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This week I was amazed to hear about a wild Sumatran orangutang in Indonesia treating a wound by chewing a medicinal leaf and carefully using it’s juice as a healing poultice. It’s the first time a wild animal has been seen applying a plant in this way. Clearly we have so much more to learn about these primates. We have also discovered 5000 new species deep in the pacific ocean - 90% completely new to scientists.

Those stories filled me with wonder reminding me of Elisabeth Barret Browning’s poem ‘Aurora Leigh’ where she writes:

‘Earth is crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes.’

Recently I went on pilgrimage to an island in the middle of Derwentwater in the Lake District to find where my calling would take me next. In this exposed lone house, I found myself sheltering from storm Isha with booming 90mph winds and horizontal rain funnelling across the lake rattling our windows. I huddled around a fire with a fellow pilgrim and discovered that he was from the Amazon. It was his first time in the UK and he had decided to travel the western world to tell us about mother earth so that we would stop destroying her.

He told me his village were gathering thousands of healing medicinal plants for generations to come- to plant a walled garden, as most are on the verge of extinction.

He said ‘first they came to our land with axes, then electronic saws, then large tractors with saws attached that can cut 200 trees per hour and 2 football pitches a day. He said ‘they don’t understand that the earth is their lungs, their medicine, their body, their mother. Every man in those tractors is hurting their grandchildren.’

Late into the night, we shared our experience of wonder. I told him about William and Dorothy Wordsworth and their friend Coleridge, finding awe in the land around us. Of Emily Bronte writing in Yorkshire ‘Every leaf speaks bliss to me.’ He showed me his colourful ritual feathers and explained plant medicine which helped him experience the Divine Mother who talks to him through forest trees. At that time, I realised that wonder is not only about being inspired but also about being humble and willing to listen. As soon as we lose it, we are in danger of blind arrogance. Listening with wonder is the first step to having respect for the world around us. Only then, can we take off our shoes and collaborate.

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