Sitting on the log bench at the top of Badger Field in the early morning light, watching the mists drift up and down the valley, watching the sun finally, finally tip over the edge of the clouds into a blue sky, we decide that this moment feels like a pivot point. The year gently turning. A subtle shift in energy. First frost crisp on the grass, the air smelling like woodsmoke and starlight, the waxing gibbous moon hanging heavy in the sky. But for us, too, a change. The dawn of Week Seven of our traineeship. The halfway point. A marker. Six weeks gone and another six lying possible just beyond the bend in the river.
To take time and reflect on the past six weeks, to draw from it the highlights, the things we have learned, and articulate them in a short blog post, seems an almost impossible task. Every day brings a new slew of things to be interested in, entranced by. Every conversation brings new connections between us. Every walk brings us closer to the land. Walks us into the land, until the boundaries between our bodies blur. The tiniest things build up layer upon layer, quietly, often unnoticed, like the sediments building behind the leaky dams we made to restore the Dart’s saltmarshes, until we too, are overflowing with unexplored possibility. But bigger things too, the excitement lighting up my new friends’ faces as each in turn finds something that feeds the fires of their souls. A trip to a beaver dam, a place where aliveness leaks from the surface of the Earth. A workshop on fungi cultivation. So many tangents and discussions and debates in the yurt, understanding the myriad of ways we can heal our Earth and the freedom we have to explore all of them. And hours spent in the garden, hands deep in the soil, dirt staining our fingers red with iron as we work to give this land its own new lease of life, its own restoration, and it, in reciprocity, changes us too.
What we have gained, from being here, held in the bowl of these hills, by this bend of the Dart, by the kindness and joy of those who welcomed us, nourished by togetherness and wisdom shared cannot be quantified. It is such an overflowing of abundance and I feel full.
That is not to say it has all been easy. We have each faced our challenges, missing home, meeting shadows, laying to rest old habits, moving half way around the world and learning a whole new language. And yet I see in every one of us a strength blooming. Courage, compassion, wisdom, kindness and support, all building a stronger and stronger web holding each of us in connection with each other and this land. We are becoming of and within the whole web of life.
So many of us, from the beginning, have said, ‘here, I am exactly in the right place. I am exactly where I need to be, right now’.
Every single person here inspires me and gives me hope.
It is hard to imagine that barely six weeks ago we were all strangers, to each other, to this land, and perhaps even to the versions of ourselves we now see when we look in the mirror, when we see ourselves reflected in the hearts of those around us. And perhaps even harder to remember what we imagined this course would be. All expectations were immediately blown out of the water. For me, coming here has been a renaissance. A reaffirmation. A restoration and recovery for more than just Nature. And I am so curious and excited to see what the fullness of another six weeks brings for all of us.
✍ Hatty Wigginton – Autumn 2024 Nature Recovery Trainee
