After not winning the X-factor in 2010, Cher Lloyd would later go on to release her song “Oath” in 2012 featuring Becky G. The song charted in the US, debuting at number 99 and peaking at number 73 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was certified gold by the RIAA.

Lloyd sings a song of friendship and how there is nothing quite like the intangible force of platonic romance. The connection she describes is one that transcends traditional romantic love, focusing instead on the deep emotional bond and unwavering loyalty between friends. The unspoken vow to always be there for each other, no matter the circumstances.

The first lines of the chorus, Lloyd sings


“Wherever you go, just always remember.

That you’ve got a home, for now and forever.”


In process philosophy, coined by Alfred Whitehead, entities are not static objects but processes in dynamic relationships. As Whitehead says, "The process of becoming is the fundamental characteristic of existence." For example, a garden is always becoming, with each season shaping its growth and preparing it for the next. The garden interacts with the changing seasons; through sunlight, rainfall, and temperature, continually influencing its development, and even in full bloom, it remains part of an ongoing process, with each new season shaping its future.


It’s a non-physical rubbing off from one to another - sight which leads to an imprint, like a comma which leads you to the rest of the sentence like an open door which welcomes you home.


Something placed outside for long enough could also be seen in the process of becoming, perhaps not through the intangible force of friendship that Lloyd sings of or the constant flow of change that Whitehead highlights, but maybe something else, something equally as special. That something placed outside could become an ecosystem - another dynamic relationship where something/organisms interact with the physical.


A dance of sorts where things house things. For now or forever.

Lloyd continues to sing in the chorus, stating:


“Wherever you go, just always remember

You're never alone, we're birds of a feather”


In the book “The Nature Of Things” by Lyall Watson - Watson says that the word ‘talisman’ from the greek word ‘telesmon’ means ‘something which does not exist on its own but in relation to things’ she also adds that they “might well have a  tendency to seek completion in is own special way’


The ‘special way’ Watson highlights  is not dissimilar to what Lloyd is singing about. You see - ‘you're never alone, we’re birds of a feather’ -

Lloyd is suggesting a fundamental connection among us that transcends physical space and time. This connection, like the talisman Watson describes, does not exist solely in isolation but rather in continuous interaction and dependency with others.

This lyrical perspective aligns with Whitehead’s view of reality, where everything is inter-dependent and nothing is truly separate or static. Each encounter and relationship leaves a mark, contributes to our ongoing development, and influences our journey, mirroring to us the Oath Lloyd stands with.

We become homes to the things we might not want. The body is a container, this we know. But on the outside - the body is also an ecosystem. An ecosystem of not just the things we know of, but to the things that we don’t.


I think about standing still waiting for the train at Raynes Park, where I walk right to the end of the platform just so I don’t have to walk any more than I need to once I get to Waterloo. I think about how I walk out,

stand

and wait.


My body; a pillar, a foundation to a building not yet known.

My arms are tight to my side.

And my feet are almost touching.

I stand as an ecosystem to something.


If not forever, maybe for now.


There has to be something that has latched onto me and decided it’s home. It’s impossible to not be impacted in open air.


But how can I know that something has latched when it might not be able to speak?


My body warns me that things don’t last forever, and lasting forever is what homes often promise.


In moments of pain, the human body often does not register that healing is an outcome available on its trajectory. Impact doesn't afford us the time to understand that things pass.


But could it also be that impact doesn’t have the ability to talk - to soothe and tell us - “You will heal”


How does the garden forgive the winter for what it has taken away?


And who tells the lone flower that by winter it will die, and by spring it will return stronger than before?


You see, when my body was an ear, stationed at the belly of the earth.

I would listen to all that came before me.

The hum of the soil sliding against itself.

The peak of the mountains catching the winds through their open arms.

I recall questions passing me.

Like dust dancing in sunlight.

Like sunlight piercing through the car windows as we pass trees.

Like trees shedding goodnight.

They’re speaking to me.

Asking me.

Asking me about the day before.

But I had no way to reply. I was only here to listen.


Days would go by turning into years and the build up of questions had now lodged themselves in my ear canal. The questions plugged my only vessel of understanding the world around me

• The questions silenced my listening

I began to retrace my mothers line and seek what was left behind in the great passing as a distraction.


My thoughts now bled into my prayers.


When can I relieve this?


When can I speak to what wants to be spoken to?


And when can I address the unspoken?


And then… a light casted out of my ear, illuminating through every question.

With its sustained light came a sustained sensation.

A sack formed under my ear, almost as if a blister was kissed upon me.


