To cultivate is to humanise the wilderness and promote the life-enhancing aspects of the environment. You could say that it marks the very origins of culture. The word ‘culture’, after all, is derived from working the soil and the growing and tending of plants.

Et c’est une obsession chez Montaigne, un fil conducteur de sa pensée. Face aux dysfonctionnements de la société prise dans son ensemble, il n’y a d’autre issue que la recherche introspective, et ceci c’est peut être le début de l’humanisme moderne. Ainsi,

Kiril Thompson writes, “Cultivation then is a multifaceted process of interpersonal practice, attitude building and continuous learning whereby one seeks to fulfill one’s inner ‘mandate’ and become a ‘consummate person’, socially involved and cosmically attuned.”