Editorial

A midsummer night's dream

Kyra Pollitt and Ella Leith

Here in the far North of Scotland, the summer nights are now as light as a winter's day. It can be quite disorientating. It's both easy and tempting to wake at 3am and begin to set about your daily tasks. So, this month we explore sleep, and how to get it.

Marianne Hughes, Hazel Brady, and Rose Morley (Herb of the Month, Flower Power) look to the soporific powers of Valerian root (Valeriana officinalis). Dora Wagner (Anthroposophical Views) favours the hypnotic concentric circles of the Passionflower (Passiflora spp.).

Our Artist of the Month, Lynn Imperatore, shares the incredible charcoal sketches and journal images that capture her exploration of sleep and the images seen in dreams. Meanwhile, Callum Halstead sets about a waking dream by planting his brand-new garden (Sage Advice). The wide awake amongst you will note the absence this month of a promised article on natural farming from Suhee Kang and Patrick M. Lydon (In Focus). They are also caught up in the whorl of a house move, and we hope to feature their article once their dust has settled. Already established in her small hometown in Malta, Ella Leith is relaxing in the summer heat, heeding lazy St. Lawrenz and other heroes of indolence (Foraging through Folklore). Chemists, too, are slowing down, as Claire Gormley explains in her account of a greener, lazier approach to producing chemical reactions in the lab (The Chemistry Column), and Ann King cooks up everything you'll need for a hazy, lazy summer night (Notes from the Brew Room).

But this issue isn't all about drowsy inaction. Patrick Dunne sounds the alarm for politicians sleepwalking into climate disaster (The Climate Column). Our Editor in the Field, Kyra Pollitt, catches up with tireless Mo Wilde amidst the launch of her new book, a memoir of a year spent existing solely on a wild food diet. Nine Arches Press presents poetry by Gregory Leadbetter that snags on the strange and sublime, while Amanda Edmiston dreams of myth and magic in a drowsy summer's meadow (Botanica Fabula). But the final line of this Editorial must surely go to the great bard himself, Shakespeare. We hope, this month, you'll find time to "seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear".

Honorary Executive - Catherine Conway-Payne

Editorial team - Kyra Pollitt, Ella Leith, Maddy Mould, Anastasia Joyce

Finance - Marianne Hughes

Distribution - Senga Bate