Morag Watson
Education Policy Officer, WWF Scotland
Morag grew up just outside Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe. She studied geology and was headed for a career in the oil industry until her social conscience kicked in. She switched her degree to Environmental Geoscience, made herself instantly unemployable in the oil business and spent four years studying the links between the geology, ocean, atmosphere and biology of our planet.
She spent the next decade working in the field of sustainable development and public understanding of science. Along the way she has worked for the Royal Botanic Gardens, been involved in many Science Festival events and was one of the founding members of staff of Our Dynamic Earth, before joining WWF as an education policy officer in 2004.
Morag still dreams that one day there will be an eco home, an orchard, some beehives and chickens that she can share with the love of her life, her family and friends.
My cat the philosopher
“When the world seems a confusing and unfriendly place, try lying in the sun with your legs in the air, as sometimes the world just looks better that way.”
I’ve been four months in hibernation. While I loved the snowy white tranquillity of November and December, the dismal grey of January and February seemed depressingly relentless. But today is the day when the sun finally rose high enough to make it over the roof of the house opposite and shine into our living room.
The cat is indeed lying in the sun with her legs in the air, personally I’ll just settle for lying in the sun.
It’s been over a month since our second residential workshop, this time in Glen Prosen. Not only was it a totally different landscape it was also a totally different experience. Somehow it felt more raw, more real and closer to the bone. That’s why I’ve really struggled to blog since I got back. The experiences of Glen Prosen, especially the solo, are just so much more personal and powerful; I’ve needed a lot of time to process it but I still can’t really put it into words.
After the workshop I felt emotionally tired but also, in a strange way, lighter. Getting home was so stressful as I seemed to be very sensitive to all the areas of neglect that had crept into my life – the little bits of unfinished paintwork, the late celebration of important dates, the loft insulation that was not all it should be, all the things I mean to do but haven’t quite gotten round to; simultaneously annoying, depressing and upsetting.
But now the sun has come back I feel that I’m moving again, able to start things and get things done…
When Spongebob Squarepants comes calling…
Opening the front door to a hypothermic hedgehog is one thing but when you find Spongebob Squarepants on your doorstep, you know that this in not normal.
I’ve been thinking about ‘normal’ quite a lot recently; about how we decide what is and why it seems to be valued so highly. I’ve always had an ambivalent relationship with ‘normal’ and feel it is a vastly overrated commodity.
I think that is why I love Halloween so much; the one night of the year when the rules of normality get suspended. Every culture seems to have an equivalent whether it is called carnival, fiesta or something else.
Scissors, glue, coloured card and glitter don’t feature much in my ‘normal’ life, but Halloween offers the perfect opportunity. So now there are black cardboard bats in the carport, flickering ‘skulls’ in the front garden, a wreath of dead flowers on the front door and assorted pumpkins have been carved. I’ve loved every minutes of it; working with my hands and imagination rather than with my keyboard and logic.
My Halloween pumpkins
So far my ‘Blue Peter’ efforts with scissors, card and vegetable knife seem to be paying off. My pumpkins have been declared “cool”, “awesome” and “well mega” (thank you zombiepumpkins.com). My costume and make-up have been deemed impressive (thank you Martha Stewart and YouTube) and the snot-shaped bubble gum and sherbet that turns your tongue black is proving a hit with the discerning sugar addicts (thank you my utter lack of regard for the dental health of my neighbours’ children).
In total my Halloween efforts have attracted 28 assorted vampires, witches, zombies, werewolves, aliens and some things I couldn’t identify. It is fairly obvious that I am not the only one that has been embracing the joys of reckless Pritt Stick use, as most costumes are charmingly homemade rather than £9.99 from Asda jobs. The highlight has been the extremely impressive Spongebob Squarepants costume. It might not be traditional but wow, a lot of effort went in to that one (rewarded with extra sweeties, of course).
Trying to stay with the spirit of the Natural Change, I’ve been having a think about what I’ve learned for all this. So far…
- Life is better when you let your creativity out to play now and again
- Occasions to let whimsy and silliness into your life are precious things
- When opportunities to do something out of the ordinary knock at your door, embrace them (though its probably unwise to take this literally when the opportunity is in the shape of a hedgehog)
Signs, portents….and hedgehogs
Knoydart is a week in the past and already it feels slightly unreal. The hideous cold that mugged me on the journey home has finally gone but the email backlog remains.
