Tuesday
13th August
A gentle
day of reconnecting with where the land is and what needs to be done as we move
from late summer into autumn. My
favourite times of the year fall between the seasons as one season is closing
and another opening. My homework for my
course with Waverly Fitzgerald was to reflect on the seasons and I found myself
sharing my love of the 'in between seasons'.
I have always considered these periods as deeply personal times when I
can look back and forward both at the same time. A few precious days to prepare for what is to
come before the new season awakens and takes full control.
I am harvesting my red tomatoes daily and cutting and tying my lavender and oregano. My sweet peas just keep on giving and as I peg down my strawberry runners I can still smell the fruit. I have a strawberry plant outside my studio that is still producing ripened strawberries and I am grateful for its loyalty. I don't share these strawberries. Despite a brutal cut back my chives are forging on once more and this year my four cuts a year might just become five as I don't want them to overwinter with that much growth. Plants need our protection to see their way through the winter and one of the best things we can do is cut back the end of season growth so that they don't have to work too hard during the winter months. We are still planting out mint from this years cuttings and will have a glorious mint bed for our cut flowers next year. Pete is clearing yet more land to make raised beds on during the down season so that we can more than treble our cut flower production next year. The islanders have convinced us that they do, indeed, love locally grown and fragrant flowers.
With a
much stronger sense of where we are and what needs to be done I retreated to my
studio for some time to write. As I
watched the seeds drifting through the late summer breeze I felt the strongest
calling to begin planning my new online course Mindfulness Gardening. Within a ridiculously short period of time
the outline of the course was staring back at me. This is, I believe, evidence that this is the
most natural next step in increasing my portfolio of online courses. I have been a grower for so many years that
my mind can turn to each month of year with ease and speak the activities that
define that month. From the start,
therefore, I knew this to be a 12 month course with 12 PDFs needing to be
written. At this time I am sticking with
my PDFs rather than ebooks as ebooks don't allow me the same depth in visual
imagery. Photographs are such an
important part of my explanations that I couldn't do without them.
So I now
have a true and convincing 12 month outline that moves the student between
gardening projects and mindfulness projects and back again. Using gardening projects as a source for
training and developing the mind is not a new concept and I am not pretending
that it is. However, gardeners have
their own unique relationship with the land making my course, by definition,
unique. This course will engage students
in a range of activities that begin in the garden move through our minds before
we take them into our home. That might
be the sowing of seeds through to accepting new growth in our mind and into
preserving the autumn as our mind prepares for the winter months. I am trying to strike a balance between
pragmatic and creative projects sourced in the garden so that we can feed
ourselves and our souls.
I am keen
for each month of the course to have an integrity about it as this will enable
students to just study for one month or, indeed, the whole year. It may not be possible for every student to
complete every task in every PDF but that is almost the whole point of the
online delivery. The students won't be
tied down to 2014 to complete all the course. They will have the PDFs for future years as
well. Now that I have the outline I can
start in filling with content and I always feel like I am hibernating as a
writer during these times. I get a
little lost in the content and in this case I expect each month to take its
turn to occupy my mind until it has been committed to paper.
I offered
my first course meditation through writing free to students in exchange for
feedback as we go and this has already proved to be invaluable. This is best demonstrated by the fact that
despite only being half way through the delivery of this course I feel able to
start work on new courses starting in 2014.
I have been doing my own research on what teachers are charging for
these types of online courses so have a much clearer gauge for that. The plan will be to accept payment via PayPal
and on a monthly basis to allow students to spread the cost. If students want to pay the whole year in
advance I will, of course, offer a discount.
I hope that my course will be competitively priced in the marketplace
and affordable to as many people as possible.
As always if any of you have views of this subject do feel free to
share.
These new
courses will be run through my new site One soul many hearts but strong links
will be established here as well. This might hint at some kind of future for
Scottish island mum. I will admit to
having a bit of a light bulb moment on the future of Scottish island mum but as
I currently have no idea how I could achieve this I will say no more until my
mind has worked out the answers. Quite
some time ago the thought of Scottish island mum just disappearing at the end
of this year long project seemed too harsh even for me to consider. From that point it has always been a question
of how she might continue and in what form.
So many if you have had views on this already but I will be doing a kind
of reader consultation in the next few months so no absolute decisions will be
made until after that process has been completed.
So a day
that began with the seasonal tasks that make running a horticultural
smallholding a joy ended with a move into writing. Does it get much better than that? The answer to that is, clearly, no.
Until
tomorrow. Xx
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