November: Mid-Month Musing

Yesterday marked a year since I moved in with my partner and was given full reign over his garden after a couple of years of slowly working on it whilst we dated. My book-worm soul used to believe that my made-it moment would be akin to Belle receiving that glorious library in Disney's Beauty and the Beast; a whole room dedicated to books and reading and cosy vibes. Alas, the moment is this garden space I'm so lucky to have.

My book recommendation for November is a gardening book. It is a book that beautifully combines nature, heritage, lifestyle, and activism with the empowering act of reading. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do before spring catches you off guard! I have learnt so much from it, including how to manage with winter.

Over the weekend, I dismantled my pollinator paradise. A bittersweet act that previously would have set a cold resentment for the season in me, but now is one I accept with a full heart.

My garden is not designed to be the clean sterile backdrop of a barbeque catalogue, but instead something much more. It is more than a plot of land beyond the kitchen door. It is a thriving community of living organisms. I refer to my main 'flower bed' as a pollinator paradise as my planting decisions have been made with all sorts of insects in mind. Creating refuge for the pollinators sees that my fruit trees and other produce are pollinated in thanks; my enormous apples were a team effort! These plants bloom brilliantly during the spring-autumn period but are not so good at surviving our British winters of unpredictable chill and frost.

Cutting down the bed ensures the plants' survival so that they can return to me and my pollinator guests when the time is right. It is a physical task, but a satisfying one. As I piled up my green compost-bin offerings I kept a look out for my resident spiders, snails and other bugs who I carefully relocated to the evergreens in hope they would receive enough cover from the pending temperature drop. I also chatted away to the plants, a sort of coping ritual, in which I congratulated them on their blooms and reminisced about some of our adoring guests in the form of buff-tailed bumblebees and gatekeeper butterflies. After all of that hard work, it is time for my green and floral friends to rest up for the winter.

Sweet dreams, I tell them as I cover the bed with a soft blanket of mulch. I cannot wait to see what you have in store for me next year.

Okatcha opens A Wilder Way in October to view these endings as beginnings. The ritualistic element of gardening aligns us with natural calendar of give and take, of life and death. This time of year is often one for reflection and planning, and the work we do in our gardens to prepare for the next season help us to keep up in this natural rhythm.

So what does this have to do with reading?

As I've discussed, reading has many benefits, including empathy. By recognising your own experience of life as one in a countless amount of alternatives, I believe you gain perspective ...and in turn level up your 'kindness'. Your values and wants shift, as the world around you comes into focus.

I respect nature and wildlife, viewing these living organisms as essential to human existence. I read a lot of books growing up based on farms or from the perspective of animals, so I have never seen them as an accessory to decorate the landscape or dinner table.

Not all will share my views, in the same way I may not share your own, and that is ok. Indeed, some of you may believe me to be a tad crazy, and I'd probably agree with a smile. This is all about opening your mind to things that may challenge, affirm, and even terrify. You may find the most exciting discovery of your life, and with that a sense of purpose or perspective that will fuel your heart during winter's darkest nights.

Books like the one written by Okotcha is not just about upping your Instagram cottage-core aesthetics, but instead a raw and authentic story of life alongside other life. It is an invitation to listen, to witness, and to live within the complex web of relationships that grant beauty and decay.

Reading is not just for escaping reality, instead it could be for liberating reality.

A note on this post's image. It is a ChatGPT edit of a photo I took in my garden as I chopped away at a climbing rose bush. I discovered a tiny snail that I then moved out of harms way. I edited the photo to align with the rest of the images on my site.