But Knoydart hasn’t really left me; I’m thinking about things a bit more, wonder about the significance of things a bit more and exploring what’s in my head a little more often.
In our final sessions in Knoydart we talked about making meaning out of the things we see and experience. Dave had said that may people who do workshops like this experience strange things when they get home. I smiled wryly and thought “yeh, some people”.
Then I opened the front door and found the hedgehog on my doorstep. I live in suburbia, surrounded by concrete and tarmac. Around here hedgehogs are sad, flat things you see on the dual carriageway that leads out of town; they don’t usually knock at the door. It’s also pretty clear that my unexpected guest is in trouble; wobbling around in circles, much smaller than he should be at this time of year. I think, “Mother Nature knows best, don’t interfere, leave it alone”. That particular thought lasts a nanosecond before it is booted out by the thought, “aye right, if humans hadn’t tarmaced over nature, that hedgehog would be fat and hibernating by now”.
So a cardboard box, sawdust and shredded newspaper have been assembled. Kitchen scales have been sheepishly borrowed from a neighbor to confirm our guest is less then the 650g needed to survive hibernation. And the cat is sulking as her meaty chunks and crunchies are offered to the interloper.
Two days later I’ve reverted to being ten years old. I know I should respect him as a fellow living thing, but damn, being cute is an effective survival strategy! ‘Mr Prickles’ as he’s now known, is no longer hypothermic and he’s putting on weight, but sadly he can’t stay. Our house isn’t really suitable for long term hedgehog care so I’ve sponsored a hedgehog pen at the SSPCA wildlife rescue centre and they will be collecting him tomorrow.
I resist the urge to wave as the blue van drives off but I ‘m left wondering, what does this all mean?
Is it necessary to tell people you’re not dead?
If you found a pale, motionless body lying in a secluded wood, wrapped in a survival bag, would the fact it had a sign on it saying “I’m not dead” really help?
This is just one of the thoughts that wandered through my head while lying beneath the stand of alder trees that became my solo spot. The sight of a woman in the distance dancing madly is funny, the sight of a body lying motionless might actually scare someone. Wondering what is the best thing to do to avoid scaring the natives and triggering false alarm embarrassment, I decide that a sign probably wouldn’t help. Beside, it feels spookily like tempting fate.
As the wind blows, autumn leaves flutter down, falling on my face. I begin to wonder what it would be like to lie here forever, slowly being covered by leaves, dissipating outwards, becoming part of the living entity that is a forest floor. I idly speculate on what the world would look like if you could take away everything but the life that inhabits it. I imagine it would look like an intricate, sparkling silver web; each life forming a knot in the threads, constantly raveling and unraveling. My cold feet demand my attention again and I think fondly of warm slippers and sticky toffee pudding.
I move, I sit, I doze, I write and I sketch. The day seems long but dusk falls sooner than I expect.
Solo spot from a distance…
Photo by Ken Cunningham
Mountaineering with Maslow….
When I’d started out, the solo didn’t seem too daunting. I’ve spent a lot of time in the mountains, silence and solitude don’t phase me and I’d even decided to fast for the day so as not to be distracted by food (‘fast’ is probably a bit melodramatic. I had early breakfast and a late dinner with nothing between the two – something lots of people do every day).
Heading out from the tent into the early morning gloom was quite peaceful, nearly falling into an unexpected river as I headed for my chosen spot less so. The ensuing tramp across a bog was unpleasant, the wet socks nasty and the subsequent attack of the giant tick fiend from hell was hideous (knowledgeable friend tells me it was actually a sheep ked but when one runs across your face you don’t look too closely).
One very hasty retreat for the tick/ked haunted chosen spot resulted in the rapid choosing of a new spot. Sadly it also resulted in my precious pair of dry socks getting wet too. Inevitably as I settled down to my day of quiet contemplation the cold began to seep up through my soaked boots and socks.
