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I grew up in the industrial city of Birmingham. Apologies for treading the path of stereotypes, but my school was rife with violence, my local area heavy with racial tension, and the town centre crammed with corporate chain stores. I was, like many busy city dwellers, unaware of where my food came from, and unappreciative of the work that went into creating it.

I moved to Devon after graduating from university, enticed by the lush green hills and holiday vibe, just like everyone else who moves down here from further north. Also like everyone else, I loved meandering into a less stressful and slower pace of life.

Exeter has two vegetarian restaurants (Herbies and The Plant), and various independent stores stocking local foods and vegan-friendly products, but my first place of discovery and inspiration came from Shillingford Organics.

Run by Martyn Bragg and his lively team, this impressive 350 acre organic farm based outside Alphington has literally sustained me- by feeding me- since I moved to Devon. The small veg box Shillingford drops at a nearby collection point for me every Thursday was my first step towards connecting what I ate as a human being to the land. I hurried to WWOOF at Shillingford as soon as I realised that the farm is accessible by public transport (the A bus from town, followed by a short walk), and I was deeply touched by what I found there.

Although I’ve always been a keen green with fingers and thumb to match, moving around in student accommodation for three years did not give me much opportunity to learn about sowing, growing and cycles of growth. In Reading, where I studied, gardens for the less well-to-do were like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: reserved for the imagination only. So when I moved to Exeter and acquired a house with a green space, I gathered all the information and enthusiasm I needed from the folk and their projects at Shillingford Organics. Over the years I have been further educated and motivated by Riverford Organic Vegetables, OrganicARTS, Embercombe, West Town Farm, Darts Farm, Emma’s Bread and Luscombe Drinks – to name just a few other local green initiatives for the palate. Recently added to this list are Harvest and Love Local Food, and I can’t wait to see what they do for Devon.

Last Tuesday the in-laws were in town, and they wanted to visit Riverford Organic to tour the farm and dine at their much-talked-about restaurant The Field Kitchen. Research beforehand had filled us with promises of a ‘feast of freshly picked seasonal produce’, and the statement couldn’t have been more true- The Field Kitchen is situated next to an abundant, enticing herb ‘garden’; the perfect way to whet the appetite for what we were about to experience. As we waited, we were able to name some of the herbs on show, experience them by smelling them, and even witness the cooks harvesting them for our upcoming meals.

This was followed by a rich dining experience in a beautiful indoor space that was clearly created to blend eating with the surrounding natural environment. We were given three courses of superbly inventive dishes using foods grown on Riverford farm – and they catered for the vegans without blinking twice too, providing a fruit salad of fruits and berries (also identified and sampled en route to the restaurant) with a rich berry sauce for dessert.

Whether you love the dining experience or not, whether you struggle to get through your weekly veg box or are well-versed in cooking culinary treats using chard and chives and the occasional unidentified vegetable, I suggest heading down to a supper at The Field Kitchen – I can guarantee that your experience will be a unique and flavoursome one for all the senses. Who knew that home grown veg could be arranged in such a creative, multi-dimensional way?

On Friday Barton Farm in Shillingford Abbot (part of Shillingford Organics) had an open evening to ‘celebrate local food’. The rainy day had finally eased, and I arrived to the sound of eaters communicating with growers over a BBQ of locally-sourced meat, roasted veg, home-made breads, and home-grown salads.

Martyn did a tour of the farm to demonstrate some of the organic principles used in Shillingford Organics growing, including a scything demo, a talk covering polytunnels and the new ‘pods’ that have been built on site to provide accommodation for WWOOFers, and talks about organic growing practices such as the no-dig method, companion growing, and natural pest control. The tour included a tractor ride in a trailer, and my family left The Barton vibrant and beaming – having also won a Luscombe apple and pear juice in the raffle.. I will never go back to drinking apple juice from concentrate.

OrganicARTS is an initiative based at West Town Farm in Ide. West Town Farm supplies organic meat boxes to Exeter and the surrounding areas, while OrganicARTS blends organic growing with education and the arts by hosting creative workshops and art exhibitions, promoting community gardening, hosting the occasional barn dance and encouraging model clay cow making.

