I’m struggling with the concept of hope at the moment. Is it an ideological con? My dictionary defines the verb ‘to hope’ as: to cherish a desire that something good will happen with some expectation of success or fulfilment. I might as well just cross my fingers. We hear a lot about the value […]
I was surprised at my emotions upon arrival at my first XR march. As the sun warmed my skin, I looked at the faces around me: I saw smiles, I heard chanting, and I sensed solidarity. So why do I feel sad? I wondered. I couldn’t escape emotions of guilt, shame and loneliness, feelings […]
Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age,” is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. Here he talks to Writers Rebel’s Liz Jensen about his latest book, The Web of […]
Read More… from FOLLOW YOUR HEARTBREAK: Q&A with Jeremy LentLiz Jensen
Wherever there is the potential for planting, I will garden. Whether it’s in a pot or on a balcony, or in my own dear garden which I’ve been raking and sowing since March. I write about the garden in a weekly mailing list, Pond Tales, chronicling the antics of the frogs and birds. However, […]
Read More… from Lost landscapes and the grief of nature’s tessellationsJasmin Kirkbride
It’s February and my husband and I move into our new house in Norwich, where we moved eighteen months ago from London seeking slower, wider skies. Before the paint’s dry or the boxes unpacked we’re out in the garden. We’ve longed for a patch of green to call our own for years. Neighbours tell […]
“UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” -The Once-ler Rarely do words from children’s books sear themselves into my memory like this warning by the faceless Once-ler in Dr. Seuss’s classic The Lorax. The once-destructive (now regretful) protagonist issues this warning to the […]
I had to stop watching the mainstream news. I turned off my notifications, stopped doom-scrolling. I closed my eyes, put my fingers in my ears. My heart couldn’t take any more, it was breaking with shame and anger, guilt and despair at what my fellow humans are doing to each other, to our planet. […]
Dundee, where I grew up, is currently among the world’s coolest small cities. It has a V&A and hotels surrounding the V&A, not just to mask the city centre from visitors. In my day, Dundee was post-industrial, reliant on a few failing employers, full of health and social risks, particularly for the poor. But […]
Good news has been in short supply — save the reports of frontline heroism, community kindness and spectacular fundraising efforts — since the planet was struck by this meteorite of contagion, smashing into our world with catastrophic consequences. Our spikey sci-fi nemesis, the coronavirus COVID-19, has taken literally incalculable lives: our death-counting systems cannot keep […]