Lat May I
sat at the trusty – though somewhat battered by the three-year-old fella –
kitchen table to write about a time to grow. Well, talk about an
understatement. Where do I start?
Leaving the
comfort of my well-worn battle ground of bogs and trying to get them restored
was a moment filled with mixed emotion. Was I overly institutionalised? Was I
too specialist? Was I too brow-beaten by the winds in the business world where
nature came at the bottom of a sad and pitiful pecking order? At the National
Biodiversity Conference last year I listened with great intent to eve
ry word of
our inspirational flame-bearer – President Higgins. I’m not ashamed to admit that
I near wept the whole way through his speech. Whether he wrote it or not, his delivery
and his spoken words of camaraderie, respect and understanding for us ‘weary in
the trenches folk’ hit me right in the core. I know I wasn’t alone. Sometimes
we don’t know if we can go on.
 |
| Red sky at night - flying over the Irish Sea, looking back towards the west (Oct 2019). |
With all
these questions in my head, I walked on. I followed my gut and stepped off a corporate motorway onto a rugged path, with a well self-enforced
speed limit, that I had never been on before. Scared? – does a duck quack? Excited?
Levels were off the Richter scale, or that was nausea??? Free? As a
bird. Think - off the north coast of Erris and an un-limited blue sky stretching over the
horizon. Think John Lennon Free as a Bird.
Six months
later, how I have grown! Not physically (though I have spent a lot of time on my ass sitting and reading). More like - grown back into my curious, wonder and awe skin,
back onto new neural pathways in my head, wriggled out of narrowing avenues and out into the limitless
space of possibility. And how is that, says you? Well, I’ve had the time to
read (part of the job - what a gift!). And it was science, journals, economics, philosophy, and the crossover of nature and business. Grasping nettles and taking the sting
out them with understanding. Still plenty of nettles out there, takes time.
I’ve met
some awesome people on this path – there are serious (wow) warriors out there armed
with knowledge and understanding, and passion and fire for nature and people, together. Even to brush-off the energy of that
fire feeds my own and brings to me great hope where I was probably a bit
wanting. Maybe even more importantly, I got to spend more time with the hardy
warriors I knew before but never really got to spend time with – you know who
you are. Both these close encounters with awesome warriors have helped to
rebuild – restore? – my own source of fire, to keep me in the dance. Nature’s
worth dancing for, though in my heart of hearts - this I know - nature dances us.
Am I still scared? Yeah, who isn’t a bit scared if they are
honest. Life is uncertain, but I have today. And tomorrow will be a gift.
Am I excited? Even more than I
thought I could be. The future needs us all to work together, from every millimetre of this intricate web. Not one more important than the other, though some can bear
a more powerful blow to get us on the right course. And plenty of heavy lifting for us all to do, so hang in there.
Free? Still flying, high.