They were at Shillingford on Friday with some of their defiant clay cows on display, and they’re hoping to make 1,000 altogether as part of their Year of Clay, so if you’d like to contribute to the project I suggest you get a ‘moove’ on and drop into Ide with your best pottery hat on, and all the children you can rally.

These recent events have reminded me of why I moved to the South West of England, and how grateful I am that the organic movement is so strongly celebrated here.

There is also a beautiful network of greens working together in response to the UK’s many food issues: by celebrating the environment on a local level, we work towards creating a global movement that will have a positive impact on the lives of the future generations who will inherit the Earth.

Living in Devon reminds me that it’s important to have fun along the way, too, whether it’s related to cooking up inventive dishes, or engaging in the age-old sport of ‘wellie wanging’.. The evening at The Barton was rounded off with some energetic wellie wanging, but I must admit that my own 4.2 metre wang left much to be desired. What can I say? I was born in the city, but I’ll always be a Devonshire Dumpling at heart. Made using organic flour, of course.

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Devon-based group POGOE – Permaculturists & Organic Growers of Exeter – went on its first group outing last week. Twenty of us trooped down to Dartington, Devon for a guided tour of Martin Crawford’s forest garden. Martin is director of the Agroforestry Research Trust, a charity that conducts research into agroforestry methods using permaculture principles. Agroforestry is about combining new and old methods, ie agricultural and forestry technologies, to create diverse, productive, healthy and sustainable land-use systems.

It is now a recognised truth that modern agricultural methods of growing food are unsustainable and damaging to the environment (eg the global issue of bee decline, reliance on oil, mass use of pesticides, insecticides, and other chemicals). Perhaps this is why the study of permaculture and forest growing has increased so rapidly over the last few decades. I put it down to this and the varying benefits of permaculture gardening, which I will outline here.

Forest gardening is about healing. Robert Hart began his forest garden project on a plot the size of one-eighth of an acre (500 m²) in Shropshire in the 1960s. He wanted to create a healthy and therapeutic environment for his brother, who was born with severe learning disabilities.

Robert became interested in growing for medicinal purposes, adopting Hippocrates statement that one should ‘make food your medicine and medicine your food’. He adopted a vegan, 90 per cent raw food diet and he developed the concept of a forest garden through observing the interactions and relationships between plants in natural systems, particularly in woodland.

Through forest gardening, we are also healing our interaction and relationship with the Earth. As soon as we entered Martin Crawford’s garden in Dartington, I was struck by a sense of peace and harmony that I rarely come across in society. There were more bees buzzing to and from flowers than I have ever seen in a single place before – and I have visited many green grower projects over the years – and the bees seemed unaggressive, busy, and (dare I say it) calm.

The sheer variety of plants at their service also immediately grabbed my attention – there were herbs growing among trees, countless shrubs I didn’t immediately spot, and a beautiful variety of flowers dotted seemingly randomly around the garden. I thought immediately of the gardener’s programmes I have seen on television where they talk about lawn spaces and ordered flower growing, and my mind switched to a video of Bill Mollison (co-founder of permaculture) flying over farms in the UK to demonstrate how bizarre such methods of growing are. Bill points out that we box our farms in with hedges in order to separate different types of growth in a way that would never naturally occur in nature – in reality all plants feed off each other and contribute to each other’s growth.

So what is forest gardening? A key feature of forest gardening is companion growing, which is not a new or recent concept. Methods of companion growing have been around for thousands of years. The most commonly cited example tends to be that of the ‘The Three Sisters’, which was pioneered by some Native American groups in North America. Squash, maize, and climbing beans are planted together, and they work together: the beans grow up the stalks of corn, and add nitrogen to the soil that the other plants need in order to grow, while the squash spreads along the ground, which helps prevent weeds from growing and acts as a mulch for the other plants. There are many different examples of companion growing, and some forest garden research is to do with discovering the benefits of growing different plants together through observation and trial.

