A couple of days ago while in London visiting my in-laws, Martin and Carol. We were having breakfast and mulling over ideas for this month’s blog. At this time of year it would be easy to talk about Christmas. However I am never one to follow the norm and with black Friday just past and Christmas so close I feel that we have lost the way slightly.
Then Martin simply said, “Why not write about sowing the seeds in the meadow, and looking forward to spring?”
Bingo! that sparked another thought that had been bouncing around in my mind for a while and the two seemed to have a synergy. So here we are, Emily and I have returned to our our magical small campsite in Dorset and I am once again sat at the kitchen table to write this Blog.
If there’s one thing that looking after this land has taught me, it’s that nature is eternally hopeful. No matter the noise of the world — the headlines, the tired divisive politics, the sense that things are already decided and hopeless. Despite this, mother earth quietly carries on. It casts a seed not knowing where it might land. It adapts as it goes. It keeps offering renewal. Keeps saying, “Here, try again. Lets see what happens”.
A couple of months ago, we were sowing wildflower seed across the meadow, Thanks to the generosity and passion of Rob from https://www.hogchester.com/ . We sowed the seed before winter begins to bite so the seed has the benefit of frost to help it germinate. We’ve planted young trees, knowing they won’t reach their full height until long after we’re gone. These simple acts, a handful of seed, the heeling in of a sapling, don’t feel massively impactful. We only have 8 acres its easy to think ‘what’s the point? it will not make much difference’. However, we are wrong to think that way, there is a point. As these are acts of faith, of patience of community and of hope.
Hope feels like a rare commodity some days. World Leaders seem more interested in stirring division and hate than tending to unity and love. There’s a sense, felt by many, especially the young that we are being sold a story of inevitability, that the world is broken in ways beyond repair. We need a reminder that change begins not with grand gestures, that are behond our reach but with steady, committed acts and hope (sowing a seed, planting a sapling).
It reminds me of something Mac Macartney said when I was at Embercombe. He talked about Native American councils living by the children’s fire. A belief that no decision by the elders should be made unless it is safe for the children seven generations hence. Imagine if every policy, every plan, every action was measured against that flame. It’s a principle that humbles you. Just imagine if we use that fire to nurture the children to educate them No matter where they are from, and use the light to show them the way. the childrens fire calls you to drop ego, to think wider, longer, deeper and beyond ourselves.
When I walk round the meadow at our Dorset campsite through the long grass, I am reminded of the campfires we have during the summer where strangers become friends, where child and adults alike stare into the flames with a sense of wonder on their faces. No division just love, kindness and community. I walk past the ephemeral pond that was just a muddy hole in the ground a month ago, now full of water and just beginning to support life by way of water beetles (what will be next I wonder), listening and seeing the land alive even at this time of year, this idea sits with me. What we sow now, what we protect now, what we restore now, isn’t just for next summer’s campers or the coming spring’s wildflowers. It’s for a future that stretches far beyond our children and 7 generations hence.
Nature’s resilience is a slow teacher. It doesn’t rush, it is there like a wise sage. Planting a tree, sowing a seed, tending this land, any land, these are grounding acts of hope in a world that needs them desperately.
As December unfolds, with all its commercial brightness and bustle, I’m choosing to carry this reminder: Spring is already on its way, hope is already in the ground, and every small act of care, love and kindness, every effort to live a little slower and simpler ripples outward, further than we can know. It is a true act of radical hope that we owe ourselves as we are nature, not separate from, but part of. It feels that Old Bidlake is more than just a campsite, it’s a place where the children’s fire burns bright.
Look at our events page and see how you can live a little slower with nature or if you fancy a quiet weekend away, treat yourself to a stay here with us.
With love and kindness Simon & Emily