CHILDLIKE WONDER Cavan

Cavan Mahony collaborated with photographer Maryam Eisler to celebrate the countryside in all its lush beauty by recreating a tea party scene from Clara and the Magic Circles with the Temperley family at their Somerset cider farm. As Roald Dahl says, ‘Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.’ Cakes by Xaviera Boadella. Styled by Sara Kirkby

Childlike WONDER

American entrepreneur and committed city dweller CAVAN MAHONY found her nature-filled lockdown in Dorset inspired a total change of direction

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARYAM EISLER

‘W e have to leave London tomorrow!’ I said to my husband on 19 March 2020, willing him to understand what it meant to be in a city under siege in any circumstance. ‘It could happen here just like it did during 9/11, with military tanks on Madison Avenue and fighter jets in the sky.’

I was recalling those horrific September days in New York with vivid clarity. He swung into action and within hours we had rented cottages with another family at Laverstock Farm in Dorset, all of us enthusiastic city dwellers, grateful for what we thought would be a retreat for a week or two… We ended up staying for a whole year before eventually moving to a farmhouse in Wiltshire, making the decision to permanently base ourselves in the countryside. I love living in cities. I grew up in Boston. I worked and lived in New

York City and Madrid. Then I got married and moved to London almost ten years ago, and had a son. For most of my working life I have been an entrepreneur, leaving behind a stint of investment banking and marketing for renowned brands, Lancôme and Chanel, to co-found skincare brand

Sundari with Ayla Farnos and Christy Turlington Burns. We worked together for five years building up the business until one day it made sense for us to sell it. During those frenetic years, I always had a desire to write a book, but I could never find the time. I was also suffering from debilitating back pain and terrifying panic attacks. I did not connect the idea that those afflictions were associated with my thoughts. The acupuncturist Abdi

Assadi in New York healed my back and opened my eyes to the idea that there was a greater energy out there – call it the universe, consciousness or spirit – that we can tap into to free the mind and body from suffering. Fast forward to March 2020 and

Laverstock Farm, our safe haven. As the days rolled on, I started to notice the white flowers growing out of thick green leaves with the most deliciously pungent smell that lined the path of our daily walks. The children and

I took baskets, picking as much of that wild garlic as we could to chop into pesto with pine nuts and parmesan. Then it was the electric green coloured moss that covered the massive branches of ancient oak trees and the bluebells wrapping their way around trunks through the forest. I recall standing on top of Pilsdon Pen, at one time a Bronze Age hilltop fortress, looking out over the rolling hills of Dorset and recognising a feeling that I can only describe as a fleeting memory of childlike wonder. Then I started to write. Every day I moved a small table and chair to a new spot outside under a tree or by the lake. Once I started, the words and thoughts poured out as though written by an unseen hand. This was not the book I imagined it would be. This was the story of my childhood and the lessons learned so Cavan Mahony much later in life. I forgot about the world’s troubles – and my own – for those hours I lived in my imagination with nature as my guide. It induced a form of meditation where the incessant chatter of my mind quieted down in the presence of the great outdoors. In that state I was free to imagine and create from a place of peace, instead of anxiety. I learned how not to be ruled by my thoughts, but instead to shift them to gratitude; for the blue sky; for the rain that nourishes the soil; for the hawk keening overhead. If children could learn this skill, I thought, and how to observe their thoughts that lead to anger or sadness and know they have the power to shift them through imagination, it could help them to grow in confidence and self worth from an early age.

And so my book is for them; I have learned that nature can be a conduit to inspiration away from anxiety – and I am forever grateful for its magic.

GO WITH THE FLOW

Why we have to regenerate our rivers, says Eva Bishop of the Beaver Trust

All life needs water. But few of us think about the river systems we rely on for fresh water and how we might reduce the increasing pressures on them. Water stress will soon become the biggest climate risk facing large swathes of Europe, including Britain. And as we lurch from floods to drought, it begs the question: what can our rivers do to help? The answer is as complex as Britain’s network of waterways. If the country’s river systems were functioning normally, the land would do the job better than any man-made infrastructure of storing water in floodplains and wetlands. But the latter required to do this barely exist anymore, having suffered a 90 per cent loss across the UK. It is the restoration of British wetlands that has become a focus and drive of the charity Beaver Trust, which is part of the Riverscapes partnership advocating for a national network of river buffer zones. Through this collaborative initiative the Trust hopes to restore rivers’ capacity to breathe and cope with changes in frequency and volume of flow, creating a virtuous circle for wildlife and our own water supply.

Restoring river buffers is about reversing centuries of human encroachment on waterways, and the concept is gaining traction and support for its multiple benefits and relatively low requirements for land owners. The Beaver Trust’s acclaimed new documentary by awardwinning director Nina Constable, On The Edge, seeks to catalyse action on river buffers by exploring the vision and challenges involved.

The benefits of giving more space to water include an increase in biodiversity, water quality improvement, topsoil retention, filtration of agricultural pollutants, water temperature cooling, increased public access, and, ultimately, more stable river systems. Not only that, but if we’re true systems thinkers, we must be conscious that everything that infiltrates rivers ends up in the sea.

Naturally, though, with any land use change comes barriers to implementation, and we must acknowledge the multitude of environmental ‘asks’ already on land owners and farmers’ plates. Any buffer policy must consider the impacts on the rural community and seek to simplify implementation. Like the rest of the ‘wilding’ movement, this remains a human problem. Wilder rivers are not something everyone is comfortable with. But fresh water should be everyone’s business, it should matter to every single person how we look after our rivers and how we can improve their future. Once again turning to nature for assistance seems the sensible, systemic, and sustainable solution.

Watch On The Edge at youtube/TJOpfHDuww8 beavertrust.org