Forest gardening is about creativity. As someone who is deeply concerned with the environmental impact of human activity on the Earth, I believe that combating further ecological disaster requires a creative green response, whether it involves educating people about the impact of oil on the planet through art, hanging a colourful banner from the top of a nuclear power station, or writing poetry about the latest acts of the oil giants..

Permaculture is a key feature of this creative green solution-finding. The beauty of permaculture is that it is all about local methods of growing, and acting locally, as what works in one garden may not work in another – even if those two gardens are next to each other.

Types of soil vary, as does the amount of nitrogen in the soil (which can depend on whether anything has been grown in the soil before) and the amount of sunlight the soil receives. What you can grow in your garden depends on whether it is acid or alkaline, whether it is rich and mulch-like due to an overhanging tree shedding leaves into it, or whether it is covered in weeds due to local cats digging up the soil and therefore helping the weed seeds buried in the soil to germinate. The list of variables is endless, which is why the approach to one’s garden must be a unique approach.

However, that is not to say that what works for Martin in Dartington cannot work for you – by following his research and findings, you can certainly recreate some of what he has cultivated over the last decade.

A basic principle of forest gardening is that of ‘copying’ the way a forest naturally comes about in nature, and moulding the successful system to provide for human needs. Forests are models of sustainability: they do not need watering or pruning to help cultivate them; they look after themselves. Robert realised that amidst the layers of foliage in a forest one could grow plants to feed or oneself, while substituting other plants for herbs or plants with medicinal qualities.

In his first garden design, he divided the forest garden into layers and developed an apple and pear orchard of seven dimensions based on what might occur in a natural forest. These were:

1. A ‘canopy’ layer of mature fruit trees.
2. A ‘low-tree’ layer of smaller nut and fruit trees on dwarfing root stocks.
3. A ‘shrub layer’ of fruit bushes.
4. A ‘herbaceous layer’ of perennial vegetables and herbs.
5. A ‘ground cover’ layer of edible plants.
6. A ‘rhizosphere’ or ‘underground’ dimension of plants grown for their roots and tubers.
7. A vertical ‘layer’ of vines and climbers.

Following in Robert’s footsteps, Martin Crawford developed methods of forest gardening in the British climate through his two-acre site in Dartington. Although I have learned a lot about forest gardening methods over the years, I was still surprised to find that Martin’s prolifically green garden does not require watering: the plants he has selected over the years work together to provide the moisture they need, with trees acting as ‘water pumps’ and drawing moisture into the soil. After three weeks of constant sunshine, high temperatures and very little rain, my own little garden has suffered from rain water-rationing, as even my large waterbutt has almost run dry.

Also following in Robert’s footsteps, Ken Fern founded Plants for a Future, which focuses on the study of temperate forest gardening. Plants for a Future features an online plant database accessible to anyone – and this is the beauty of forest gardening. Through observation and trial we learn about how nature works, and we share that knowledge in order to maximise crop growth without using destructive methods. It is not about making money, which is why I believe that it is at the root of preventing the further ecological disaster on our planet.

Why import so much food that we are perfectly able to grow in British soil? Forest gardening is about sustainability. In Britain gardening is generally presented as a middle-class pursuit about making one’s garden look nice rather than celebrating the fruits of nature that are available to us all through a little attention to sowing and growing.

And so, it has become largely about fighting with nature to achieve the desired flower show or ‘perfect’ size, shape and shade of Tesco’s carrot. Not that there’s anything wrong with a flower show of course – the bees would be the first to agree about that – but using chemicals, fertilisers and pesticides to achieve such aims is the bizarre part of the current equation that I’m referring to – ie ‘working against nature’ in order to have a beautiful green space.

Bee decline due to increased chemical use in farming, as well as unexplored methods of chemical-combination, is one of most poignant negative impacts of such behaviour. “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left,” is a quote generally attributed to Einstein, though whether or not he actually said it does not make the words any less true.

