“Multiple belongings are nurtured by cultural encounters but they are not only the preserve of people who travel. It is an attitude, a way of thinking, rather than the number of stamps on your passport. It is about thinking of yourself, and your fellow human beings, in more fluid terms than solid categories.” – Elif […]
“Over the past eight years, as part of a global storytelling project called the Out of Eden Walk, I have been hiking continents emptied of their wildlife by human beings. The Gaoligong represent a chance for solace. They are one of the planet’s last remaining vaults of biodiversity: a glimpse into a teeming Earth that once […]
“We’ve reached a time in human history when our global environmental crisis requires that we make permanent life-style changes. More than ever before, we need to fall back in love with the land. Silence is our meeting place.” – Gordon Hempton Gordon Hempton, and acoustic ecologist warns that silence, true silence, where man-made noise does […]
“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying […]
“It’s in the home or urban garden, where the effort you put into your soil can not only be felt in your hands and back, but also be tasted on the plate.”– Matthew Evans The sky above me is cloudless, and although there is still frost on the ground, the sun holds a promise of […]
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Gandhi The rains arrived, as predicted on the 29th of October. After a couple of days taking care of some chores on the land, I was grateful to slow down, huddle up inside, and catching up with friends. By the Sunday the sharka (pond or […]
“We’ve all been given a gift, the gift of life. What we do with our lives is our gift back.” – Edo When Matthias contacted me nearly two weeks ago to check if I’m up for a day of harvesting table olives on a local organic farm, I jumped at the opportunity. Not only did […]
Because we decided that we won’t do any big projects during Michael’s last visit, there was no need to book Tim with his tractor and digger, as that usually indicates a project involving multiple days of work. We always like to plan and book him well in advance, so we were quite relieved when he […]
“Petrichor, the wonderful, soul-lifting smell you get after rain on earth, is thanks in large part to the metabolites of soil life. To geosmin. We’ve evolved around living earth, and our ability to sense geosmin could well explain why it feels so invigorating being in a garden, or so life-affirming to visit an ancient forest, […]
“In a very basic sense, terroir is the expression of a physical place through the flavors and quality of a wine . . . including the climate of the vineyard where the grapes were grown, the soil, the geography, as well as the characteristics of the grape variety itself.” – Becca Yeamans-Irwin Vines are cultivated […]
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