00:00Balancing and reading and talking. Hello, how is everyone? Are you all okay? Yeah, isn't it great to see all these people together?
00:07Thank you for coming down. So a couple of weeks ago, can everyone hear me okay? A bit louder.
00:13So a couple of weeks ago we joined together a gathering of people from the age of 4 to 74 to do a nature noticing workshop with Steve McCulloch,
00:23wherever he's gone, and then a creative writing workshop with me, and then I gathered together everybody's observations and writing
00:31and have made a community poem, as Steve said, to celebrate this really special place. So I'm going to read it to you.
00:41I should say that we've had funding from Literature Works to do this, and so we've got beautiful pamphlets that you can collect from the Millennium Green stall afterwards.
00:52There's space at the back for you to do your own nature noticings with some creative writing prompts.
00:58So do grab one, enjoy the poem, share it, and bring it down to the green, or anywhere that's green that you love to be,
01:06and use these prompts to really observe what's around you and write creatively, because it's a wonderful, wonderful exercise of connection.
01:13So I'm really proud of this poem, that these people that came along saying,
01:20I can't write and I'm not creative, and they've created something I think very beautiful.
01:25So here is their poem, and it's called A Green Prayer.
01:28Still, I notice the shape of the flowers, smell of fox, yellow iris in the pond,
01:40a buttercup sea of yellow, balance, calm, rain, the scent of freedom,
01:48the fluffiness of flowers, the warmth of my friend alongside me, grass in all its many textures,
01:59the astonishing beauty of a spiral, the dew on the horsetail glittering the earth, the sun hot on my back.
02:10I run my hands over wild clovers, smell the damp leaves and soil, hear the birds, and want to sing along.
02:21The sound of the stream, voices on the path, far but near, an echo, a remembered sound.
02:30I watch a butterfly, coloured white, fly to the meadow, and the green whispers,
02:40I may change as the river floods or is no more, as the sun burns or the cold comes,
02:47but I am here, be still, look and know, soak it all up and give it out to the world.
02:56I taste happiness in a hidden place, a little wilderness, an ancient sight, a place to gather.
03:06Not the work of people, but trees bent to form a roof, bowing cool like a shelter,
03:13where a pigeon nests and long-tailed tits make it alive.
03:18A miracle, a sweet symphony of pink and grey.
03:22And the green sighs, explore me, see me, see my small things, I'm a community of nature.
03:36I feel part of it, part of the earth, the baby apples under the fading blossom,
03:42the mare's tail with its pin-like leaves, pussy willow flowers covering the path,
03:47the birdsong and fresh green smell of wind and sun, children's cries of discovery,
03:55heat sending hoverflies and bees dancing.
03:59I will return to this magical place to absorb and be, to dance barefoot with my baby brother,
04:06to feel space, companionship, feel alive and breathe the air.
04:11I will come back to the meadow and lie on my belly like a child,
04:17seeing an eye-level view of cuckoo flower, plantain, blackthorn, orchids.
04:24And the green says, life is abundant when you look with your heart.
