Mary Reynolds on Building an Ark
Listen to Mary on Nature Magic
I think firstly we have to mention that we are in the Covid 19 lockdown! Acknowledging that there is and will be a lot of sadness and a lot of difficulties for people, as environmentalists I think we are breathing a sigh of relief, and even joy that nature is getting a chance to heal herself. What are your feelings about that?
I almost didn’t have much hope left but when this happened. It brought a huge amount of hope into my life because maybe people will take a break and decide we can’t go back to the way we were living. It’s like Mother Nature has sent us to our rooms to think about what we have done. It’s like she’s given us one last chance. We didn’t listen to her when all the sea creatures’ bellies were full of plastic. We didn’t listen to her when the lungs of the earth were burnt to the ground and a billion animals were burnt to a crisp. The coral reefs have been bleached and there are so many obviously massive things that are happening and we are not listening. So even though it is terrifying and devastating in many ways it will be so much worse if we keep ignoring it and keep business as usual. We really need to change everything. I have friends who are politicians who say
“We can’t change, it's too hard to change the system”
They believe it’s too late but now that everything has changed maybe they can rethink how we build our society and not go back to the hamster wheel which made everyone so happy.
How did you become an advocate for nature?
I grew up on a farm in Wexford and I had a really strong relationship with ‘my green family’ when I was a kid. Then I sort of forgot about that and became a teenager and disappeared off and into the world of all the things you are not supposed to be doing! I ended up doing landscape design only because I fancied a guy on the course and then I went into business straight away. Nobody wanted to do what I wanted to do, and I had an awakening moment where I knew there was something wrong with the concept of gardening, imposing our will on the earth for visual beauty not thinking what she wanted.
So, I did a garden in Chelsea which took off into an international career in garden design, and it was all about wild places but still very controlled. Somebody wrote a movie about my life and I decided to write a book to go along with that. I kind of got bored writing about that story and started writing about my work and immediately wrote myself out of a job. So, I had to re-imagine how do I earn a living this way without damaging the earth, so I wrote The Garden Awakening.
The winter before last I was in my office looking down over my lawn. My landlord let me wild half of the property, about an acre, all brambles etc. A fox ran past then a couple of hares chasing, then a family of hedgehogs, and they are supposed to be asleep. So, I thought ok there’s something going on here. At the end of my lane someone had got planning permission and there was a thicket of many years of growth, a scrubby thorny woodland, it was a home for so many creatures. The people who had planning permission did what everyone does and got a digger and cleared it all out to make a lawn. I stood there and realised I had done this so many times and that was the end of my garden design career.
I went home and thought about the fact that these creatures have nowhere left to go because we keep tidying everything up thinking we are doing something good. Farming has turned into such an attack on nature there is nowhere safe there. So, I started We Are the Ark, ‘Acts of Restorative Kindness to the earth and I am encouraging people to let go of the concept of gardening.
At the Burren Nature Sanctuary, we have 25 acres of undisturbed wilderness and when we opened 7 years ago, we got quite a lot of comments ‘Why do you need a Sanctuary for bushes?!’ but the mindset and understanding has changed over the last couple of years. We are on your map on the website. And anybody can have an Ark, can’t they, even if it’s a few square feet in your garden?
Yes, there’s window boxes in Norway and 1,500-acre arks in the USA. People understand instantly why it’s needed. So, they put up a sign and it gives them something to do with their land.
Do you have a particular spiritual experience with nature you would like to share with us?
The one that influenced my work most was when I was a kid, there was 6 of us, we were farmers and I had a lot of freedom. I wandered off to a field at the top of the farm, it was May and the Hawthorns were flowering, I remember the smell, I was 5 or 6. The gap in the field closed behind me, it sounds crazy, but I knew something was happening behind me and the 4 foot gap in the field behind me was gone. I ran around the field and eventually got distracted by the sun and the butterflies in the meadow. It was late 70’s and the green revolution hadn’t kicked in so there wouldn’t be many chemicals. I sat down and felt I was surrounded and I felt the plants had spirits and personalities like people. They wanted me to notice them which I thought was odd. Years later I realised the earth is like a heart and we have broken it into tiny little pieces through ownership. These pieces bond with the person who is it’s guardian and there is an energy break around your boundary. Those plants and animals in your land are part of your family and the more you can support the better. My vision with the ark is to create a patchwork quilt of healed little pieces of heart that we can wrap around the earth. I truly believe it only takes a certain amount of people to wake up and get this to shift consciousness before everything changes.
Do you have any inspiring books that you could recommend to people?
Recommended Books
Doug W Tallamy
Natures Best- A new approach to conservation that starts in your yard
Isabella Tree
Wilding- Returning nature to our farm
Benedict MacDonald
Rebirding- Rewilding Britain and its birds
If you had a magic wand and could do one thing to help the Earth what would you do?
I would ask people to give half of the Earth back to nature including the Seas we have a future. Start with our own bits even if we give half of our gardens back to nature, we are part of the solution and not of the problem.
Find contact details for Mary and information on ‘We are the Ark’
At http://marymary.ie
Buy her new book ‘The Garden Awakens’ – Designs to nurture ourselves and our land.