Breathe-Respira

09/08/2026

09/08/2026

09/08/2026

🌲 The natural world has a way of helping us quietly loosen our grip on our thoughts.

Whether we are gardening, walking in a wood, or simply gazing at an open sky, we can find ourselves at one with nature, as the usual stream of thoughts and self-concerns fall away.

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Gardening can be understood as a form of ‘space-time medicine’, says Dr Sue Stuart-Smith, author of ‘The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature’. What Stuart-Smith says about gardening resonates deeply with the wisdom and healing processes of meditation.

She says: “People tend to see gardening as a hobby, an activity, but I think it’s primarily a relationship. Many gardeners speak of the importance of feeling part of something larger than themselves. People often describe losing themselves in the garden.

Therapeutically, this is important. When the ego falls away and we are at one with a task, we experience a sense of inner calm. The immersive quality of gardening helps pull us into the present moment.”

Just as gardeners lose themselves in the garden through a therapeutic falling-away of the ego and come to ‘experience a sense of inner calm’, meditators lose themselves in their practice and in self-forgetfulness touch the ever-present peace within.

Remember the message at the heart of the Christian contemplative tradition: the peace we seek (all we ultimately seek) is right here, buried in the soil of our life like a precious jewel, even as our life might be feeling very far from peaceful.

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🌲 Perhaps this is something of what Merton recognised in the wind in the pine trees: in becoming quiet and losing ourselves, we may discover that what we seek is already here.

📕 Read more in The Missing Peace (available via Amazon or all good bookshops).

🙏 You’re welcome to come along to our online practice group which meets every Saturday and Wednesday for teaching, silence and community. Each week, over 550 participants gather across our two sessions. It’s free to participate and all backgrounds and beliefs are welcome.

🔗 Find out more via the link in our bio.

09/08/2026

Urban heat builds up fast when there's concrete everywhere and not enough trees or plants to cool things down. We notice the heat more intensely, but it's not really about the sun getting stronger. It's about what we've removed and never replaced. Green spaces absorb and regulate temperature naturally. Without them, heat just bounces off pavement and gets trapped.

Planting trees, shrubs, and ground cover actually changes the microclimate around your home and neighborhood. It takes time, but the difference is real. Start where you can—a few trees in your yard, a garden bed, even container plants on a patio help. Every bit of green matters when we're talking about the spaces we live in.

09/05/2026

09/02/2026

Rest in peace, Wendell Berry. We will honor the memory and mission of the legendary poet, activist, and conservationist with our everlasting commitment to what unites us: care for our shared planet.

"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

09/02/2026

Heal, reconcile, love.

08/20/2026

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