Becoming an Ecologiser

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Originally appears in the Winter 2017 issue

by Ann Palmer

I WAS SEVEN, an only child of older parents, walking home from Sunday school. I touched the leaves on the hedges, stared up at puffy white clouds sailing in a blue sky, stopped to smell the occasional garden flower I passed and thought about where I had just been. Out in the fresh air, a light wind played with the leaves, their shadows dappled the path, entrancing. By comparison, Sunday school seemed an oddly imposed superstructure, nothing to do with the nature I was now experiencing.

As I look back, I see this memory as a personal epiphany. The moment I saw two distinct worldviews side by side and chose to commit my heart and soul to nature. It was also at the time in my life when the left brain logical, analytical, verbalised reasoning leadership was set to take over the right brain holistic all-embracing side that had ruled my life so far. In my case, the left brain’s take-over bid got diverted by an all-embracing mind/body certainty that engulfed me that afternoon. This epiphany has served me well and faithfully ever since. Then and there I made a secret pact with nature, swore an allegiance with a fealty and commitment great as any knight of old. It also seeded a dual way of seeing life, for which I didn’t yet have the words. Unsurprisingly, I never shared this with anyone, sensing it would elicit the two responses I most dreaded: ridicule or terrible trouble.