More-than-human

It is not by accident that the word ‘nature’ flooded the languages of Europe and transformed meaning rapidly during the Renaissance, a period in which European philosophy and spirituality began to shift from sacred reverence to intellectual detachment. While artists celebrated natural beauty, they simultaneously developed tools to measure, categorise, and dominate it, setting the stage a century and a half later for the Scientific Revolution

In May 2022, Mike and I bought a half-built, abandoned house on a sheep-cropped hill in west Wales. Yggdrasil—an ancient ash named for the World Tree of Nordic myth—stands sentinel over the hill and the Cothi River below. From the beginning, the land’s request was clear: “More life, more life,” challenging me to put years of animist practice and enquiry into native traditions of land care and co-relating with all life into practice.

Wrens - they may be small, but they are mighty! In these Isles they are mythically ‘king of the birds’. Traditionally, in Pembrokeshire, one was caught and placed in a wren house and paraded around field perimeters to bless the land with fertility on Boxing Day - also known as Wren Day - such a wealth of ‘lore’ surrounding these feisty pot-bellied, loud voiced little beings! The other day I was sitting at the top of the hill here and noticed three wrens flitting and hopping b