World Rewilding Day and the Equinox

Yesterday was the Spring Equinox. Yellow gorse, daffodils, and primroses are blooming across Cornwall. The sun has warmth to it. The earth is waking up.

Yesterday was also World Rewilding Day. An international day to celebrate and promote rewilding- an approach to conservation that is ‘about letting nature take care of itself, enabling natural processes to shape land and sea, repair damaged eco systems and restore degraded landscapes’ (Rewilding Europe). Rewilding holds at its heart the belief that if humanity could only remember our wildness, we might remember that we are part of the natural world, not separate from it, and so be more inclined towards changing our behaviour.

Rewilding is incredibly important to me. The first time I heard the word it changed my life and art forever. I’ve never had a single word change my life before, but I am no longer the same person I was before hearing it. The alchemy of my own rewilding began on the Southwest Coast Path. The art project for which I began hiking, and the book proposal that is coming from it, have rewilding as a foundation.

The van was born from this fundamental change to who I am and to my art.

I finished insulating the walls of my van yesterday morning, layers of sheep’s wool covering every surface. Every time I open the van door a warm, rich scent fills my lungs. A friend said it is as though I am a seed, doing all the tough work buried under the surface, getting ready to bloom. It is a beautiful image and makes me love my sheep’s wool insulation even more. It is the warm dark of deep earth far below winters frost, and when it is complete, when the work is done, the van can start to bloom.

Once I’d finished the walls I went with my Mum, Sonya, and her daughter to visit Sonya’s field. Last November Sonya gifted me three silver birch saplings and let me plant them in the field. It is place for Women’s Business, and a real-life rewilding project.

We walked up through the still wintery Cornish land, spots of spring flowers like beacons of colour. Sonya has planted trees and wildflowers in the field, she is letting the grass grow long and lush, slowly but surely bringing balance and biodiversity to this patch of land. It already sings and I love it with all my heart. Standing in the field the world feels rich.

My trees are just beyond the hedge that cuts the field in two. When I reached them, I discovered these tiny saplings have the beginnings of perfect tiny leaves. They have done the work of winter, that have grown their roots, embedding themselves in this place, and now they are ready for Spring.

It seems we shall grow and rewild together.

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