Seeds for Thought: an Ecopsychology Blog

Preparing for the Big Move

Writing about our week will hopefully be slightly easier when we’re actually together...

I spent most of the time hearing: "How exciting!" "Wow: that's so different!" "And you'll have broadband??!"

At a sustainability conference... Talk, talk, talk.

Meanwhile, Howard has been all do, do, do – as he got decidedly STUCK IN. Literally. And his muscles ache. His patience tested...

He arrived in Lincolnshire on Tuesday... helped collect the new hens from down the street (at one point had five in his hands!). Not entirely comfortable with grabbing them, frightening them... They’ve been arranging their pecking order... And all the girls seem a bit interested in Waldo, the local cockerel, from afar... Waldo is still desperate to get in there.

Contemplative Art

This month's Utne Reader reviewed a German artist whose work really intrigues me. His name is Wolfgang Laib, and the article shows a close-up of this image of him squatting on the floor, sifting pollen he has gathered near his home in the Black Forest over several seasons. When he's finished, the pile will be a brilliant yellow shimmering square of pollen, 8 foot square and 3 inches thick, that makes the whole room smell like the forest.

Conviviality II

I started on an uncharted journey a week or so ago when I wrote my first piece on Conviviality.  In the days that followed, it was necessary for me to back up a bit to see if I was using the right word.  Not crazy about the definitions I found, so the problem is with me, I guess.  Jolliness is not what comes to my mind, nor did it come to the mind of the man who presented his thought to me on the waterfront in Sept-Iles.  There's nothing superficial about conviviality as I see it; in fact, I see it as something quite sacred, something inclusive, something that creates space and energy for real communication.  If there's another word that would better describe this, I'd love to know it.  For the time being, I'm going to stick to conviviality.

Conviviality I

For a couple of months now I've had the idea of "conviviality" in my mind, triggered by my living circumstances while working away from home.  And the idea did not come from me.