Celebrating Ancestors of Spirit: Happy Birthday, Beatrix Potter

What heaven can be more real than to retain the spirit-world of childhood?
Beatrix Potter (July 28, 1866-Dec. 22, 1943)

In addition to the usual DNA relatives we think of when we are considering our ancestors, in my tradition we also give honor to the many ancestors of spirit with whom we feel connected.

I am sure if you think about it, you will recognize that you, too, have teachers, mentors, and heroes from history to whom you have felt particularly connected. This is usually more than just a vague admiration or passing interest, but instead, a sense of being kindred spirits.

One such person for me is Beatrix Potter, whose birthday is today. Like millions of other little children, I loved her Tales, featuring naughty Peter Rabbit, industrious Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, the endearing Jemima Puddleduck, and all the rest.

She was the first author that grabbed my imagination and made me think, “I want to do that.”

But as an adult I have come to know much more about this multifaceted woman, who was a pioneer of her times.

She had a passionate scientific side, was an innovator and savvy entrepreneur, and was a groundbreaking environmentalist.

For instance, she was a brilliant mycologist and illustrated several technical publications. In every painting of, say, her sweet animal tea parties, those mushrooms the friends are sitting upon are carefully researched and painted with meticulous accuracy.

In fact, all of her birds, animals, insects, trees, and other subjects are scientifically precise.

True Grit

In addition, Ms. Potter was an energetic businesswoman and determined creator. She swallowed multiple rejections of her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and self-published it instead. Thus she retained all the rights and profits from it, as well as the spinoff merchandise she created, and which, like her little book, was wildly popular.

With the earnings of her subsequent procession of blockbuster children’s stories, she gradually bought up thousands of acres of land in the Lake District of England, with the deliberate intention of saving the farms and rolling fells from urbanization and commercial blight. It is estimated that at the time of her death, her net worth was the equivalent of ten million dollars today.

Her love for old-fashioned, environmentally sensitive methods of sheep breeding and farming was legendary, and she won many awards, as well as the admiration of what was surely an old and crusty culture of good old boys.

According to the British heritage preservation group known as the National Trust, “she supported the efforts of the National Trust to preserve not just the places of extraordinary beauty but also those heads of valleys and low grazing lands that would be irreparably ruined by development.”

Wikipedia notes, “She was also an authority on the traditional Lakeland crafts and period furniture, as well as local stonework. She restored and preserved the farms that she bought or managed, making sure that each farm house had in it a piece of antique Lakeland furniture. Potter was interested in preserving not only the Herdwick sheep but also the way of life of fell farming.”

Ms. Potter was heavily influenced by old local legends, fairy tales, classic mythology, and fantasy. She was a naturalist and passionate botanist as well, and again, all of her children’s illustrations feature painstakingly rendered flowers, plants, and of course, the animals.

Beatrix Potter’s deep love for Nature, combined with her imaginative story-telling are ingredients for timeless, good, and true magic.

Thank you, Ms. Potter, for an extraordinary life, for your inspiration, and your loving care for the sacred Land.

All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife. Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself, and never mind the rest.
Beatrix Potter

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Want to know more? One of my favorite artist whisperers, Dr. Thea Fiore-Bloom, has gathered some very pragmatic inspiration regarding this most remarkable ancestor of spirit.