Wandering the valley after the alpaca rounds and noticing… BENEATH THE CANOPY Trees with manicured understorey, the height of those nibbling lush leaves, tell a story of their own. Shade from the elements. Safety in shadows. Sustenance renewed for valley dwellers. Finding place in common space reciprocal in glorious diversity, here is flourishing in … Read more
Discovering our place in the ecosystem is an eye–and heart–opener. Here in the valley, it isn’t our job to dominate, control or even try to make it ‘safe’. So that means respectfully living and letting live even if the consequence is the eggs of our lovely pair of Canada Geese feeding the hungry Fox family. … Read more
It’s all around us, this evidence of life: flowing in the stream, emerging from the ground, breathing the air. Life in abundance everywhere we look, and in those places we cannot see, yet know it is there. Precious. Hidden. Beautiful. Vulnerable. How could we value such an extraordinary gift? + Sue Heatherington, Earth Day 2023 … Read more
Walking down the lane, I picked up these gorgeous plump acorns. This year they have been particularly large, and the blackberries are following their lead. Yet what makes them so big? It’s not their individual capacity for growth because fruitfulness is not a solitary action. An acorn cannot determine its own size. Instead, it’s the … Read more
We may have an urge to tidy up. To sort things out or make them clearer. And sometimes, that is precisely what is required. Especially when we are threatened by overwhelm. Yet more often, we need the humility and courage to recognise that real life is gloriously complex. And that we need to live it … Read more
Our language is framed around the individual. Yet there is no singular you or me, just the appearance of individuality. And while we are each gloriously distinctive, we are always us. The us of hereditary and community. We didn’t birth ourselves, and our nurturing utterly relied on others. And now, we are interdependent partners in … Read more
We’re in such a hurry. We want answers now. Or at least the promise of a solution by tomorrow. Yet, the seasons are not in a rush. They ebb and flow with a gravitational pull beyond our making. And what’s our contribution? It’s hard for us to look deep enough to see how separate we … Read more
Like the overnight appearance of fruiting bodies – mushrooms, toadstools and other fungi popping up through the leaf mould or grass – the fruit of our own lives has much deeper entangled origins than appears at first sight. Yet we continue to expect it to arrive ready-packaged, like mushrooms on the supermarket shelves. Divorced from … Read more