With the light still illuminating from my ear;

the sack wrinkled by the weight of a fluid I had no recollection of.


A leak inwards shot something throughout me. My ear had perked and twitched at the feeling. The glow in my ear was weakening - the muffled sounds which replaced the volume of my settings disappeared - the questions flew out of my ear and crawled over to my blister.


Humming over my blister - leeching away at the surface of my blister.


Taaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaste.


I was tasting something for the first time. After the blister healed, the questions became attracted to another light source. They gathered and knocked at my surface, at my blister


And with no hesitation I split in two…


Welcoming in me every question that was once resting in my canal that now found its way in this split. I have never had the world translated inside of me like this. And in that moment the questions found a home, deep inside of me.


I was given a mouth! Something I needed but wasn't told how to use. My mouth became a house for these questions. I did not know that my hum could be an answer. My sliding soil could have tapped at the embryo of their needs.


“But time has passed and I can't recall the past and speak of it to you.”


Even if I was to remember the sounds - my newly made mouth wouldn't connect them.

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*I am now on the train heading to waterloo*

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To hold the mark of your return is to fold with the season and come back untouched. To be taken away through impact but brought back in light. I think about the gardens which have been applied on top of me. These gardens are sites of constant processing. Always working and always producing. Identifying all that has come before. The garden is a framework; yet it is empty. Always tangled, the garden is knotting at the roots,


reminding us that it's everfolding,

eclipsing over,

pushing under,

passing through - always in a state of becoming


Earlier this year, Munesu Mukombe said to me;


“We all struggle with experiencing devastating experiences and seeing the joys that live in the crevices of them or allowing polar opposite emotions to sit next to one another. The ones who have hurt us have also made us laugh and we can love the countries that unjustly oppress our people.”


In crevices, sitting next to each other - folding and growing - eclipsing and spilling

but ~ all is naked to the eye that lay upon it?


What sits here next to me? Could something sit beside me - so opposite that I wouldn't even consider it, let alone register? Something far from my fabric - far from my garden.


I think back to standing out in the open air at the end of the platform in Raynes Park. Far away from the station's shelter and directly under the rain.


Something is bound to sit on me, making me an ecosystem - a lisp that echoes the past - - - - -


And when I find you again, between this great unfolding of moments we didn't get to have - would you question the measurement to which I kept you close with?

Would you ask if you were measured in time? Minutes, hours, days, years?

Would you have preferred to be measured in springs? - In seeds, blossoms, oranges?


Measured In the divine earthly feed?


I have centered you

almost automatically

somehow intrinsically … the way honey could spiral itself free from a coil - the way light sits in puddles of water, the way we have never met but I carry your face - just by nature.


You have been governed by my unconsciousness - to remain put as a nucleus - but must I consider your seasons ? your comings and goings - your sun and moon - your mornings and twilights?


Beyond you is a material - a material which for the most part has been out of focus - but I now know that to understand you - I must go through you and feel how you feel.


To help you understand I must stand in the questions that puzzle you - with you.


Cher Lloyd might not have intended for her song Oath to be a departure to which I think about my late Uncle - or to the wider ecological landscape of a place that was the home of my mothers and fathers. All the scars we share and still we feel pain in different sequences. Grieve in spirals, but laugh together.


In 2013 two sisters in Glasgow, sat in their bedroom and turned on their webcam and said


“I'm gonna sing Cher Lloyd by Cher Lloyd”


The older sister out of the two skips majority of the first verse of Oath by Cher Lloyd and begins to sing the second to last line, acapella :

“And don't forget all the trouble we got into”


In a moment of pure clairvoyant nature, the sisters summon their ferocious mum Karen into their room; in an ecstasy of rage - the mother says:


"Why does somebody not know how to flush a toilet after they've had a SHIT?"


"IT WASN'T ME!" the eldest daughter replied guiltily.


"WELL IT WAS FUCKIN' ONE OF YA’S. DISGUSTANG!"


It might be an unrelated point - and unrelated sting of moments - but there was something worth highlighting or more so aligning all these things. Life is woven matter; it's a meshy net catching time. What I’m aiming to do is understand the world around me through itself. 


The radio carried a tune to me for me to tap into and it just so happens the tune on the radio was the punctuation needed for me to pause and continue. To reflect and to hold. 


You see all is unintentional yet all is connected. Either through strings of words that tell us stories, songs that open up portals, shared experiences between siblings, windows that cast in life - punctuations that hold matter;


Wherever you go, just always remember.

That you’ve got a home, for now and forever. 

✿