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Nature Persists: Embodying Nature’s Magic For Urban Well-Being

I delivered a workshop at an amazing black-owned pecsatarian and vegetarian food spot called KataKata on Brixton Hill, South London, on an August Sunday afternoon. The weather was patchy, which allowed me  the peculiarly experience of the garden at the back to have the fullness of Nature’s possibilities present - a cool UK breeze rustling the leaves in the trees, sun beams breaking through the branches and mists of drizzly rain fall that mimicked that of a rain forest.

Nature Persists is a workshop I devised to explore KataKata’s  flourishing new community garden as stimulus to ignite your intuition and spark the imagination for radical well-being. This can be achieved by reconnecting with the body with its a few elements of its defence against urban energy drain.

The focus is not so much the biology of white blood cell and the immune system, but more on how taking care of the mind by listening to the body and how it hears nature, gives us better odds of caretaking of the body. Let me explain.

City dwelling is notorious for causing high stress levels and major causes of anxiety. 

The body can be compared to an antenna and memory bank - it picks up and holds positive and negative energies. Where the mind is brilliant is when it protects the body from the shock of relentless noise and toxicity. It tells the brain to tell the body disconnect or disassociate from the overwhelming nervous energy that triggered by aggressive urban environments. Any disconnection from it denies us access to the body's inner wisdom to heal and maintain a healthy personal balance. 

Nature also competes for space to be. 

Trees and plant life are social beings living with intelligent root systems exchanging nutrients with neighbouring trees to help them out. But trees and plant life can also go into shock when they are young planted in harsh highly polluted areas. They need tending to and local councils have tree officers especially for this caretaking. 

However, despite the discouraging conversations around how difficult it can be to live in cities, human nature and plant life persists, pushes through. It creates the cracks through the tarmac, through the brickwork, and it does not passively wait for cracks in the concrete to appear, or sneak out through the gaps in paving stones.

"Creativity is the immune system of the mind."

Using creative prompts an curated art rich oracle cards to stimulate wonder, play, creative/poetic writing, photography and sketching, participants are guided to tune into their intuition and  view the body as a wholistic vessel that can hold the duality of nature and the man-made environment.

This exploration session creates a space where participants can park their city living hyper-vigilance for a more subtle (and suppressed) set of instincts that respond to the tune and call of nature. Participants are guided toward being more ‘heart open’, to revert back to the 3 of the 5 senses, to close their eyes and go into the primal senses of hearing, smell and touch. Finding balance between the extremes of these realities builds a flexibility and resilience that can be nurtured/cultivated to find a sense of peace of 21st century city dwelling.

Undoubtably, there is nothing like having blooming green space, fantastic views that stretching into beautiful horizons and being able to ground oneself next to a large body of water. But many of us do not have the luxury of this. Many only have access to allotments, maybe a house plant, maybe a flower box on a balcony. But the point is to be able to tune in to a side of yourself that recognises that we are made of the same stuff of plants, trees, flowers, the Earth…

Nature Persists: Embodying Nature’s Magic For Urban Well-Being @ Katakata -  was a Poet’s Tarot Corner Creative Session for Come We Grow Sustainability, Performance, Permaculture, and Creativity event. This event is the brainchild of Ian “KMT” Solomon Kawall, The Freedom Teacher, Musican, Rapper Mentor, Gardener and founder of  May Project Gardens.

  ||± NATURE PERSISTS ONLINE ±||

Nature Persists is also looking at ways of embracing technology as a tool to aid the facilitation of this connection between nature, humans and the urban environment.

Using guided meditation, creative prompts and tasks that can be shared amongst a group online, Nature Persists creates space to cultivate, nurture, and maintain a sense of community that engages in discussion around reconnecting with nature, well-being and the relationship we have with the urban environment. 

Created innovative online platforms allow participants  to ground inspired by nature, to develop a strong trust their intuition about what taking care of the emotional, mental, and spiritual self means, as well as learn strategies on how to take care of the city-bound body.

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Photography and artwork created at the Katakata Garden for Come We Grow Reloaded Sunday 8th August at the Nature Persists: Embracing the Magic of Nature for Urban Well Being

Link to event https://poetstarotcorner.wixsite.com/come-we-grow

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On a chilly Autumn morning in 2019, I was invited to march with a new movement called Culture Declares Emergency. We toured major cultural institutions in the heart of London reading Letters To The Earth - a project giving gratitude to the planet that is our home.

I am photographed here singing an adapted version of Endangered Species by Diane Reeves, a protest song about domestic violence in the POC community.

I took the lyrics and turned them into protest song about POCs fighting for Mother Earth and the systemoc obstruction of whiteness to let that work be done

I have since been asked to speak at Seasons For Change Hostes by Julie's Bicycle to deliver a keynote speech about decolonisating the climate change movement.

My focus is on Environmental Justice.

You can watch the keynote here.

This week I will be deliver a Decolonisation in the Climate Change movement immersive learning and upskilling experience in collaboration with Serayna Solanki, a heart centred climate activist and creative. Our sessions are called "Being. Seeing. Knowing. "

More to come.

Watch this space...

Zena

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Balbir Singh

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thebetterindia.com/51513/balbir-singh-seechewal-punjab-river-cleaning/amp/

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What is Social Permaculture?

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https://therestorativereview.wordpress.com/

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https://www.iirp.edu/defining-restorative/restorative-justice-typology

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More Questions:

Majority is more about the construct of power. Who has the majority of power and why? What privileges does this afford them, especially when it comes to listening? Their privilege affords them the luxury of not having to listen.

You cannot be ‘the’ change unless you are willing to ‘be changed’. This is about the will of the individual to go with the conviction of their heart to be the changed. It is interactions with real people from marginalise groups, and not just the ideology of the causes born to support them, which always run the risk of being derailed from the root need, that brings about shock first, and then realization that the work is in headspace and belief systems about what the world outside of privilege looks like.

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