Thought for the Day

'Man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard.'Luther Standing Bear 1858-1939

The Lakota knew that lack of respect for growing, living things, soon led to lack of respect for humans too.


'What is the extinction of a condor to a child who has never seen a wren?' Naturalist Robert Michael Pyle

I am currently reading a book by Richard Louv called 'Lost Child in the Woods' about saving our children from what he has coined as ' Nature Deficit Disorder'. Basically,he is arguing that there is no substitute for the joy and freedom a child experiences playing and exploring a wild, natural habitat near to, if not in, their own back yard. He is also arguing that this ablity to access the natural world free from the constraints of adult supervision, the restrictions of urbanisation and increasing dependence on computers, is becoming more and more limited. Add to this adult fears of leaving children to play alone, limited access to free, wild land and the demise of group activities which encourage young people to explore ie: scouts and guides with their camps; as well as restrictions imposed on education by health and safety regulations, and there is a real problem emerging for today's children who may know the names of each new computer game, but not those of the trees and flowers in their own locality...that's if there are any.Subjects like Biology and Geology are also now specialist subjects integrated into general subjects so children are not getting any specialist knowledge of the names of plants and animals. As the quote says if they do not know what a wren is then how can we expect them to be interestedin the plight of the condor and wider envirommental issues. Children, according to Louv, are not making these vital connections.Louv is writing in 2005 and his arguments centre on the plight of American children.

Thankfully there is a growing awareness in the UK that children are in desperate need of outdoor activities and risk taking play. Bushcraft courses and environmental education is apparently on the increase with new projects like 'Plan-it Earth' in west Penwith invitng the community and especially schools to see nature as the source of education. As Wordsworth says:'Let Nature be your teacher..'Hopefully, this sort of community programme will take root but it is still dependent on funding and also can only work with those schools like cape Cornwall who want to allow that sort of educational experience to take place...it is not the norm. Also with increasing and pressing need for housing, roads and even new towns where will children go to play and in any case, will their parents allow them? It is an interesting question....where I live there is a playing field and many open fields right next to a large estate...do I see groups of children happily playing, making camps, running, playingball or hanging out on the grass? The answeris so far, no. I saw a couple of boys playing rugby, some boys round a motorbike and a few children playing on their bikes...but I am aware that the only person who uses that green space on a regular basis is either your average dog walker doing the obligatory round of the field or interestingly the local gypsy in a very speedy horse and cart ( I can't think of the correct term...senile moment!}It is only gypsies who still have this love of freedom in the outdoors....and by gypsies I am not referring to travellers. Everyday when I see him he seems to symbolise that wild, freedom with his deeply tanned skin and black hair...trotting or cantering or racing at speed around that field. Where are the children???Indoors on their playstations racing cars, planning military attacks, collecting new cages for their fantasy pets or losing weight playing baseball on Wi. What's there to do outdoors...it's boring!

Hopefully,living in Cornwall we can still go down to the woods today, let our children play and not be afraid of the Blair Witch or the odd bear on a picnic...hopefully....

Blessed be xxx

Musings on Nature and Imagination

William Blake - Auguries of Innocence


To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

Blake is one of my favourite poets and these lines have revisited my consciousness just recently on my visits to Dartington Hall and its wonderful grounds rolling with banks of primroses and daffodils, magnolia in fleshy pink on china blue skies. The grounds are a natural stage where nature and art unite in harmony. This is a place where a philosophy of holistic education for the perfoming arts,natural sciences, crafts and creativity imbues every space and inspires the soul to take flight with the birds. There is a plaque with these lines from Blake's 'Auguries of Innocence' etched in slate in the grounds near to a statue of what I can only conceive to be the goddess Flora with garlands of flowers in her hair.

The other inspirational gardens I love are those at Heligan, near St Austell Bay: again with Tim Schmidt's love of the arts and nature there is once more this delicious blend of creativity and wild,free nature. There is also this philosophy of bringing the arts, nature, education and environmental awareness together. Here again,in the grounds of Heligan,the goddess dreams on her bed of primroses and the imagination awakens in the form of the Green Man or Giant to stimulate and animate the Goddess Gaia..Mother Earth.Like the Romantic poet's, our imagination is brought to bear upon the natural scene to give it eternal and lasting qualities: to transform it into a very individual, unique world of our own creation with its own harmonies and resonance. Like a painter we paint the scene with our soul...the mage or magician in us waves a wand and the smallest aspects of nature are a world within a world, a vision of the whole of creation: timeless and eternal.

