What will the consequences be of this mast year? Of this Autumn when trees splurged out their fruit, scattering thousands more seeds on the ground, when fungi bubbled up their myriad of fruiting bodies to the surface, spores thickening the air. It could be exciting to look out for this bounty, this treasure. Spring – …
As the days draw shorter, and the nights grow longer, we watch as the world around us changes. Change in weather, change in colour, change in pace. We welcome mornings of crisp coldness and clear skies, and we witness chilly nights, welcomed by movements of starling murmuration’s as the sun fades for the day. Despite …
What follows is a remembering; my account of a day in our shared garden. Though names have been changed and a few details reshaped to protect anonymity, the heart of it remains untouched. The spirit, the togetherness, and the small, shimmering magic of that day are all as true and as real as the sunlight …
This past couple of months we have witnessed the true power of a community to come together and to help one another. In witnessing it we have seen how community rises like morning mist over a garden, formed from countless invisible moments; each as brief and vital as breath. It can begin with the smallest …
In the house where my father lived his last years, the walls still pulse with the rhythm of borrowed time. Looking back over the intersections of our lives now, I realise that love sometimes arrives wearing work boots and carrying a medical bag. The cows knew this already. When the surgeon split open my father’s …
In their 2007 report labelled ‘Ecotherapy’ mental health charity Mind defined the term broadly encompassing a diverse range of activities that shared as a common theme some form of contact with or activity within nature. They subsequently refined their definition in 2013 to include some sort of formal therapy or counselling alongside the practice of …
Nature connection was simply how our ancestors lived. They were aware of their environment, the flora and fauna and the changing seasons because they were immersed in it and depended on it. We are still dependent on the natural world but are becoming increasingly disconnected from it. Recently we have seen increasing interest in practices …
Sitting round the table for lunch the conversation drifted to honey and all sorts of claims were made regarding its medicinal and magical properties. We had several vegans around the table and there were also discussions about the costs to bees and the environment of honey consumption; and the effect of large honey bee populations …