What we are

I had the good fortune to spend a week camping by the coast with my children. We were literally by the beach, overlooking the sea and a few short steps from 10 square miles of sand.

My mind was full of campaigning, things to do and emails to answer, it chattered on like a monkey until the tent was up, the kettle was on and the deck chair in place under the tents porch.

The view was breathtaking, a distant skeleton of a shipwreck made a carcus like shape about a mile away on the vast expanse of sand, the hills beyond framed the scene and reminded me of previous years treks across the beach from a cottage we'd rented years before.

Last year I'd camped in exactly the same spot and been captivated by a book by Ernesto Sirolli (Ripples on the Zambezi) and another by EF Schumacher (Small is Beautiful) this year I read the sands, read the sky and felt the slowness of time.

This year I'd found answers to big questions for me, big questions for us all in truth, the answers were profoundly simple and practical too, way beyond the complexity I'd become used to with my limited capabilities as a man.

What I got back to was me in relation to nature, me in perspective to the world around me, me in relation to the whole. I'd last really felt this in the desert, a time where I got to experience my tiny nature and the worlds vastness.






Here, by the sea and near to some beautiful majestic mountains I saw once more the scale of my problems, the enormity of nature and the scale of my own dillusions. I got back in touch with a part of me that gets clouded by things to do, deadlines and to-do lists.

We walked the sands, played on the beach and watched shooting stars at night. We shivered some nights and baked on others. We ate off camping plates and fire cooked our evening meals. We lived a life for a week far closer to our hearts than the lives we live nearer to our work and school lives.

I was reminded of the passage of time back home and the eternal, timeless nature of the great outdoors.
So, batteries re-charged I'm back at the laptop, answering hundreds of letters, writing to friends and playing catch up with my diary.






There are times where I cant see the wood for the trees and others when I cant see the trees for the desert that is our collective potential. So I'm grateful for the time out to re-focus on what needs to be done and what can in reality take a back seat.

It's the case that we cant force a butterfly out of its crysalis without damaging its wings, it's doubtless also the case that at a community, regional, national and international level we will unfold our collective wings when we are collectively ready to do so.

I take heart in the hundreds of thousands of beating wings that are arising from every country on earth, for the millions of people who are providing essential care for the vulnerable and at risk young and old, and for the billions of us who like drops of water in the clouds will one day reach the ocean of our collective consciousness.