The one about….Community gardening
Yesterday I spent the morning up at Dorothy House Hospice with volunteers from Grow for Life making a start on their new garden. We hacked back brambles and stacked them in neat piles to weave into a dead hedge along with the logs which had been harvested from their other site in Newton St Loe.
You can't beat working with others in gentle rain outside to create a garden in a field. It's the ultimate wellbeing activity and all the better when you're closing the loop, using what you have and not wasting anything. Community gardens have a long and well-researched history of supporting recovery and wellbeing. Grow for Life have been providing social and therapeutic gardening sessions for people affected by low confidence, anxiety, depression or isolation for years and in this new garden, they’re turning their attention to those navigating grief and loss.
I read with interest celebrity neuroscientist and author of The Dose Effect TJ Power’s recent post about what he wants to teach his new baby daughter so that, like him, she will thrive in the tech age. Like many bright young things he has made good use of social media to gather an army of followers, publicise his work and sell his book, promoting the benefits of unplugging to students and individuals at the start of their working lives. Now that he is a father he’s turning his focus to new parents. The irony isn’t lost on me but neither is the wisdom.
His seven lessons are these.
1. Becoming comfortable with boredom will be the ultimate superpower that most of the world will lose.
2. Technology is a tool that can help turn your dreams into reality, but should never be used
to escape reality itself.
3. A deep love for nature will keep you calm, inspire you, and ground you no matter how chaotic the outside world becomes.
4. Connection in real life will always surpass the connection through any digital device.
5. Everything you eat should come from a natural source. Artificial fake foods are not ‘treats’, real food comes from the earth itself.
6. Listening carefully and asking genuine questions is the key to building the best relationships in the world
(which are crucial to live
a happy & healthy life).
7. Mastery takes time.
Falling in love with feeling like a beginner is the ultimate skill.
I love the fact that someone not much older than my own children is highlighting the wisdom their grandmother shared with me in the 1980s. To this list she added one simple phrase …..and you will find it all in the garden.
I’m looking forward to spending plenty of time in this garden as it develops over the weeks, months and years.