I had the honour and privilege of being the Poet-In-Residence for the Bristol launch of the Nature's Blueprint community.

The day included a range of creative coaching tools that offered a space for fresh thinking and deep reflection.

There was walking, talking & sharing delicious food together.

We drew on the wisdom of the group to inspire our capacity to:

Reconnect

Experiencing a deeply rejuvenating connection with nature, and like-minded people in central Bristol.

Reimagine

The opportunity to feel refreshed, inspired, and reimagining what’s possible for ourselves and the world.

Respond

Preparing our next steps with the support of a network of changemakers. For those starting fresh or seeking more clarity in their journey.

Magic happens when you bring people who give a sh*t together and equip them with tools to explore how individually and collectively positive change is possible.

The event was delivered and then some.

This series will provide a poetic journey through the day and highlight key aspects for reflections to continue the journey we are on.

The journey

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

What is a journey?

If not for the first step

Then the next one

Don't omit to pause

Take in the wonder

As long as you

Keep finding a reason

To take the next one

That's a journey you are on

Part one in this series focused on the first steps of the Bristol chapter of Nature's Blueprint journey

The event was held at the Grow Wilder Centre in Bristol. It was located between a residential area and a busy motorway.

It is a perfect metaphor for the reality of most of our lives.

It is an invitation to each of us to find our bit of nature while faced with a fast-paced life with many demands.

The competition for our attention is real, we hold the choice to be intentional in slowing down and noticing nature in plain sight.

The best place to start is to reconnect with ourselves when we recognise that we have been jumping mindlessly from task to task.

Thankfully, all it takes is a mindful breath.

Soundscapes

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Take the time to listen

Can you hear nature calling

Or our encroachment coming

All here vying for attention

To which channel is your consciousness attuned?

What experience does that bring you?

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Welcome back

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Welcome back

Into your breath

Into your body

Into the place

Where you belong

Here you are always

Welcome

Here is always home

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What is your method of choice to reconnect?

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Part 2 in this series contained an invitation to pause and reconnect to ourselves and nature in the middle of our busyness.

Then there was the invitation to connect with the earth through the soles of our feet. I did hesitate, not wanting to get my feet dirty, seeking to keep it pristine.

It then occurred to me that these kinds of opportunities don't come along that often in my day-to-day as I beaver away indoors on my computer.

I decided to throw myself fully into the experience and connect with the earth from which I was birth and the poem below came forth.

Earth gratitude

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Thank you Mother Earth

from which I was birth

For holding me as I stand tall

For catching me when I fall

For feeling soft to my touch

For being hard enough to hold my bulk

For holding the secrets of a thousand generations

For accepting the carcass of the many fallen

Offering their gifts to the next generation

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What would you thank mother earth for?

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Part 3 in this series contained an invitation to connect with the earth and appreciate its many gifts

One of the cornerstones of Nature's Blueprint is leveraging the power of community.

Redressing the imbalance concerning our treatment of this planet is overwhelming for any one person that gives a sh*t.

We can achieve much more when we come together. So in the spirit of collaboration, I have curated insights from myself, Christina Gillett and Dr Clare Emma Wild MRCVS, to create the piece below.

We all experience the edge lands and welcome you to see it through our poetic collaboration.

Edgelands

By Frank Bolaji Irawo, Christina Gillett & Claire Wild

Welcome to the edgelands

Overlooked and under-cared for

This scrappy, scruffy place

Seems like chaos reigns

Here nature is having its fun

Rejecting society's tidy aesthetics

Those seeking order and certainty

Left to its own devices

Diversity relentlessly marches on

Creating something valuable, rich and unique

Moving the cycle of life along

Bumblebees find a nesting place

Spiders arise from the depths

Seeking the post-equinox sun

Freed from the need to conform

This feels very much like home

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What have you overlooked in yourself because it doesn't fit the norm, which given a bit of space and allowed to grow freely, could turn into something special?

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Part 4 in this series featured a poetic collaboration celebrating the Edgelands where natural chaos thrives.

Below is part 1 of a beautiful contribution from Matthew Smith

The Thames Towpath

The old ways, which would tow barges of goods and commodities from the green surrounds into the heart of London.

Once they wound wonderlessly through fields and forests, now they snake sinuously through private estates of various ownership and dwelling.

These arteries of commerce were once crucial to our industrial lifeblood, as humans pursued growth, wealth, and revolution of industry over nature.

Now they are the remaining green veins of nature, once great, now lost, to grain, and grey, to cattle, and homestead. Now trodden by bike, buggy, jogger, tame hounds on leashes.

