Red Admiral butterfly and numerous pollinators are showing this ragwort in my garden very big love this summer! Ragwort was by far the most beloved and popular wildflower in my garden. You might say it is an act of resistance just growing it, as farmers are legally required to remove it from their fields. However, it is the only plant used as a nursery and food source by the beautiful day-flying Cinnabar Moth.

So of course, I’m growing it.

Would it surprise you if I said you are already doing more than you realise? Ok, so you haven’t stopped a war. That’s not your job. The people who can, haven’t, and that’s not your fault, either. Look at the quote above by Arthur Ashe. It’s the most incredible wisdom/ piece of advice/ powerful mantra you will ever encounter. You can apply it to absolutely anything.

Start where you are.

If you want to love others, you have to first start with yourself (more on this in a couple of weeks). Hold your loved ones often. Tell them. Tell them to tell their loved ones. Hug your friends. Hug your pets. Hug the trees, if you want to. Give genuine compliments. Carry out small random acts of kindness; a friend of mine makes up little packs for homeless people that she keeps in her car to hand out whenever she sees someone in need.

Practice gratitude— this is so powerful, in a few days you will realise how rich your life actually is. Can I give you a recent personal example? I shocked myself when I realised how grateful I was that the hospital my child was being treated in wasn’t being bombed. Imagine that. But that is exectly where we are now.

None of that is going to help people in Gaza. Wearing a flag is not going to help them. Going to a demonstration is not going to help them. Donations buy food that sits in warehouses and thus fails to help them. Writing letters to politicians is not going to help them. We’ve done it all, but our governments still refuse to stand up to bullies. Even the Flotilla couldn’t help them.

But does it mean you stop? No. Start where you are. You are in Ireland, this is where you start, what you can do, and so you keep on doing it, because never giving up demonstrates your love and solidarity. And the people of Palestine need to know that.

Use what you have.

My cause is the climate crisis. I don’t go to demonstrations, because I have Carys to care for, and a demonstration is not the right place for her. Or me. I’m not good with crowds. But I don’t need to. I do something more practical, and arguably more useful. I work on rewilding my garden and grow fruit and vegetables using permaculture principles.

You don’t need to buy books, there is lots of information online. You don’t have to spend money on seeds. Now is the perfect time to gather wildflower seeds from your local hedgerows (if you don’t know how to gather and store wild seeds, just let me know, I can write a short post on it). We need people to march and make speeches. But we also need workers who quietly get on with the task in hand.

I dragged out some warped planks of wood that had been sitting in my garage for years and built raised beds. Use what you have, old bricks, tree trunks, stones you have dug up from your garden. I have used all of these materials. I even cut some rods of grey willow and wove a circular bed from them. Dry herbs and wild plants to make teas and herbal remedies.

Use your common sense here, and do your research. Not everything that is natural is harmless. Imagine if every house with a garden rewilded even a patch of it. We’d have somewhat less of a crisis and better health, mental and physical. Of course, switching to green energy, solar panels, gravity fed or composting toilets (not as bad as you might imagine!) may be beyond most people’s means, but one day… in the meantime, start where you are and do what you can.

Do what you can

What is your gift? Your skill? How can you use it to support the causes you care about? Mine is writing. Here on H A G, I try to draw people’s attention to the nature all around them, and how you can introduce these plants from the hedgerows into your own spaces, and how you can use them. But in my book, I write about attitudes to motherhood, female aging and disability. Writing raises awareness, and it can be subtle or jarring, but one way or another, it makes people think.

Maybe you paint, or weave willow, or knit. Doirrean Ní Ghríofa wrote that the child’s cardigan knitted by her grandmother was a female text. I love that! What can that text tell you, beyond the love of a granny for her child. Who doesn’t love a bit of yarn bombing? What messages can you weave into your knitting, your art, your dancing, your music?

If you are a good speaker, show up on social media. If you are good at diy, show people how to fix things, instead of buying new. Think about what you can do, and then do what you can.

Love is more than caring. Love is active. It’s something you do, not just something you say. Love is resistance. Love is activism. Love begins where you are now, doing what you can with what you have. You are not powerless. You are a rebel. A mid-life, grey-haired rebel with troublesome hormones, admittedly, but a rebel none-the-less.

Now, do you see? All those small things you are doing every day, that you discount as worthless, they all matter. They are the million and one ways you show your love. Sometimes, we need to be reminded of that.

Grá mór,

If this helped, don’t forget to ‘like’ and subscribe, and many thanks for reading!