Think about your week. Did you spend time with a good friend? Get a chance to stare out the window or look up at the clouds and let your mind wander? Did you share a meal with somebody you love? Was there an opportunity to learn something new, express your creativity or play with a…
Faceless bureaucrats? Cumbersome regulation? Welcome to rural England.
Imagine finding an opportunity to make a long held dream come true. It would require determination, sacrifice and a hell of a lot of work, but, given the chance, most of us would dive in and devote every waking hour to manifesting our vision. In 2007 Doug King Smith dreamt of finding a small woodland…
Behold my friends, the Spring has come!
“Behold, my friends, the spring has come; the earth has received the embraces of the sun and we shall soon see the results of that love! Every seed has awakened and so has all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our neighbours,…
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…
From Dismal Science to Language of Beauty
Towards a New Story of Economics Humans are storytelling beings. In fact one could argue that it is impossible to make sense of the world without story. Storytelling is how we piece together facts, beliefs, feelings and history to form something of a coherent whole connecting us to our individual and collective past, present and…
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…
Some Small Holding 