As a society we are afraid of wildness and the wildness from which we came is now regarded as an obstacle to be overcome and a problem to be solved. The flowers and grasses that grow wild and free, no matter how beautiful, are deemed ‘weeds’ to be tamed and trimmed because they do not fit with the socially acceptable, perfectionist vision of what a garden should be. To let your garden grow wild and free, the way nature intended is regarded as laziness and poor garden manageme
‘What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.’ ~ Gandhi We can suppress our true nature, ignore our seasons and cycles, override the calls to rest and plough on with our busy, productive lives but we all know how this story ends and this is the story playing out on earth. Dominion over nature can only work as a strategy for so long before earth gets exhausted and angry and rebels. Just as dominion over
The Earth is suffering and we are suffering too and sometimes the magnitude of the problem can feel overwhelming. When in the depths of any kind of suffering, whether grief or trauma or addiction or whatever it is we have encountered and are experiencing, sometimes the feelings of hopelessness can be all consuming. It can be difficult to see a way through and this is how we can end up feeling about nature and our planet too. We can struggle to see how we might make things bet
Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. First celebrated in 1970 to mark this date, Earth Day events in more than 193 countries are now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network. Today may we be reminded of the importance of our relationship with nature, dissolving the perceived gap between us and the rest of the natural world because becoming disconnected from nature is in essence becoming disconnected from ourselves and
One day my Dad sat my siblings and I down and asked us to write out a list of all of the things we felt we couldn’t do. He then took our lists to the bottom of the garden with a spade, dug a whole in the ground and buried our ‘I can’ts’ in there. He proceeded to conduct a funeral service to the word I can’t and then banned us from using the words ever again. Trivial yes but incredibly important and symbolic for a young child and in fact adults alike. It’s so easy for us to ge