So, I was meditating. Not with a mandala. Well, not with one laid out. But I started thinking instead of meditating about the way that the course had helped my clarify my values. And I started wondering what projects would be in line with those values.
One was films about people doing unusual conservation stuff. I don't know who they are yet. But, to get in on the birth of something new or unexplored.
The other was guerilla conservation.
Take my copse. It's someone's private land. Maybe Althorpe's. But it's deserted. How's about going in there with a plan, loppers and a bow saw? I can't fell trees. Obviously. But I could cut back the nettles and rake them out. I could cut back the densest scrub in places and let more light in to the floor. I could monitor things. If I could recognise them. I know the birds in there - thanks to Merlin. And the trees and scrub. I could clear some paths through and little glades. But all unseen from the outside.
I thought I'd see what my colleague volunteers thought during a work party. They seemed to think I was joking. Or crazy. That's ok. Most people think the latter.
So I wondered off for a bit to check out the willows and reed beds.
It was something of a relief to be out there as the task was to clear up after more felling. Which I had helped with a few days before.

Resin on pine stumps.
A super woman, Nicky, had come over from Great Fen to help and she helped me build confidence. It is always smashing to work with the Trust's excellent reserve Officers. Great people, so knowledgeable and so inspiring.
She said I was a real Earth Mother, which I took as a great compliment, as I seemed so tuned in to the natural world. I'd just said the trees were angry that we'd chopped down so many of their friends. Crazy, moi??
In truth, they do a decent job of falling down on their own. And when they are down, they live on in other ways.
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