finally celebrated with a bank holiday for this celtic fire goddess and christian Saint. She’s rather epic our Brigid. From childhood I’ve loved the stories of her, the tradition of making a rush cross and talking about her care of the land, people, plants and animals. She offers us care at the core as a great loving mythology, her stories are of magic cloaks, fire, light and beer! You can read more about her Museum of Ireland, a bit of a dry recounting but more generalised. It’s been impressive to see Brigids popularity reemerge with this new bank holiday. My dear friend Treacy O’Connor has been holding Brigids flame and campaigning for her to be recognised for years. It’s wonderful to see Treacy’s work in Balbriggan celebrating Baile Brigín on Monday in its second year, events that bring community together in old myth bridging to new connections and stories. I’m so excited to attend the Procession of Community Light, a spectacle of light, fire & water.

January has been a long month, 5 weeks. Astonishingly 5 Fridays – who does n’t love a Friday! It’s been joked that there are 700 days in January, seems right.

In hindsight the theme of the week seems to be frustration with a side order of joy. The human experience is quite remarkable.

Studio Notes

This was a long tough week of tech issues that made work extra. Something that would take 0 minutes took 30 and then was not done to completion. Lengthening tasks, drawing out projects and frustrating me into longer work hours and days.

The complexity of authentication systems, sharepoint, no laptop, different applications and systems. It’s been a barrier to progressing the work, a time suck I’d not factored in and a drain on my cognitive abilities. As someone who’s worked in the bleeding edge of the tech sector I consider myself good with it. But this is another level. Still work to be done to figure it out next week.

But it’s also been a great week of prototyping and walking through design, events and up and coming deliveries on Sustainability and Net Zero work. A distinctive piece of eco-literacy that uses my first step, next step approach to putting knowledge into action. This juicy piece of work brings other elements into educational approaches on sustainability ~ empowerment, confidence building, communication, collaboration and exploration, I am so looking forward to delivering it. It’s a very design led approach.

Gosh I do love paper prototyping! Bringing people through the design. Direct focused feedback & being able to really integrate the active research into the design, to improve the quality of the experience.

Even seemingly throw away comments sharpen aspects of how I ensure this interactive element is on point so the experience of learning, the knowledge is deeply embedded.

I’ve been consumed with this project wanting to get it right so I deliver in my high quality of work. My challenge is I’m over days negotiated for the work. But it has to be right and it’s almost there!

Other work is a little at the fringes, with some inquiries requiring attention, I’ve not responded to all of them yet. Some tenders I partnered with other SME’s are getting no’s.

I’ve also had to chase some invoices…

There is still that errant project, not started despite having gotten a green light in November, it’s been on the table since August. A co-design education & research juicy piece of work. A project plan that’s now gone out the window and my challenge to try keep people in reserve ready to do the work but with no date to get going! It is an issue. But I am so looking forward to that project…

I continue my drawing daily first thing. Wednesday by the sea with a coffee, the sunrise and a doodle. Monday was in the garden with the trees and a cuppa. It’s amazing what that drawing offers me as a state of flow. Although not design work it’s given me insight into process, improved my eye and line. It has played a significant part in rewilding my imagination.

This reflection practice I’ve also begun with my drawings. Noticing motifs I like, what’s happening with how I begin with the date placement and how that shapes the rest of the drawing. I wanted to share a whole month of the drawings but the video is nearly 5 minutes, who’s going to watch that, lol! Here it is anyway.

I have also been developing a beautiful piece of work I’m delivering with an NWCI All Ireland Womens’s Assembly soon. I’ve supported them on the overall design of the day, mixing and weaving culture and art into it. I’m facilitating a Step into the Doughnut work shop and a Future Ancestors piece.

Step into the Doughnut is a favourite way of introducing Doughnut Economics to others. It’s an embodied active and participatory workshop that takes about an hour to do.

