This morning, to beat the heat, I went out early for my walk.  The overzealous maintenance crew has not been along the harbour trail recently, so the paved walkway is fringed with meadow flowers.  I identified common vetch, oxeye daisy, red and white clover, common knapweed, birdsfoot trefoil, yarrow, two kinds of wild roses, blackberries in bloom, cinquefoil, common nightshade, coltsfoot leaves, ferns, various grasses, cattails, a tricolour field of lupins, musk mallow, various dandelion-like flowers which could include yellow goat’s-beard, wild lettuce and hawkweed, a small plant with clusters of tiny yellow flowers which I can’t identify.  All around me hidden in the trees and shrubs was the rustle and twitter of birds although I only caught sight of one song sparrow and one goldfinch.

The thought came to me that this is an extraordinary burgeoning of life, somehow succeeding despite humanity’s best efforts to mow it down.  Would the world become a different and better place if everyone spent time simply observing nature?  Would we learn humility?  I wish we could make every dictator or wannabe dictator, corporate bosses who only see money, women who more subtly exercise power for personal gain, all those whose greatest pleasure seems to be to control others and glorify or enrich themselves, I wish we could make them all spend time in nature, surviving only by their own wits.

And every child deserves to bathe in the riches of the earth.  Generations have been denied this, one of our most basic needs.  No wonder the human race is essentially insane and we struggle to regain our lost connections to the world.