Just as permaculture reminds us to observe how nature works before adding our own impact, forest gardening is about watching nature’s tried-and-tested methods and applying the best practices to our own gardens. It’s a disconnection with nature that has occurred when a child looks at a carrot and says he won’t eat it ‘because it’s a funny shape’ (I have come across this attitude many times). Meanwhile the sweets he gulps down in the next breath are full of refined white sugars, glucose syrup, and goodness-knows how many colours and additives, which have all been produced in factories by unknown persons in unknown circumstances the world over.

Forest gardening is not just about reconnecting with nature and what is ‘natural’ or good for our bodies and minds; forest gardening is, at heart, about community: as through growing together we can help to teach each other what is nourishing for our bodies and what is simply unnecessary, unhealthy junk food.

Community farms and gardens such as the Montview Neighborhood Farm use ‘human power’ to bring people together and share the fruits of their labour. There are countless other examples of how gardening together creates healthy communities through shared goals and shared growing. Learning to grow food together can be an immensely personal and connecting thing; just take a look at Incredible Edible Todmorden, a project somewhat closer to home; the residents of Todmorden (inspired by a few guerrilla gardeners to begin with) grow herb gardens together in local green spaces, plant vegetables and trees in public spaces, encourage people to use or donate their green spaces to growing, run orchard-planting workshops, work with schools to involve children with food growing, ensure that surplus local food does not go to waste – and more.

Forest gardening can provide a more structure approach to community growing, as it is a rooted practice open to anyone willing to try it which can also teach us to rebuild the local communities we have lost through globalisation. I often hear people speak of a return to life before technology, however permaculture recognises that technology is not at the root of our fractured communities: attitudes to what we eat, and where it comes from are.

The global problem of peak oil and inefficient large-scale practices can sometimes seem insurmountable, however the solutions available to us do not require rocket-science thinking. Forest gardening can help us to achieve our goals of reconnecting with our local environment and making a positive impact on the planet.

POGOE wants to help people to engage with their local environment and community by reclaiming overgrown local green spaces and using them to grow food, and we would also like to create Exeter’s first forest garden. It would be a tourist attraction for growers across the South West, and an inspiring hub where people would gather to problem-solve (or, as I prefer to say, solution-create). I’m still buzzing from the visit to Martin Crawford’s green creative hub of inspirational growing, and I highly recommend that you go to a guided tour there.

If you’d like to get involved with any of POGOE’s projects (or would like people-power for one of your own), get in touch through our online blog. Let’s see what we can create?

• The folk at Book-Cycle have organised a permaculture course led by Sarah Pugh over the weekend of  August 14. To reserve a place, visit into Book-Cycle on 7 West Street, Exeter, to pay the course fee.

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I love British summertime because I love the festival season, even if it means trudging around a field soaked to the bone in waterproofs and wellingtons for most the summer – which, if I’m honest, is a common and likely scenario.

This weekend is the infamous, ever-popular, ever-growing Glastonbury Festival. Glastonbury was originally celebrated as one of the many free festivals and hippy gatherings of the 70s, welcoming hippies, travellers, protesters and others of all kinds. The freeness ended with concerns over ‘anarchist’ conditions on site (ie lack of rules) as the years went by, and in 1990 security guards clashed with new age travellers at the festival in ‘the Battle of Yeoman’s Bridge’.

Busloads of people turned up expecting the usual free festival, to instead find that the field usually allocated to them (outside the festival entrance) was inaccessible. The atmosphere grew tense and serious fighting broke out, and pressure was put on the festival organisers to change the way Glastonbury was run. Two years later (there was no festival in 1991), a 10-foot-high fence was erected to keep the new age travellers out, and a four-part documentary series titled Show Down at Glastonbury: Outsiders was made to explain the new security and policing measures on site.

Laws began to tighten in 1983 as it became mandatory for large festivals to hold licences in order to go ahead. I like to think that the Sunrise Festival, which took place in Somerset a few weeks ago, is a bit like what Glastonbury was like a few decades ago (Sunrise Festival has an entry fee too of course, but more on that later).

