Would you rather…?

Another day, another climate talk – Part 2 It’s 3.45 in the morning and I’m awake.  Outside I can hear the rain, the incessant rain. Was it the rain that woke me? Yesterday, on my way home I saw the river had broken its banks again. I’d been visiting a friend who was about to…

Six Steps back to the Land

In Britain, over 20% of us are now considered obese, 40 % of our food is imported (with serious implications for food security and sovereignty), youth unemployment is at 14.4% and social isolation is on the increase. What bright idea might offer a solution to these seemingly unrelated issues? The answer according to Colin Tudge,…

Regarding the Land

“What I stand for is what I stand on.” ― Wendell Berry Several years ago I was invited to work on a ‘Soil and Story’ project for the Soil Association.  It was a wonderful opportunity to do some research into different cultural approaches to soil and earth. Now that I am in the process of…

The long remembering

 “We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors’ wisdom.” Maya Angelou Last week I was walking on Dartmoor when I stumbled upon The Mariners Way. The Mariners Way is said to be the track which sailors walked from Bideford in the north to Dartmouth in the south. As I…

The undivided self

I have a memory of how it started. I was visiting my Dad in New York and my big sister had taken me and a friend to the fairground. I was thirteen years old. It was summer. I was dressed in shorts and t-shirt. When our turn came for the Ferris wheel my friend and I…

Sleep like a river

“How we need another soul to cling to.” – Sylvia Plath Since my nine year old son watched a particularly scary episode of Dr Who we have started practising ‘kawa no ji mitai’. Kawa no ji mitai is not some ancient martial art designed to chase away the bogeymen from under the bed, but it…

Another day, another climate talk

“For sometime now I’ve been terribly worried. I wish I didn’t have to acknowledge it, but everything I have feared is happening.” Dr Sarah Perkins, Climate Scientist Another day, another climate talk. And as the climate march leading up to it, the summit itself and the various analyses fade into the media background within a…

Bird song

“Until we can expand our scope beyond self-centred and purely human concerns to hold in mind the trillion worlds alive on this one earth at any moment, and to glimpse ourselves exactly in that vibrant, seamless web of interconnectedness, we are living in a kind of madness – which is to say, not living in…