2.10 Marchelle Farrell: My Garden, My Teacher
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Hello! Welcome to series two, episode 10 of Prompted by Nature. I hope this one finds you well. It definitely feels like we’re well on the way to winter here in the UK, with cold snaps aplenty and lots of my favourite cold, crisp, sunny days I can spend outside.
Today’s episode is all about the wonderful Marchelle Farrell, also known as @Afroliage on Instagram.
Marchelle Farrell is a gardener, writer and mother, born in Trinidad and Tobago, but has spent the last 20 years attempting to become hardy here in the UK. She has worked as a consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist in the NHS, and currently spends much of her time getting to know her country garden, and writing about the things the garden teaches her about herself.
In this conversation, we discuss:
Her relationship with and connection to her garden
Allowing herself to listen to her garden
What houseplants taught her about working with her garden
The connection between her work in her garden and her work as a psychotherapist
Gardening as a creative practice
The importance of listening to the land
The garden as a metaphor
The need to face certain patterns in order to change them
The garden as a transitional space
And so much more - honestly, that summary doesn’t even scratch the surface of our chat!
I first connected Marchelle after following her on social media and becoming inspired by the words and images she posts about her work with and relationship with her garden.
As we discuss in the episode, Marchelle’s work has played a big part in my own learning and understanding of gardens as spaces of privilege as well as empowerment and her words around the place that colonialism plays in each of our relationships with nature and green spaces have deepened my own understanding of the role I can play in helping to dismantle the systems that we have all, in one way or another, inherited from our ancestors.
Marchelle is humble, wise and always thought-provoking and I’m so grateful to her for agreeing to be a part of this podcast. You can find her on her Instagram, where she posts images of her garden accompanied by the insights that come from her work in it, on @afroliage and you can also sign up to her wonderful newsletter through the link in her bio there.
As always, I’m on @prompted.by.nature on Instagram or or your can find me over at my website www.promptedbynature.co.uk where you can sign up for my weekly online nature-inspired meditation and creative writing sessions (bit of a mouthful!) and find out more about my work.
Remember to stick around until the end of the episode, when I’ll give you an insight into the meditation and writing prompt that follows the conversation. Happy listening, and I’ll speak to you after!
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Thank you so much for listening - wasn’t Marchelle just wonderful! In the meditation and writing prompt that follows this episode, you’ll be looking into your own relationship with green spaces and asking questions around how you (and I!) can listen more deeply and play a bigger role in ensuring that nature is an enriching and accessible space for us all. As always, I’m sending you lots of love. Happy writing, and I’ll speak to you soon!
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Meditation and Writing Prompt
Find yourself in a comfortable, seated position somewhere quiet. We’re going to begin this meditation and writing prompt with some breath work and then do a little bullet journalling. If you want to download the questions for later they are up int he show notes on Marchelle’s episode on the website - just go to the series two page at www.promptedbynature.co.uk Otherwise, just have your notebook or journal to hand. I’ll guide you through the meditation and questions and then leave you to write whatever these inspire, whether these are connected to the questions or not.
So, in this writing prompt, we’ll be drawing on Marchelle’s words around natural spaces as a space of hope and belonging.
So get yourself comfortable, close your eyes if that feels ok and start to listen to your breath. Inhale, exhale. Notice where the breath is and then ask it to begin to slow and soften. Notice the sitting bones and anything touching the floor or chair, now the pelvis, now the base of the spine and visualise the length of your spine going from the bottom to the top, lengthening as you go, lift the centre of the chest and drop the shoulders, relax the belly. Release the throat and the jaw. Release the muscles around the eye sockets and the forehead.
Begin to count the length of each inhalation and exhalation, see if you can slow it to an even 'inhale, two, three, four, exhale, two, three, four.’ I’m going to invite you to do this for the next two minutes as I go quiet, ‘inhale, two, three, four, exhale, two, three, four.’
Now, for the next minute, you are going to extend the exhalation to a slow count of six, if that feels ok, for one minute. so ‘inhale, two, three, four, exhale, two, three, four, five, six.’ (guide through twice more).
Now allow your breath to find it’s natural rhythm. Notice the body once again. Maybe lengthen the spine if you are slouching - lift the centre of the chest, drop the shoulders and relax the belly.
Now bring your mind to a natural space that you love to visit to go to. See it as if in reality, recreating the sounds, colours, textures, scents if you can. You can either answer these questions in your notebook or just go through them in your head as I ask them and then write whatever comes through once I finish.
Where is this space?
What happens to your body when you are there?
What happens to your mind?
What is it about this space that feels so special?
What is your favourite thing to do in that space?
What is it about that activity that feels so good? What does tis activity to to the body, the mind? Are there particular sounds, colours, shapes or scents that stand out more when you do it?
How would it feel to invite others to this space? Would would you show them? What details would you point out to them?
How would you wish for them to feel when they left?
You now have two options and these have been kept deliberately vague to help you engage your own imagination:
EITHER:
You could bring your mind to someone who hasn’t had access to this space for whatever reason:
How could you bring them here if not physically?
How could you recreate this space for them?
If physically, how could you help them in getting here?
If there are barriers caused by accessibility (whatever kind!), who could you speak to or write to in order to help make the space more welcoming or accessible? Is this an issue for more than your chosen person?
What could you create top help open this space up?
OR
Perhaps there is a local green space that you have not had access to for whatever reason:
Is there anyone else in the same position who you could join with to help encourage this space to be opened up?
Is there a person who does have access to this space? How could you work with them to create something more accessible?
Once you feel ready to begin writing, if you haven’t already, begin to deepen the breath and move back into the body. Take three long, deep breath to reawaken your mind and bring you back into the space. Place one palm against the other at the centre of your chest and start to rub them together, building heat and warmth in the palms. Place each palm over each eye for a moment. Open the eyes, take the hands away and start writing.
