The world is singing, and my to-do list can wait
Springtime in Wales: an appreciation post
It’s May, and we’re at that point of the year where everything has popped. The dense slopes of forest lying across the river, which I watch from my windows, are now fully green — awash with different shades, tones and textures. The lilac, apple, and labernum trees are in bloom behind our summer house. The seedlings are getting too big for their trays, and our little stepped, walled garden has become a jungle. We wake up with the dawn at 5.30, in time to see the sunrise above the ridge on our morning walks, accompanied by the jazz warble of the song thrush and the piercing call of the kingfisher. Last week we even saw an otter in the river!
I love this time of year. The winter was long and very wet here in Wales, but these past weeks have seen a welcome return of the sun. The swallows and swifts and martins are back in the village ( first sighting: 11th April!) and their calls as they circle above are once again the soundtrack to my evenings. As we come up on 3 years into our time here, I’m beginning to notice that it’s always May when life in Wales really reveals itself to me. When my shoulders drop, and after the darker days of winter, I feel most grateful again for our life here.
I think this gratitude stems precisely from the beauty and abundance that I’m surrounded by, which I can observe so much easier during this period, especially at our land, which is in full spring bloom right now. One of the key drivers for moving here was to be closer to nature and to wildness, and for our landscapes, and the places we spent our days, to be a character in our lives — something that we live alongside, not somewhere we only visited at the weekends. When the world is quite literally coming to life around me, this closeness to nature is impossible to ignore, and I love it.
As my focus has turned back to the world outside my window, I’ve been digging back into my wild food and medicine studies, which is always one of my favourite ways to connect with the natural world. This week, my attention was on the humble dandelion. The park near our house, where we walk each day is full of them, and inspired by a member of our permaculture group who brought some dandelion burgers to our latest meeting, I decided to focus on this often overlooked but abundant and versatile plant. I learnt about the detoxification properties of dandelion in Ayurveda school (paired with burdock, it’s an excellent liver cleanser). Additional fun fact: its leaves also contain more beta carotene in them than carrots! This week I honed in on the bright yellow flowers, which are a great source of antioxidants and anti-inflammatories. There are so many things you can make with the flowers, but I ended up copying my permie pal, and trying my own version of her burgers.
I adapted (and doubled) this simple recipe, which only calls for danelion flowers, flour, milk, egg, seasoning, dried oregano, dried basil, onions, and garlic. I used gluten-free flour as opposed to regular, and I didn’t have an onion, so I sacked off the garlic powder and replaced that, and the onions, with wild garlic. I also doubled the oregano and basil, and added probably another ¼ tsp of salt. They were so easy to make — I threw all the ingredients into a bowl together, mixed it up into a batter, and then fried them in some butter. I was really pleased with the results! They had a solid texture (didn’t break apart in the pan), and a pleasant flavour, which I’m sure was enhanced by the wild garlic.
We have so much less disposable income than we used to, and so the whole process felt like such a gift: from the enjoyable mooch to forage the flowers, to finding a recipe, to the simple, rhythmic act of preparing the flowers, and then the ease by which a stack of burgers appeared. It also felt lovely to engage with this common plant that so often gets ignored or written off as a weed. As I looked around the field, overflowing with these flowers, I thought about how the earth is constantly providing.
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I’ve written before about one of the fundamental principles of Ayurveda: the concept of the macrocosm / microcosm. The idea is that we, as human beings, are miniature reflections of the broader universe; the same elements, cycles, and energies that govern nature also govern the body, mind, and spirit. I always see the truth of this concept most clearly when I think about the cyclical nature of the year, and the way the seasons mirror the stages of human life: from birth to death. And even within this broader pattern, there are little life cycles happening over and over again. The dandelions, for example, are currently in the late summer of their brief life: some are still blooming, while others have started going to seed.
This week, I also said a final goodbye to the last of my Golden Dawn narcissus plants. These flowers are one of my favourites, and it was a lovely surprise when Karl came home with armfuls of them bought from the nursery where he works. For the past 6 weeks, they’ve bloomed outside my window and the scent has carried through my house from the various jugs and vases I’ve dotted about. This week, I watched the last of them enter their final phase of life: wilting, withering, and drying out. As I put the final stems into the compost heap, I was struck again by the beautiful mirroring that exists between all living things on this earth: the great cycles of life and death. I was sad that their season was over, but I also felt reassured, knowing they’ll be back next year. I also know it’s impossible for everything to bloom all the time: it’s now another flower’s turn to have its moment in the sun.
When I’m able to tune into this bigger intelligence woven through everything, life always feels a little bit easier. It’s like a big exhale — a sense of ‘all is well.’ It reminds me that even when I’m in turmoil: spinning out and doing all the things humans do, that there’s a regular heartbeat running underneath it all, that has our backs: an inevitability; a cycle. Sitting at this point of the wheel, where the world is alive and singing, it is so much easier to tune into this truth and to take pause. My current to-do list is huge, filled with ideas for businesses, and things I want to write, and places I want to go, and courses I want to enrol on, and books I want to read. Yet I also have to remind myself over and over, that I designed my life for more of this: to live in deeper connection with nature and her cycles.
Here, now, is the time to luxuriate. I can spend time with my plants and flowers, and at the land, and walking in the woods. I can learn about the world around me, make some dandelion burgers, and drink it all in. And that is enough.
Originally published at https://jessicahamlin.substack.com.
