SUDDEN RESILIENCE

sculpture park, photos and videos with tips on how to garden in an environmentally-conscious method, with our rewilding techniques, and so much more. The greater you contribute to DSP Online on a monthly basis, the more you will get back - online chats and livestreams with founder and environmentalist Philip Letts, priority bookings and discounts on tours, workshops and visits in-park; the list of perks is constantly growing and developing. At the sculpture park’s planned reopening in July, numbers will be greatly constricted as we remain wary of the current Covid-19 pandemic. In lieu of this, DSP Online has never been of greater use. Join DSP Online and receive a 10% discount on all activities in-park. The app is not purely beneficial in the digital sphere, but also for those coming to the park, enjoying a greater number of activities at an even lower price. Join DSP Online, and become a valued partner of Devon Sculpture Park - both online and in-park. l Visit www.devonsculpturepark.org to find out more about joining DSP Online, and other details about affordable membership packages so you can get involved with Devon Sculpture Park. Rewilding park goes online for virtual visitors UPDATE: The park will now be reopening from June 5

ROB HOPKINS founder of the Transition Network and Transition Town Totnes believes we have the perfect opportunity to bounce forward after what has been ‘the Spring of our lives’. I met a friend in the street the other day, and we chatted, whilst maintaining our obligatory 2 metres distance. It is amazing how quickly this has become normal. For decades the idea of Totnes without hugs would have been utterly unimaginable, and yet there we were. He is someone who gets up earlier in the morning than I usually do, and he told me of encounters with deer in the street, foxes bold as brass strolling down morning streets, blue tits landing on his shoulder whilst sitting in the garden. It resonated with to stories from elsewhere, of herds of wild goats roaming town centres and dolphins popping up in the canals of Venice for the first time in living memory. Another friend who lives on the High Street told me of finding an owl on her windowsill for the first time ever. As I write this, a pair of bullfinches are sitting outside my window. I feel as though I am being visited by royalty. I have lived through a Spring that, as Charles Dickens would have put it, “was the best of times [and] … the worst of times”. It has, in many ways, been the most glorious Spring of my life. Dazzling sunshine, grass and leaves greener than I can ever remember, birdsong louder than I’ve ever experienced, sunrises and sunsets that took the breath away, a sky free from contrails, streets free of cars, air fresher and more delicious than I ever recall. Vegetable gardens popping up everywhere. Seed companies overwhelmed with orders. Local food producers tripling, quadrupling production in order to keep up with demand. In many ways, this has been the Spring of our lives. And yet at what cost? We have arrived here through the absolutely worst route. No-one would have chosen this as the way to arrive here, and it is almost certain that by the time you read this, business-as-usual will have clawed back most of the gains set out above. But what these weeks of lockdown have done is to give us a taste of what a more localised, more resilient future would actually be like. Hold on to that. Emblazon it in your memory. Remember what it felt like, smelt like, sounded like. Two weeks into the lockdown I took part in a ‘Teach-In’ with novelist and activist Arundhati Roy. She talked about how COVID-19 has been like an MRI scan for each nation it has visited, highlighting the inequalities and injustices in each. In the UK we have seen that BAME people have been 4 times more likely to be killed by this virus, and that air pollution, suffered predominantly by those in the poorest urban areas, has been a key factor in exacerbating vulnerability to it. The government was happy to send poorer workers back to work in unsafe conditions whilst the middle classes continued working from home, and while state schools re-opened, private schools remained firmly shut. This has, of course, been ruinous to the economy, and Totnes is not exempt from that. Many small businesses will not survive and many families have suffered huge financial hardship. I fear for the damage this will do to Totnes High Street, with its 80% of businesses being independent, familyowned enterprises. Some people of course have done well out of this crisis but not many. A French friend once told me a saying used there to describe how some people do well out of even the worst of crises: “we have a saying, that the sinking of the Titanic turned out very well for the lobsters in the kitchen”. Jeff Bezos may well also be thinking that this is the best Spring of his life, but for very different reasons. What matters now is that we do everything we can to ensure that we do not go back to how things were before, that we ‘bounce forward’ rather than ‘bounce back’. It is entirely possible that we move from a growth economy to a wellbeing economy, one whose main purpose is the cultivation of those very things we have cherished over these months, the clean air, the sense of shared purpose, the biodiverse towns and streets, the birdsong. In Totnes we already have many pieces of the puzzle. What matters going forward, and with urgency, is that we more skilfully work together, forge partnerships and connections, raise our level of ambition. We need to build on this going forward, use it as the launch pad that enables us to leap to new heights, rather than just slumping back into a business-as-usual that, in reality, actually worked well for very few people. Build back better. l Rob has just launched a podcast series, ‘From What If to What Next’. Subscribe a www.patreon.com/fromwhatiftowhatnext . His latest book, ‘From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want’, is now out now. Follow his blog at www.robhopkins.net Foxes bold as love Linocuts by Rob who is passing the time in lockdown by doing something artistic every day.

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That time when we are together again

ONLINE get togethers have for many healed our feelings of isolation during lockdown. But not just a way of staying in touch for Dr Rachel Fleming, the Director of Embercombe, a charitable organisation based in a wilding 50 acre valley near Exeter. Online ceremonies, stories and conversation have for now at least replaced residential programmes and experiences based on nature-based and indigenous wisdom and practice. Rachel writes.... I S the birdsong more enthusiastic, more joyful and exquisite in these days, or is it that we love more that which we are separated from? We are so much looking forward to standing together on the land, around the fire, in simplicity, telling stories of this time and looking to the stars for navigation ... some day soon! But in the meantime we are enjoying rich sharings, thoughts and singings on Embercombe Online, from alchemy and animism, to activism, word magic and dark road dreams. Do join us on Wednesdays and Fridays if you haven’t already. In conversation with Stephen Jenkinson this week, our specialist on grief and dying wisely, we talked about the importance of learning how to stop, of paying close attention to the detail of what is happening in this very moment, of considering who we will be rather than what we will do when the time comes. “Would that the day come when we realise that we are someone else’s ancestors” Stephen said, “that they need us more than we can ever imagine needing them. And they will want to believe that they came from people worth coming from.” Perhaps this is our guiding star in these strange days on the dark road, that were strange to begin with but became even stranger: who shall we be, from this time to them. And as we set out again, not knowing if our redemptive actions will ever lead to redemption, we go on, even as we say that we cannot go on. l Find out more about Embercombe online at https://embercombe.org/ embercombe-online/ Stephen Jenkinson will be teaching at Embercombe in early May 2021, Dark Road Dreams, book now here: https://embercombe.org/dark-roaddreams/

Help for parents and children

FAMILIES struggling to come to terms with all the uncertainties of a ‘new normal’ during lockdown are being offered online support through Children’s charity, Action for Children. Supported by Devon County Council, Torbay Council and Plymouth City Council, the new service – parents.actionforchildren. org.uk – offers advice, support and educational and play material for parents and caregivers of children aged 0–19 years. There’s one-to-one support from an experienced parenting coach through an online chat service, Talk. Parents get free, expert advice on anything from home-schooling or helping children with their worries about the pandemic, through to managing finances during the crisis. John Egan, from Action for Children, said: “Families need to know they’re not on their own, parents are dealing with huge new challenges during the crisis. Our incredible key workers have worked relentlessly alongside their Public Health Nursing colleagues to find new ways to support parents and children through these worrying times, and our Talk service means we can offer much needed help to any parent in Devon who is struggling – both now and long after the crisis ends.” l For information and advice from the Talk services, please go to parents.actionforchildren.org.uk.