Reflections from New York
It's been
a reflective couple of months for me. I lost both my maternal grandparents within
10 days of each other, they were both 91. I was very close to my grandmother,
spending many school holidays staying with them in Frampton on Severn a
beautiful village in Gloucestershire.
My
grandfather was a farm labourer on the manor farm, and my childhood was shaped,
going with him into work, watching the milking, sheep dipping & combine
harvesting and helping in his vegetable garden. Perhaps that is why having the
croft has been so important for me. My paternal grandfather also worked on a
fruit farm, had a huge vegetable garden and kept geese - and for a while my
father ran a market garden and free-range chickens. The earth to me is so
important and now my grandparents have returned to it.
A week
later, I lost my only pedigree gilt, she went into labour on a night when it
was snowing - went outside to nest and died. By the time I got to her, the
crows were already doing their work. Nature can be cruel and relentless - two
days before we had temperatures of 19 C.
Spring
has naturally been my most vibrant energetic time, it's when I have fell in
love, made big decisions, grown. This spring I have just had my 50th birthday,
do I feel different, Yes. I am wiser, who knows - time will tell. What I do
know is that the work I have been chosen to do in awakening people to the
process of love and acceptance, to recovery to journeying with another hurt
distressed person is like planting and growing, preparing the seed bed,
watching the seed develop its roots, its green leaves, how important water and
light is, pulling out the weeds to stop its growth being stifled, watching the
flowers open, the fruits develop. Isn't that exactly what the workers job
should be in the recovery process?
I am
writing this in New York. A huge city with millions of people, yet walking
around, there are trees everywhere - gardens on top of buildings where ever
people are. They still need to feel in touch with the earth, even when
surrounded by so much concrete. We had a great public meeting last Thursday on
working with voices, about 70 people were there including the organizers. There
is a definite hunger here to do something different, to look beyond medication
and diagnosis - workers are fed up of being in a system that is failing people.
I think that the hearing voices movement can bring about great changes here, if
it is grown and nurtured - and workers are grown and nurtured to sustain it.
Ron Coleman and Karen Taylor have an international reputation as speakers and authors. They are the directors of ‘Working to Recovery Limited’ an innovative international consultancy, training and publishing company with a cutting edge approach to supporting and improving mental health provision.
