Beautiful day

One day this week I woke up before dawn, poked my head out the door and breathed in the sharp cold air. The frost was on the bare trees and as the light appeared in the east the birch branches started to drip and melt from crystal white to deep gold. The blue tits and sparrows and crows began to call to each other and the pheasants screeched, newly arrived from the mown fields.

I threw on a scarf and boots and set off. That day I walked around a Lewes lit by cloudless skies, with a deeply poignant feeling about the future these skies bring. We live in an abundant nature reserve here, much of it hidden in gardens and (shrinking) wastelands and edges, allotments and untended plots. There are fruit and berries and herbs, miraculous small things, rose hips and roses, even this late.

For a whole week this summer I watched the sun rise from a spot in the cemetery. I’m becoming re-bonded with nature, almost in love, and that healing relationship has motivated me hugely. (Fear is a bad reason for being an environmentalist, as Satish Kumar wrote in the last issue of Resurgence). Below are three links, one to help make sense of it all, two more for local ways to walk more deeply and develop essential skills in our precious habitat.

The Great Turning
Souls and Soles
Trackways