September 2021

Hello, Happy Equinox!

How a month seems to fly past at times. This is my last newsletter from England for now. I fly home with David on 5th October. It's going to seem very strange at first I know.

Last week, we walked through this tunnel of fallen oaks down at the RSPB sanctuary at Pagham Harbour. They must have been planted over a hundred years ago, running along the track beside the estuary. We sat for a while, listening to the seabirds and watching little crabs moving pebbles under the water.

I love how they just kept on growing even as the bank was cut away under them and they toppled on their sides. The branches just reoriented themselves to the light and set off upward again. A lovely metaphor for all our lives.

Deathly silence as I delete last month's entry and look at this heading...

Somehow the weeks have slipped past without much writing happening. Time with family has been a welcome priority, and I am now  looking forward to being back in my studio for the winter. It's a lovely season for me to paint as the afternoon sun streams in through the window and snow sparkles on the ground. 

A new season of Sunday Afternoon Poetry Live is happening on Instagram, so check that out here if you like. I record a short poem on video each week, most nature themed, most less than a minute.

I have really enjoyed being a tourist too, and writing mini poems to go with the photographs I take.

Ways to make incremental changes to our lives in the direction of a sustainable future.

For my UK readers

• https://www.thetreeapp.org/. Plant just 4 trees a week and you’ll offset the average carbon output of an EU citizen.
• https://www.oddbox.co.uk/why Rescue odd shaped fruit and veg that would otherwise be destroyed on the farm
• https://serioustissues.com/ The average adult will use 384 trees-worth of toilet roll in their lifetime. These are carbon-neutral, UK made, and plant a tree for every roll. 

Next month, I am sure my social media feeds will tell me about equivalent Canadian sites!

Can you suggest other good initiatives that I might not yet be aware of? Or similar businesses in Canada, the US or Australia? I am actually quite excited at how many are springing up.

For all of you

• learn to repair almost anything, and join the push for planned obsolescence to be phased out, https://www.ifixit.com/
• get out of the Covid rut with tiny habit free training https://tinyhabits.com/
• break out a creative slump for any project with a free webinar from one of my mentors, Jessica Abel, https://jessicaabel.lpages.co/...
• The Luttrell Psalter - A Year in a Medieval English Village, https://youtu.be/myRNKk0-63A, following on from The Melville House book, this is a slow 20 min saunter through the agricultural year, with music and live actors and a link to the original manuscript in the British Museum.

Try this divergent association task. A quick measure of verbal creativity and divergent thinking, the ability to generate diverse solutions to open-ended problems. It's a fascinating concept, very simple and you can only do it once, because once you know it, repeat efforts are cheating!

The Bay of Dreams, 12 x 36 inches, acrylic on canvas

So, on the cusp of the Equinox, here is a moment to pause and appreciate all we have explored and experienced over a second strange summer. It's such a cliché to say that everything is a learning process, but then clichés exist for a reason, don't they?

I have treasured an extended time with family and friends, particularly my mother who turned 90 two days ago, and a sense of a sabbatical, away from my usual routines, that has allowed me to ponder my inner callings more deeply.

What have you gained and lost this year? What did you sow and what did you reap?

May our harvest be abundant. May we be moved to share.

Cassandra