These paths are where my connection to nature, to its founding elements, and to my father were born and strengthened.

A Thames-side safari that always bestowed new learning and beauty. The towpath from Walton on Thames to Kew Bridge was my bounds, yet it seemed to wander like a wild, unpatrolled border forever, into yonder beyond where strength and stamina could carry me. Wonderfully endless.

The lapping of the wake of passing boats broke over the reinforced embankments that now kept mighty father Thames tamed and restrained, as we like it. Predictable and true. But for how long? How long until he rises again to reclaim the bank the banks helped build?

The wandering, ambling, weeping willows crept glacially imperceptible along the borderlands. Watching as we passed. Draping all in a veil of swaying branches, and in summer, their pollen drifted like summer snow.

The smell of earthy river would creep up in places, one could never tell the cause of the ephemeral yet ever-present scent that would ebb and flow in strength at different parts of this great watery whole.

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What has been your experience of the Thames Towpath?

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Watch out for part 2...

Part 4 in this series featured a poetic collaboration celebrating the Edgelands where natural chaos thrives.

Below is part 2 of a beautiful contribution from Matthew Smith

The Thames Towpath...Contd

Before their demise became so desperate, we would stop and watch water voles harvest the green lushness, piling up their fayre, darting into burrows, scampering in and out of the water's edge, a beast of both realms. Like much of our wild they have declined by 95% over the last century.

Predated, displaced, forgotten, relegated to the memories that chime like the wind in the willows. Will my children know them?

The towpath itself dressed according to the seasons. The soft, slithering sounds of moist earth in the freshening shower of spring, punctuated with the pleasing splash of the puddles that looked like the sugary milk of that morning's cereal.

The dry, dusty, crackling summer towpath that would offer the occasional fire-cracking pop as an unperceived pebble pinged from the bicycle tyre tread, ricocheting into the water, back into the cycling timesless waltz of earth and water that builds and destroys all that we see, just like we humans which rose from their timeless depths.

The glistening sugar-iced surface that Jack Frost skipped along in winter. Shimmering frozen before breaking beneath the ever-advancing wheels of human progress. The desire to shatter the sparkling beauty, just because we could, just because we can.

The sunlight dancing on the river ripples. Dappled, dazzling, dark, delightful. The fish kissing its surface from beneath. Touching and tasting the sky, hoping, yet knowing, that the sky world was changing, with one animal to blame.

The birds, too fast to catch, too swift to see, would flit suicidally in front of the bicycle wheel. Daring, dashing, and seemingly innumerable. Most all but gone, the game of chicken, they lost, we won, we lost.

Let us play again, the towpath is never done, nor are we, nor is nature, let's play fairer, let's bring the edgelands back from the brink.

The path is uncertain.

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How can you contribute to bringing back the Edgelands of the Thames Towpath?

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Part 5 in this series featured a poetic reflection by @matthew smith reminiscing about the Edgelands on the Thames towpath

The wonderful @Lucy Williamson and @Cara Wheatley McGrain guided us into the world of microbes in the soil and our guts and how they work together.

They highlighted how essential it is for us to have rich biodiversity in the soil and on our plates to ensure we are adequately nourished and have a fighting chance against disease.

Power in diversity

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

You don't look like a military barracks

But don't let that fool you

In the place called your gut

Fights a valiant cohort

Trillions in number

Less than the eye can see

A line of defence

Teeming with specialists

In fighting their type of disease and allergies

This is not just a numbers game

It takes all kinds to win this war

Fill your plate with the rainbow

Flavour generously with spices

Celebrate the offshoots of this season

Give them a fighting chance

You mean the world to them

They mean the world to you

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Hello

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

There are those inhabitants of the earth

That say hello once in my body

The enter in and feel at home

Bring in guests to help me stay whole

What a re-union when these relatives meet

Exchanging notes on how life out there has been

Those they have lost and the new ones found

They comment on how nothing stays the same

but the work must go on for the world to stay strong

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How do you increase the diversity on your plate?

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Part 6 in this series guided us into the world of microbes in the soil and our guts and how they work together to nourish and keep us healthy.

There is so much that could be done to make the world that much better, and a danger we could become an echo chamber, filling up with despair as we unburden ourselves to get the load off our chests.

Nature has the answers if we are humble and pause to ask the right questions and listen for its wisdom.

Burden load

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Can you hear me?

