26th June
The Gentle Hours
The current heatwave has waved goodbye to the simple joy of stepping out into the meadow before, or after, nine.
The sun is simply too fierce.
Sunrise and sunset remain the gentle hours.
The hours to tread softly along the meadow paths.
Footsteps cooled by dew, silently gathering or evaporating.
A gentle touch rewards me with roosting butterflies, ushered into the pink, heat-burnished evening sky.
Yesterday evening’s saunter was heavenly.
Marbled Whites, Ringlets and Meadow Browns rising like prayers.
Self-heal and Betony flowering at my feet.
Moments of bliss at the close of a blisteringly hot day.
How blessed are we?
Or perhaps, more truthfully, how blessed we have become.
For blessings, I am beginning to realise, often arrive through reciprocity.
Through the quiet covenant between those who care for a place and the place that, in time, cares for them.
Blessings in return for our determination to conserve and nurture the natural world we are privileged to hold in trust.
Whilst formal lawns and carefully tended borders remain parched, our wild habitat stands tall, generously refreshing us with its beauty.
No need for strimmers.
No sprinklers.
No fertiliser.
No insecticide.
Heaven forfend.
Simply those uncommonly commonplace human qualities: dedication, nurture and love.
Looking across the meadow today, I find myself wishing more people knew that wildness need not begin with acres.
Even the smallest lawn can become a pocket meadow.
A place where Self-heal may flower.
Where butterflies may linger.
Where bees may feed.
Where the earth remains cooler beneath longer grasses.
Perhaps that is why initiatives such as No Mow May have captured so many imaginations.
Not because untidiness is the goal, but because wildness is often far more resilient than we imagine.
A meadow, once established, asks comparatively little of us.
Yet it gives immeasurably more in return.
Shade.
Birdsong.
Pollinators.
Beauty.
Wonder.
The quiet reassurance that we belong within this living tapestry, not apart from it.
Perhaps that is the greatest gift of all.
To discover that caring for the natural world is never a one-way act.
In time, the natural world begins to care for us too.
It asks only for those uncommonly commonplace human qualities:
Dedication.
Nurture.
Love.
And the greatest of these is love.
