You’re joined by colleagues from:
Ampney Brook Farm | Energy Saving Trust | The Wildlife Trust | Organic North

Hi 👋

This week, a young family came to stay with us in Cornwall.

They had two children, you know, the loud and happy kind. Our house sits out in the countryside, most weeks it's quiet here and very peaceful. Then they arrived, and the quiet left.

They were on their summer holiday, and they brought their youthful joy and a curiosity for everything. Laughter echoed amongst the trees and flowers as they burst with energy (energy that I forgot was even possible to have!). In the sunny weather, they spent time playing the way children play, as if the world is good and made just for them.

Today, they left and the house is quiet again. It’s peaceful, but with a noticeably empty space where all that life and laughter had been.

And in that quiet I have found myself thinking about the future those children are walking into. As you look at the world we're handing them, how do you still find hope?

The world has grown darker, and you know what I mean. There's a hardness in how things are now, a coldness where there should be care, much artificiality, deception, and grasping, and under all of it the slow ache of a shifting climate. 

On one level, the recent sunny weather is a grateful break from the regular mizzle (cornish for a blend of mist and drizzle), but it should also remind us that wildfires burn throughout Europe, yet found nowhere on our news. The trouble is how easily we keep calm and carry on.

Then, there’s those times that feel like even the ground itself, the seeds, the water, and the soil, is being fenced off and owned by some distant entity. 

It can really press on you.

So I keep coming back to one question, the same one, over and over… How can we find hope?

Recently, my attention has been brought back to seeds. 

A seed is a small thing, easy to lose, even in the palm of your hand, and yet it carries in it, a future full of possibility and a richness through its fruit. But for that to arrive, the seed has to let go of its current form. It gives itself to the darkness of the soil and be still, knowing that one day, it’ll have its time in the sun.

As I soften to notice the world around me, I see that there are seeds going into the ground everywhere, all the time. It’s a kind word here, or a favour there. Folk choosing to give a little more when they can, going around scattering seeds of kindness and care.

In a funny way, we are all a bit like seeds. Individually, we are small, we can easily get lost, yet we carry a future full of possibility, and a richness from our fruit, our gifts, which can seed again.

I try to plant a few seeds myself, through a letter like this one, or how I am with the people I meet. 

I had coffee with a young guy in Redruth the other day, he had been carrying around shame from a recent event that deeply embarrassed him, others blamed him for it. I hope that honestly telling him that it wasn’t his fault has planted a seed, one which could grow to lift the weight of his shoulders. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, that’s the nature of hope.

Planting seeds is an act of hope. We cannot guarantee that what is put into darkness will always grow towards the light. But we do it anyway, in the hope that they will. 

A seed, be it physical or metaphorical, is life creating life. No one knows what will happen if we speak life over another person, it’s an act of hope.

There's a lot of hurt out there, and hurt has a way of spreading too, it goes from person to person, kind of like an infection. As we meet it, let’s try to see the person underneath the hurt as we would see a person suffering from the flu. And yes, it is hard to do, but maybe, just maybe there’s ground for planting a seed.

The children are gone for now, and the house has returned to quietness. But now, the quiet is better for them having filled it.

And I hope the memory of this place, the happy time they had, is a seed, and in time they’ll have their own fruits to share because of it.

I know that the seeds they left in me are shooting green leaves already.

Warmly, 

Rob

PS. Curious:

PPS. All throughout this I have been thinking back to my time working with The Seed Sovereignty Programme many years ago. They work hard for what is true, honest, and real, when it comes to seed. Specifically, sharing open-pollinated, organic seed stock around a network of small scale growers (despite prohibitive policies and market dynamics). They’re a great bunch, well worth checking out.

Which colleagues come to mind when you hear,
'salt of the earth'?

Why not invite them to this newsletter?
They can subscribe here.