Dr Victoria Xiaoxiao Ma
@victoriaxiaoxiaoma
Environmental Humanities researcher. @LeedsUniEnglish @LeedsEnvHums #Wordsworth #JohnClare #Romanticism #walking #birdwatching #naturewriting Ascending with the Earth 🌍.
Do you feel different since the solar eclipse started? My heart feels tight now….
I thought unconditional love was only for one soul. Now I think I should also treat my parents and even the rest of the world with it. Perhaps then I won’t feel offended or unloved at all, no matter where I am. I’ll see the unhealed wounds and unfinished lessons in them thru the lens of love.
1 painted lady, 2 red admirals, loads of white butterflies. Quarry Bank Mill yesterday.
Martagon Lily, Quarry Bank Mill, Cheshire. #wildflowerhour
90 children below 10 lived together in the apprentice house. Two shared one bed. One was responsible for four machines. 1784!
Previous plan for this beautiful Saturday was birding at St Aidans. But my friends dragged me to Quarry Bank Mill. What Wordsworth wrote in The Excursion is absolutely true: children, factory, sound pollution…the Industrial Revolution. A strange ‘Creation’! ‘Glittering’ light…This is a steamer.
Thanks Peter. It’s from this book (I bought my copy three months ago at Waterstones). The translator’s name: Coleman Barks.
#8/8Lion’sGatePortal Rumi’s poem ‘The One Thing You Must Do’
Saturday #morningread A. E. Housman’s ‘Into my heart an air that kills’
Wednesday #morningread Edward Thomas’s ‘Tall Nettles’
Wild carrot, corn flower, musk mellow, and common mellow. West Midlands #wildflowerhour
#BARS2026 excursion in Lichfield. Not only Erasmus Darwin but also Anna Seward lived here. Always admire her sonnet ‘To Colebrooke Dale’. Her family’s house, The Bishop's Palace, was now a Catholic high school. A Blue Plaque is situated at Minster Pool Walk, which she designed.
🐇🐇🐇 Happy Yorkshire Day! Yorkshire has three Bs Best 🍦: Brymor Best 🍫: Bullion Best 🍪: Bettys Who does not fancy a Fat Rascal?
Happy Lughnasadh! The first harvest festival in the Wheel of the Year. 🌽
Saturday #morningread Robert Burn’s ‘Corn Rigs’ It’s the first day of August! Happy Lammas!
If you feel wronged, talk to trees or plants. If you feel exhausted, walk to the water. I briefly visited Winterbourne House and Garden and Edgbaston Pool this afternoon. Very helpful! A painted lady stopped for me (yes! Why not?). Blue damselflies showing well.
Risk assessment tips(I hope you will not use them): Don’t drink cold beers after having ‘Hot’ curry. Consequence: Acute uvulitis+ waiting at NHS Emergency (Am fine. My colleague is not)
Enjoying (E4 Panel-Writing Machines) the paper ‘Evaluating Imagined Values’ by @paulstephens.bsky.social. Reading recommendation: Poetics Today, Vol. 45, Issue 2 (June 2024) The Al Revolution: Speculations on Authorship, Pedagogy, and the Future of the Profession. #BARS2026
Met a pair of moorhens on the bank of the lake at the vale village, Birmingham.
When your soul is full and has achieved union, other interesting encounters are just events. Good morning!
Am now en route to Birmingham. Looking forward to tomorrow’s BARS 2026 Conference.
Tuesday #morningread Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Yellow-hammer’
Sleep is so important, especially for this year of Fire🔥. If you didn’t get enough sleep last night, you might switch into the ‘victim’ mode today. Am a vulnerable animal now.