Discover the Connection
…the weight of a bee
I am a bee
this is my life
I’ve just left after the beehive
made of flower
I’m coming back and I am looking for my honeycomb
so I can make some honey
but then I hear my boss shout “it’s HONEY TIME!”
which I absolutely hate
so I leave
so there is noooo one near by me
soon I find a flower that I am about to pollinate
and then a dog comes
and pees on it
I am a dog
I love to say hi to everyone
maybe its so I can get attention
I wish I was rain
I am rain, I spend my entire life being judged by cloud
I wish I was earth
I am Earth, I am the ground you walk on
the foundation of humanity and others
like a postbox
I am a post box on the corner of a busy street
I am bright red and have many stories to tell…
the letters I am filled with are full of love,
celebration and happy announcements
bills, bad tidings and bulletins also fill me up
one day a lady fitted me with a beautiful knitted hat
now I shine like a rainbow with my head warmed by a unicorn
I am a unicorn
with long and couloful wing’s
I am a unicorn with many great copayens
I am a unicorn who’s best of friend is a dog
I am a dog
I am a lily
I am a sorring berd
I am a swishing and swaing treew
I am a flalping owl
I am an owl
sitting in a tree
I hear all the animals talking to each other
I move my head about and sing TOOT TOOT
I can hear scratching on the tree…
it is a kitten!
I am a kitten
I am playing red dot
the window opend
and lot of dandylionseeds came in
I am a seed from a poppy flower
floating in the sky to find a new home
I landed for my final time ✿
on the wings of a dragon with horns
I am dragon with large wings and horns
I fly over the trees and I see a deer walking in the forest below me
I swoop in and kill it
[they were] not doing well today
I am doing well today!
the weather is good
the rain stayed away
and the sun is shining bright yellow
I am a yellow 4 eyed monky with wings
and I was flying through the air until something hit me in the face
I fell
I looked over to see what hit me
I was a few leaves
I am the leaves in the wind
blowing tro through a city
blowing to the sea
blowing past a flying piranha
I,am a flying piranha
I, am currently gliding
with a burger in my mouth
OH YES
I am going to crash
in to a tree!
I am tree with my leaves waving in the wind
I would be a lovely place to curl up
beneath for a sleep
I am in need of a sleep
I am in need of sleep because
I had way too big a lunch but
I am enjoying life qay too mutch
to sleep so I am going to
break out of my sleepy bubble and awaken!
I am a bubble!
with fire
and a bumblebee
is inside
me!
I am evie the bumblebee
I am flying on a cat
the cat falls a sleep
I am a cat
I am a pishi
I am bitsy
meow
I like fish
I don’t like poop
I am a poop
of a tortoise
I am hercule and I am a small purple tortoise
I have spent this morning eating a large, organic
bright blue turnip with my teacher, iona
I am iona
I am a teecha
steev is a lava monsta
I am stev the gogsard
hunting thrua the darc wud so huet a warea elv-
I am a warrior elf
and in war time I like to take time to enjoy
what is left of the world
the sounds of my favrite bird is comforting and it feels like a warm
coat in the middle of a snow storm
I got awfully hungry so
a passing rabbit was my next meal…
I am a rabbit
I live in a bush
just like the ladybird
I am a ladybird
I like flying in the wind
the wind I am the wind
I blow leaves
the leaves cover the grass
the grass is eaten by the sheep
the sheep gives wool to the farmer
the farmer gives acorns to the squirrel
I am a squirrel
I hear footsteps and a plop sound
it’s a familiar sound of people throwing nuts for us
I run towards the sound
I’m searching for the nuts in a bed of flowers
full of buzzing bees
I am a bee
looking for flowers in a meadow
I’m getting tired
I hope I can get some help
carry on with my journey
from a bird
I am a bird
I see my friend the bee
she's tired
I’m going to carry her on my back
to a nice flower
I am a flower
I grow in the soil
unfold my leaves in the sun
and shake my petals
under the weight of a bee
I am a bee
this is my life…
Authors
A collaborative place-based story from the Discover Festival, transcribed here as crafted and captured in place as part of the Waste-ful Landscapes Lab at the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University, on Saturday 07 June 2025, between 10:00 and 16:00 BST, by Lotte Dijkstra and the more-than-human festival visitors present, on recycled paper supplied by Newcastle University Print Services.
•
Discover the Connection
•
I am a bee
•
I am a dog
•
I am a flower
• Discover the Connection • I am a bee • I am a dog • I am a flower
Who or what do you love in the landscape? What would life be like, when you embody them? And would you be connected to others in the landscape?
We inhabit landscapes crafted, created and constructed by many others. Our more-than-human communities co-create the places we live in, and the spaces we construct as landscape architects, architects, urbanists, planners, designers and other space makers. Exploring different narrative points of view about landscapes helps us move beyond simplistic narratives and linear timelines, surpassing culture-nature dualisms and uncovering encoded features and patterns in our environment. Through narrative techniques, these shifts in perspective can be captured into collaborative more-than-human understandings of place, which contribute to more inclusive, intersectional and interscalar landscape practices.