I continue to marvel at nature's ability to support meaningful connections and creative thinking. Some powerful pledges were made. We're starting to have the conversations that need to be had.
Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash The other day I go for an early 8am coffee with a client. The HR director of a large charity, she has kindly agreed to meet me to explain why they have decided not to go ahead with my proposal for a leadership programme in nature.
Circumstances have changed. They’ve just done a 360. It has thrown up some unexpected stuff and the CEO has decided to go with a different plan. It’s fine, I understand. And anyway I appreciate that she cares enough to explain this face to face. Over coffee we have a wide-ranging discussion about culture, and the challenges and tensions of an organisation that has frontline support staff and also a retail arm, with different issues, different needs, and different personalities. And then she mentions homelessness. That’s when things take an unexpected turn. For some reason I’m compelled to tell her what happened the day before. A visit to a meditation class has kickstarted my on-again-off-again resolution to be more generous to the growing number of people begging on the high street. On my way to get some lunch, there's a toothless guy sitting on the pavement by the Barclays cashpoint, as I drop some coins into his hand, I ask him how it’s going. Last weekend a bunch of people trusted us to lead them on a blindfolded foraging walk. It was brilliant! Walking slowly from place to place we led the group to 10 edible wild plants and introduced them through touch smell taste and lastly through looking.
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Author & CuratorNigel Berman is the founder of School of the Wild. Archives
March 2024
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