On the course in Creative Arts Therapy,we bring our imagination to the healing process and seek ways into the unspoken parts of the body which have been wounded or locked away. The aim is to be a witness to the unfolding of the flower of the human being before us and to create a space where that individual can find a safe means of self expression through play and creativity; movement, voice, art, drama and poetry. I am only at the beginning of this process myself and yet I am intrigued and astonished by the depths of the spaces within me which are now being set free. This inner growth is reflected in the blossoming around me and in the flowering in every tree, bank and field.

In the grounds at Dartington there are little doors in the roots of trees...one imagines a gnome living here, a Pogle like in the children's TV series of the early 1960's 'Pogles Wood'.I watched an old episode on You Tube and it brought back great nostalgia as well as reminding me that as a child I had imagined these knitted puppets to be green and alive when now I can see they are made of wool, their eyes are even knitted or felt and they are in black and white.....in the episode...six I think..they are visited by a witch....imagination truly is a wonderful thing! My next journey is going to be with the 'Double Deckers' climb aboard!!


Blessed Be xxxx

Beltane Blessings

After a two month break from blogging due to a move of house back to my homelands of Redruth in Cornwall, Capital of Cornish Mining and home of the first gas lighting pioneered by William Murdock, I have managed to walk from my door and greet Beltane as it dawned in blossoms of cherry, apple, wild garlic flowers, forgetmeknots and the rush of bluebells in hedgerow and wood, starting to paint the beech green with sweeps of deep violet blue.

I rose early on Beltane morning and took a gentle stroll towards the village of Carn Brea with its wishing well dedicated to the saint of that parish, St Euny whose church spire nestles in the valley and surrounded by mine ruins and stacks evokes a sense of the roots of this mining kingdom in a deep spirituality which you sense in the clear running stream and the cacophany of birdsong as rooks swoop in the vale for twigs and blackbirds pierce the still blue pools of air with their shrill, piping song.

Beltane is one of my favourite points on the Wheel of the Year with its profound sense of abundance in nature,its fresh canvas of pastel colour and that keen awareness of a spirit of life, joy, passion and fertility. Here we have the goddess in her aspect as maiden queen- life is at its most promising and she is dancing and revelling in the wonder of it all. The evenings are drawing out and the nights getting shorter; we feel awake and alive, 'Full of Spring' as a friend so aptly put it recently.The sun is gathering heat and warmth and the full moon on Lunar Beltane in Scorpio has a mystical poetry. The sense of abundance in nature fills the heart and soul with a desire for self expression..a need to express the beauty of the world as if it had just been created and our eyes were newly opened. May time is a dance, a song, a beat and rhythm deep in the earth captured by the dance of the Obby Oss at Padstow and the Furry Dance and Hal an Tow in Helston.It is a time to revel and celebrate the beginning of summer and the fertility of life. To give thanks and appreciation for the gifts we have been given so far and for what we have manifested in our lives. It is also a time to contemplate what else needs to be done, to be brought to fruition, to be created and expressed. This is a time when the Maiden goddess has come into her own self, her true, wild, free nature bringing the promise of life, love and laughter.

With the prevalent ritual emphasis on the phallic Maypole as symbol of fertility for maidens to dance around, there has been less emphasis on this festival as a time to celebrate womens menarche..the bleeding and floering of the Maiden.Now as women we can celebrate the power of our moon blood..women's blood was once adored and used for its potential life sustaining properties. When a woman started to bleed she was honoured and declared of value and importance to the tribe. The blood of women meant blessings from the goddess and the assurance of life's continuation. Blood was ritually poured into the earth to aid the growth and fertility of crops.Like the fruit and flower of plants, the woman bleeding was the woman's flowering.The blood of a woman is potent and healing it can be used in spells and rituals to add intensity and life force to these.

At Beltane celebrate, contemplate your moon flow and your experience of it over the years...celebrate its power and awaken your own free, wild nature - your maiden aspect free, powerful and strong unto your self. In what ways are you enriching your own life? How are you blossoming and coming into your own power? Dance with your own vital energy, enjoy your self, feel the sap rising and the world celebrating the fire of your spirit in a universal joy of being.

Blessed Be xx