I tried various tactics from rapid wiggling of toes to trying not to think about it; all to no avail. Eventually Dave’s advice came to mind – if you’ve got cold feet, put them in your rucksack. So I emptied my rucksack, took off my socks and shoes, inserted my feet into my fleece hat and hopped into my rucksack.
It worked, but the price for my comfortably warm feet was an inability to move much. After an hour or two this becomes a problem as you get quite cold sitting still; which is how I came to be dancing in the middle of nowhere but only doing dances that don’t involve foot movements. The YMCA was followed by the Monster Mash, the Twist and when I ran out of ideas the Grand Slalom while humming the music from Ski Sunday.
It was at that point that I really began to wonder what on Earth we were doing here…
It’s amazing what can sneak up on you when you’re not looking…
The beady eye surrounded by scaly skin is just inches from mine, and the look it is giving me is not a friendly one.
The tornado that is my life has dropped me, not in the magical land of Oz, but in the magical place known as Knoydart. Someone must be smiling on us as the sun is shining out of a cloudless sky and the sea is like a mirror. As for the scenery, words just can’t do it justice.
It is as I bend to put on my boots, ready to do some exploring, that I come eyeball to eyeball with the unexpected local. The peacock is just the other side of the glazed door from me and looks as surprised to see me as I am to see it.
The day has unfolded as a series of activities intended to help us start to focus and push distractions out of our minds. The location and the weather (plus the lack of mobile signals and internet connections) is doing everything it can to help and I think I’m doing this quite well. But then before I know it some thought about emails, forms, agendas or work plans is looking at me eyeball to eyeball just like the peacock. I suspect that they aren’t giving me very friendly looks either.
Tomorrow we will be heading off for THE SOLO; spending from dawn until dusk alone outdoors. I’m half looking forward to it and half scared. I know that all the emails, agendas and work plans in the world will achieve nothing if they don’t all add up to something bigger. The Solo is the first step to making it all add up, but what if the distractions won’t leave me alone? What if they insist of sneaking up on me like stealth peacocks? What if all I can think of is stealth peacocks………….
The day I saw real magic happen…
I still remember the first time I saw real magic. Not the Paul Daniels, rabbit out of the hat kind, but the real thing where something that wasn’t there before suddenly appeared in the world. The venue was a rather uninspiring room in a council building somewhere in the central belt. The stage set of bad coffee and poor lighting with an audience of distracted, stressed teachers didn’t inspire much hope either.
But then the ‘magician’ took to the stage, not in evening dress or sequins, but jeans and a fleece. The trick was very simple, all that happened was the the ‘magician’ (better known as the workshop facilitator) slowed time down. Well actually she made the participants slow down, she also made the distracting concerns of work disappear to the edges of the room.
With the magic fairy dust of time and focus, wonderful things began to happen. Participants rediscovered the big stuff; why they became teachers, what they wanted to achieve, their passion for enabling others to grow and thrive. Those magic ingredients worked their alchemy and suddenly wonderful things appeared in to room; enthusiasm, passion and amazing ideas that went on to change learners experiences of education forever.
Ever since that day I have believed that one of the very few things that can genuinely change the world is to give people the gift of time free from the constant distractions of every day and then challenge them to focus their knowledge, skills, experience and ideas on the ‘big stuff’. And that is how I came to the Natural Change Programme, a process that does exactly that.
So why is it that, despite believing that time to think and focus are the most important things, I don’t seem to have any? Since the Natural Change Programme launched nearly a month ago, I’ve hosted an international conference, attended meetings, spent hours on trains, worked weekends and best of all watched my brother marry the love of his life. In amongst all this I hardy given this Programme a second thought despite the fact it will be the one thing that takes up more of my time than anything else this year.
All of which is why I find myself dashing across Glasgow to meet the bus that will whisk us away in jeans still damp from last minute laundry, with nails still displaying the impractical effects of the pre-wedding manicure, under a cloud of guilt about the emails I should have sent already and the first blog post I haven’t written yet.
So here it is, a testament to the importance of achieving more by stepping out of the tornado, from a women that is doing a passable impression of Dorothy, but with much less glamorous shoes.
