The good news about initiatives to Recover Eden.
We are offering original and limited-edition photo-art for sale in a variety of formats. Our goal is to launch as many initiatives as our resources allow to provide ways to reconnect with our natural selves. We want to support and foster a shift toward simpler and more sustainable living alongside greater mental well-being and life…
Art and Photography are for both of us, important vehicles for expressing our relationship with nature. We are therefore happy to share some of our work with you via this site. We have two gallery areas: ORIEL featuring Mel’s art and photography and ADFER EDEN FFOTOGRAFFIAETH, featuring Terry’s photography and some cartoon art. All will…
Even though we can’t yet live on the land, we have been exploring any possible ways to interact with, observe and nurture it. It’s an opportunity to exercise some permaculture ideas and understand its rhythms and cycles. This seems like a very good approach as several different habitats can be found within these three acres,…
This is a story about how a 50-something and a 60-something pair of idealists (plus a Saluki named Elsie) got their first proper opportunity to explore the land that would sustain their journey to recover Eden.
These are unedited out takes so excuse the quality. It’s a sneak preview of more to follow…
After several long months, the Welsh border has opened and this week, we were able to explore our land for the first time in any sort of detail.
This was an event now so loaded with hope and expectation, I almost held back, preferring the sweetness of anticipation (albeit the bitter and frustrated kind). What would we find? Encampments of vagabonds? Fly-tipping, Hostile locals? All were possible.
Instead we found enormous hope and potential coupled with some hopefully not too serious challenges.
We have to start an ambitious project of this scale with some clear guiding principles. Otherwise, I expect we will lose our way in the face of conflicting options and budget priorities. What are our core values? These will inform design choices, materials selection and the lifestyle we create. Of course, there will be some…
The talk is over (or just revving up). This just got real for us. Found some land. A nice little 3 acre block with outline planning – half forest with a river. It’s on the edge of a Welsh village near the mid coast – not the cutesy Beddgelert with the coffee shops and steam…
New Zealand parliament has passed legislation to pass its commitments to the Paris Agreement into law. This sets a target for the country to achieve zero net carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. The news establishes New Zealand as one of the few countries in the world with a legislated commitment to the goals of the…
Architectural students in an Estonian forest designed three cone-shaped megaphones made entirely of wood. They are used as sound amplifiers to better understand nature and they also serve as places for recreation. In order to maximise the communion with nature, they installed their creations in a clearing, next to the Pähni Nature Center . This space has been transformed into a place of…
RECOVERING EDEN has always been a dream of ours but individually, our lives had some other lessons for us to learn first.
I’m Terry, a 61 year old Australian. Mel is 55 and from Wiltshire. We both knew we wanted something different from the life of desperate conformity and relentless capital growth that has brought our existence on this planet to such a precipice. But we ploughed very different furrows until, finally, we were presented with the signs that can no longer be ignored…divorce, disenchantment, burn-out, health issues…a healthy dose of life-sabotage to promote a hand-brake turn onto a new path.
Happily, our respective paths converged and our respective slices of idealism found new resonance. We actually believed we COULD FIND A NEW WAY together.
Pretty quickly, some practical hurdles became apparent. We weren’t too flush for cash; we weren’t that young or able bodied (plenty of middle-age aches as well as a hip and knee replacement to be getting on with); we had pets that would almost certainly never co-exist in harmony (a young Saluki hound with formidable credentials as a ‘sight-dog’ and a grumpy, late-middle aged cat who has little regard for anyone or anything).
Then there was the question of finding a plot of land and financing an eco self-build.
We want to create a healthy, sustainable and low-impact lifestyle for ourselves but also to inspire, involve and educate others.
This blog is intended as the first step in that direction. YES, the posts contains some articles that present depressing data and sobering statistics. We believe it is essential to foster awareness about the gravity of our global situation and debunk the pseudo-science and denial rhetoric. But we also believe that it is unhelpful to confront individuals only with a punitive message of shame and despair. What we need right now is hope and the belief that we can each make a meaningful difference via measures that are not tantamount to living in grass huts and eating raw berries.
In early 2020, we embarked on the purchase of a 3 acre plot with outline planning consent in Ceredigion, Wales. Then came COVID-19 and a period of limbo from which we are now hopefully emerging.
Check out our next post for details on our land and the initial challenges we face. Meanwhile, here’s a bit more about our ethos.
THE BIG THINGS STAY THE SAME UNLESS WE MAKE LITTLE CHANGES. That is our call to action and our mission is to provide resources and opportunities to interact and learn pleasurable and rewarding alternatives that can help us live more sustainably. Individually, we may not change the world but if we become the change we want to see, then collectively we can be an instrument for global change. Your idea of ‘little’ may differ from ours but we accept the different starting points and mental preparedness we each bring to this challenge. Lao Tsu said it best with, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
Our intention is to create a sustainable and largely self-sufficient living space with on-site resources to offer teachings in a range of subjects including:
– Mindfulness, meditation and walking meditation
– Art in Nature
– Vegan/Vegetarian Lifestyle Options
– Herbs and Health
– Foraging
– Sustainable Living
Our initiatives are ambitious and exceed our financial reach at this time. But we will continue to engage via this website with information, ideas and resources. We have a range of original nature photography on sale for download at a modest price. We are also offering a SUBSCRIBER ONLY section which contains sustainability tips and detailed guidance based on our experiences and research as well as free full-resolution downloads of our PHOTO OF THE WEEK and access to our cartoon page featuring FLOODED WELLIES. This will help fund this site and our training initiatives. A portion of any subscription or purchase funds will be used to support appropriate tree planting.
Thank you for visiting RECOVER EDEN. Let’s make a difference together.
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