The future ancestors piece has been a theme of my work for about two years, breathing life into a new social imaginary. Using our collective and individual imagination to focus on a future worth living into. This work is deepening and I’m looking forward to the well. The journey of living with the question How do we create a future worth living has brought me into traditions of deep Irish mythology our 5th Province and across the world ~ Black American women’s use of time travel for social justice, Wales Future Ancestors Act 2015, Japanese Climate Assemblies having future ancestors represented in the room, and British writers and artists. Time also comes under scrutiny other wisdoms both indigenous and of wild things experience and share time differently. Some cultures believe we live from the future. For a western mind that is mind bending perhaps we need more of that. For me it seems like an old memory linked to the mythic imagination of my childhood. There is an awakening of something ancient yet of the future. Creating spaces to stop, breathe into and hold the emergence of a future where all beings thrive within planetary boundaries seems even more critical.

Last week I got to speak to one of the women involved in The Rights of Nature movement across Ireland. Their work on the rights of the River Foyle is significant and inspiring. Hearing a declaration of a River read aloud in Irish and English is a profound moment I’ll remember from last year. This will be brought into that NWCI Assembly and spoken aloud. I believe when we bring our Island back to the rock and where water comes out of it, stripping back our human layer as only one context it allows us to collaborate in different ways. The Bioregional movement where we consider land in river catchments rather than manmade drawn boundaries also offers us this construct. Mixing that with future ancestor work frames the conversations differently uncoupling us from current knowns and restrictions. Offering us new space for shared imagining we so badly need. So many of us know what we don’t want but how much do we know, sense or feel what we do want?

The storm brought a question on Bluesky about if anyone was using an EV as a battery. We do, it was one of the features we wanted in the car we bought. If you can think of all the things your mobile phone is then why are we only thinking of the car as a piece of transport. Personally the Kia EV 6 in our driveway is actually a battery on 4 wheels. After storm Ophelia we were left without power for nearly 2 weeks. Our kids were young and I’d just picked enough blackberries to feed a small nation. Day 3 I knew everything in the freezer would spoil. Anyway that story is for another time but since then we have been thinking about resilience of electricity, heat and power in our home and community.

It’s one of the reason I’m interested in community energy, district heating and new ownership models on infrastructure built in the commons.

The article on RTE prompted Morning AM to reach out and a number of strangers, friends and associates all looking for further information. I’ll write a separate blog post on it.

Insights

I’m looking at the Climate Action Plans 2023 and 2024 where the Irish Government has set legally binding goals to reduce emissions by 51% by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050. Delays in implementing sectoral actions and missed carbon budgets highlight a persistent gap between policy ambition and delivery. This is the work, there is much to be done.

I love prototyping.

When people ask for a 20 minute chat if there is no reciprocity in the call it’s a coaching or mentoring call. Recognise it as that, think about offering office hours again in a mix of paid and probono work.

January is over, with it comes deeply unsettling geo-political forces that have implications for human rights, climate mitigation and our economy. Global stability is threatened.

There is now a different social narrative and stronger challenge to a Net Zero energy future in Ireland , the legacy of increasingly violent and damaging storms. We need to manage that conversation carefully.

We have no serious focus on risk and resilience planning at national and local level. This has to be addressed and planned for. Although I tried to work on this several years ago through a collective called RASDA there was no appetite for it.

These studio notes are getting longer! I had thought they’d be short succinct posts. What will February bring to them?

A question for you

Do you have a mentor or a coach? How did that relationship get established? Do you pay for that service?

Recommendations

Shocked, Naomi Kleins book has gone to the top of my reading list.

On the RTE Player there is an exceptional series on the Irish Coast, a three part documentary series. Beautifully shot, Ireland looks amazing but it also deals with the issues of our tilted for our threatened coastline. It’s worth watching if you have not seen it already. Ireland’s Coast.

IMMA has announced its open call for Earth Rising 2025 Staying with the Trouble is the theme.