A perfect Easter Sunday with warm spring sunshine, no wind, and the Garden full of children looking for clues on our annual Easter Egg Hunt. I think the Garden likes children, and they certainly like the Garden. One of my motivations for founding Brigit's Garden was to give young people a place to discover nature. Like many of my generation, I spent much of my childhood mucking about (as we used to call it) in the woods and fields and along the sea-shore. It was an accurate term - we were happy, free and often mucky. In Richard Louv's seminal book 'Last Child in the Woods', he coined the phrase 'nature-deficit disorder' to describe the problems experienced by so many modern children who are cut off from nature. It made a lot of sense to me and I always love to see kids having fun with nature in the Garden, whether it is fairy games in the wood or bug-fishing in the lochán.
Easter also means the pasque flower is in bloom. Also known as the Easter flower, this lovely creation of purple, yellow and silver-grey radiates colour in the Imbolc garden in April. Easter is the time of resurrection, so my Easter wish is to banish nature-deficit disorder and resurrect nature-based wellness. To fill our lives and our children's lives with pasque flowers, daffodils, clouds, wild storms, forests and all the joys, wonders and challenges of nature. To remember that we are all, in our true natures, wild at heart.
Ah! I love pasque flower and know well it's spot in the Imbolc garden. Makes my heart sing to see it here. And, yes, yes, yes, the wildness we need to fill our lives with and our children's. I am so grateful for Brigit's Garden for the wild beauty we can always find there. xxx. Tonja
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