This mixed lifestyle could more properly be called hunting-gathering-cultivating.

The right hemisphere, in contrast, specialises in connection rather than categorisation. It brings us the richness of the world through being better connected to the body and the senses. Our capacity for empathy and our deepest humanity comes to us through the right hemisphere as well as our feelings of connection to nature. According to

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

The idea that we can cultivate the soul or the self like a garden goes back to ancient times

These pressures express themselves as a demand for treatment packages and programmes that promise fast results, as if it were possible to speed-dial mental health. Whilst identifying faulty thinking or misplaced feelings can help us to understand a problem so that it immediately becomes less troubling, it will still take many months to lay down the

There is a devaluing of the slower rhythms of natural time, not only of plants but of our bodies and minds. These rhythms do not fit with the ‘quick fix’ mentality that has come to dominate so much of modern life.

we become more trusting and giving when we feel enriched by nature.

Everything that happens in a garden takes place in slow time; the flowers, shrubs and trees simply get on with growing quietly at their own pace and so it is with people.

the nature of contemporary life, with its screens and computers, means we are dependent on the left hemisphere’s mode of attention processing about 80 per cent of the time. He believes that this imbalance is linked to the rise of anxiety and depression, as well as contributing to more generalised feelings of emptiness and mistrust. This is because