I hope you can

I have much to say

And you two ears to hear

A burden shared they say

Is a burden halved

Of this I can't be sure

For it may actually double

As we both bear the load

Carry the worry

Shoulder the pain

Pile on the anger

Driven aground by frustration

Do you still want to listen?

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Stuck

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Stuck here on repeat

Time to get back

On your feet

Open to the message

Present in the moment

What is it saying?

Be still or be active?

Be more gentle or push harder?

Be quiet or speak?

Go there or just be here?

Every moment new

Inviting fresh enquiry

What is needed

To lighten the load

Ease the path

To get you past the edge

Into new expanses of growth

The answer is in the moment

A new way of seeing

A new way of being

For fresh experiences to emerge

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What is the question at the top of your mind today?

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Part 7 in this series focused on how to avoid getting stuck on the many challenges facing the planet and how to move past that.

The current prevailing infrastructure makes it difficult to completely avoid adding to the challenges that face us as we aim to become careful stewards of the planet.

We can, however, make micro changes in our day-to-day patterns, resulting in a greater impact over time through the powerful effect of compounding.

Troubled under control

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

I give voice to the struggle

I bulk at the things that confront me

I look at the things I can control

Trying and failing to never add to the troubles

But I never give up, I keep moving on

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Growth Edges

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

How do you get new perspectives

Standing in the same place?

How do you discover new territory

Leaving existing boundaries intact?

New discoveries lie

Down the path less travelled

Prepare for the discomfort

Navigating the overgrowth

Soon to be trodden underfoot

Others following

Do you need a Nudge?

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What is the smallest change you can make today that will move you closer to your desired outcome?

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Part 8 in this series was an invitation to make small changes that would, over time, result in a significant positive impact through the power of compounding.

We are here in this moment in history to play our part for the greater good.

We are never alone, as those before passed us the baton of stewardship as custodians for the generation to come.

Gifted

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Gifted

A multitude of possibilities

Experiences to dial them in

Presenting them in service

Of those in your world

Knowing your gift

Is for this season

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I am here

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

I am here

Not here on my own

There were those before

I am sorry and grateful for the lives they lived

The choices they made

Making it possible for me to be here

Here to make a difference

Here to make a change

Here to write a different story

That the end may be a better beginning

For those here after me

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What gifts have you been endowed with to leave a lasting positive imprint?

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Part 9 in this series highlighted the part we play as individuals in a continuum of generations with a responsibility to use our gifts for the greater good of all.

Nature's Blueprint is here to give those that give a sh*t, the opportunity to leverage the collective will and resources of community to experience belonging and make an impact.

There is no us and them, we're all in this together. No one left behind!

Same boat

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

All in the same boat

Sharing the same destiny

Caught in the same dilemma

Seemingly separate in the flesh

Sharing this human experience

So much appears to be different

Bound by the same illusion

That the boat is separate

From the sea

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Divine Maths

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Doesn't add up

Who leaves the 99

Looking just for the one

Risk that makes no sense

Why not just chalk it up

To human collateral loss

Here is the thing

What if the 99 and the one

Are nothing but one and the same

One lost is 99 missing

Then to leave the one is to leave the 99

To save the one is to save the 99

Without the one the 99 are incomplete

They are all connected and need each other

To make the picture complete

So we celebrate the one as we do the 99

For in the world of Divine maths

99 and one make one

No one left behind

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What little part can you play to make a positive difference?

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Part 10 in this series was all about leveraging community to multiply impact and experience belonging in the quest for a greener, healthier planet.

This marks the final part in this series commemorating the launch of the Bristol chapter of Nature's Blueprint.

There is a place for taking stock, reflecting and discussing. But none of that makes much of a difference without some action on our part.

Come join us at Nature's Blueprint and we can Reconnect, Reimagine and Respond together and start a tsunami of change. You can get in touch via our contact page using the link in the comments below.

Over the helm

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Drowning in a sense of helplessness

World may be heading for a senseless end

Little you, what can you do to halt this human trend

Emotionally crippling paralysis from analysis

Have no fear, we are here, do what you can

Waves of the actions from this multitude

Raising you over the helm, to a world of possibility

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Action anchor

By Frank Bolaji Irawo

Do you have one small thing

On which to anchor your emotions?

The thing that will stop it from getting lost

In a sea of all the ones that have gone before

Estranged and adrift with no means of manifesting

Pondering what could have been but never will

Energy set in motion to ricochet humans into action

Bouncing off the waves, never to be seen again

Nothing happened, and the needle never moved

Until a human did that one small thing

Inspiring others to start a tsunami of change

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What is your one thing?

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