When a child leaves home
Here are my boys,
walking away,
in their own world
of words I do not understand.
Where I used to lead,
I follow,
whistful, watching,
distanced from the world they march into.
Then the eldest carries on walking,
until he leaves home
and
I am left floating in rivers
crying,
empty
adrift
alone.… Read more
Climate Emergency – a call for elders to support future generations
We have known since the 80s that climate change was in need of our attention and yet, we have either ignored it or tinkered around the edges of the massive changes that need to be made. As mothers and elders we have weathered storms and even in our imperfections, we have wisdom and experience to … Read more
Creative writing
I have written books. A couple I self-published and there are still gremlins in my head sneering ‘That’s not real publishing, it’s vanity, who cares, you’re not good enough’. That was the same voice asking me who I thought I was as I walked to corridor to meet my PhD supervisor for the first … Read more
Opening doors
Sharon Green and I went to Sunderland Poly to do English at the tail end of the 80s and then for a large part of our adult life lost touch with each other, not out of malice, just life. Facebook reconnected us and so we followed each other from afar, then Sharon announced she was … Read more
We serve no one when we play small
I was on a permaculture course,
Life changing;
The ideas, systems,
the people,
wise,
interested and interesting,
synthesising experience,
weaving webs of new understanding.
One of us,
post-doctoral researcher,
unsure,
if she could venture
into academia alone,
without
a university at her shoulder.
Keeping her voice small,
When her work,
is game changing,
life … Read more
Sustainable or regenerative?
Until I did my Permaculture Design Course with Steve Jones, I didn’t really pay attention to the words in the title. In my head ‘sustainable’ and ‘regenerative’ were synonymous, I hadn’t bothered to unpack them until I started to listen to Steve and Ian Steele, whose farm the course was held on.
Sustainable agriculture … Read more