In the aftermath of the fall of Rome, dark times descended on Europe and the land was badly in need of regeneration. The Roman Empire had seen the growth of large estates, or latifundia, which were run on a system of slave labour and had exploited the land to the point of exhaustion. As the Order of Saint Benedict grew in size and influence, they

On Not Being Able to Paint.

The emotional and physical investment that working on a place entails means that over time it becomes woven into our sense of identity. As such it can be a protective part of our identity too, one that can help buffer us when the going gets tough. But as the traditional pattern of a rooted relationship to place has been lost, so we have lost sight

the higher the level of eco-literacy a prisoner acquired, the greater the shift in his personal values. In other words, whilst the permaculture and ecology course that she runs within the prison is educational, it is also a powerful therapeutic tool for change, giving the participants a different context in which to understand their lives. As Beth

Children need to see positive confirmation of themselves in the world around them and they need to believe in their capacity to love. Adults are no different. But when we get into a spiral of anger and resentment, as the little boy did with his mother, it can feel hard to let grievances go, especially if pride is at stake. What eventually allows

Gardening is what happens when two creative energies meet – human creativity and nature’s creativity. It is a place of overlap between what is ‘me’ and ‘not-me’, between what we can conceive of and what the environment gives us to work with. So, we bridge the gap between the dreams in our head and the ground under our feet and know that while we

he described gardening as an activity ‘that brings the individual close to the soil and close to Mother Nature, close to beauty, close to the inscrutable mystery of growth and development’. He recognised that an important kind of intimacy can be experienced in the garden and it is an intimacy that is not about other people.

A garden gives you a protected physical space which helps increase your sense of mental space and it gives you quiet, so you can hear your own thoughts. The more you immerse yourself in working with your hands, the more free you are internally to sort feelings out and work them through.

So the garden was both a physical setting for the house as well as a setting for the mind; one that was all the more significant for having been shaped by his and Dorothy’s own hands.