Imagine a colourful, musical, artistic green place, where you can look the way you want, dress the way you want (or wear nothing – or only paint!), express yourself the way you want, and talk openly and spontaneously to other creative, open-minded, happy people. This is the Sunrise Festival. It is also sustainable, as on-site energy use comes from green power sources, a lot of the food and drink on site is sourced locally, composting and recycling occurs, and there are eco-friendly compost loos to top it all off.

Add to the mix enough music, dance, art and workshops of all kinds to fulfil the creative needs of even the most high-maintenance artist. When we left Sunrise a friend turned to me and said: “I feel an inner peacefulness that I’ve never experienced before, and I hope going back to normal life doesn’t suck the feeling away.” This calm peacefulness led her to question why she couldn’t stay in that field forever: live there, grow food there, clothe and house herself there, and continue connecting with people, creating art, music, and dancing at a life-long Sunrise Festival, for the rest of her days.

The sobering reply I gave her is that land laws are strict regarding whether you can live in a tent or vehicle in a field for free (the blunt truth is, you cannot). The Criminal Justice & Public Order Act states in section 77: “Power of local authority to direct unauthorised campers to leave land” and in section 78: “Orders for removal of persons and their vehicles unlawfully on land.” Woody Guthrie’s infamous song, This Land is Your Land, comes to mind.

Partly because of these laws regarding land use, and partly thanks to ever-increasing public disapproval of ‘alternative’ or ‘hippy’ exploits and lifestyles, in the last year we’ve lost the Big Green Gathering, Strawberry Fair, and Glade Festival. The organiser of the Thimbleberry Festival was arrested after police discovered cannabis smoking on site, and they also ‘confiscated’ the £3,500 the festival had earned (as ‘proceeds of crime’).

Glade Festival couldn’t afford the immense costs of modern security requirements this year. The Big Green mysteriously had its license revoked after announcing that it would be fundraising for the climate camp movement. The public reasons cited in the news were vague comments over ‘health and safety’ concerns and site ‘security’ requirements; the major policing concern at the Big Green was apparently that of ‘crime and disorder’. ‘Crimes’ including nudity and impersonating stewards (arrests have occurred under these headings at Glastonbury Festival in the past).

‘Green’ stewarding at Sunrise was also a sobering experience. We signed up completely unaware that we would be acting as security officials throughout the festival: checking wristbands, watching borders, telling people what they were and were not allowed to do, etcetera. Night shifts on the outskirts of the site were unpleasant highlights, and they led us to question the need for such tight security measures at such a loved up, arty, open-minded community festival anyway..

The fact is that beautiful little festivals like Sunrise cost a lot of money to run, because there are so many new laws surrounding licensing fees, and this is entirely unfair.

I went to Reading Festival a few years ago, and it seems that the rules for the bigger, more commercial festivals are very different to the ones that the smaller ones have to follow. Of course the larger festivals can afford the licensing fees without too much trouble, but they also seem to have more freedom with how their events are run.

At Reading I had to careful avoid copious amounts of litter, including glass and sharp cans on the ground (there was no litter at Sunrise), and on the Saturday night it seemed normal for people to revel in throwing glass bottles across the campsite. A friend of mine had to be taken to hospital because alcohol spilled in his eye (he was lucky that it wasn’t glass). Compare this to Sunrise Festival, where festival-goers were searched on entrance for glass bottles, despite the fact that you could actually buy glass goods inside the festival, and there are rarely incidences of violence even so.

Is it too cynical for me to state here that gatherings fuelled by political motives, including alternative lifestyles, continue to be steadily clamped down on, while the corporate-sponsored money-making ‘convoy-less’ events are permitted to carry on as they please?

Which would you prefer? The tightly-patrolled heavily-sponsored advertising-haven with the massive-line-up, or the loved-up  creative open-minded arty Sunrise celebration?

Oblivious to the movement against free and open-minded culture in our country, we have learned rapidly to repeat powerful (but vague) phrases such as ‘health and safety’ and ‘security’ in response to tighter controls of our rights to gather, protest, coalate and party. We readily accept the lines as they are drawn a little closer to where we dance, conceding to stand still instead.

The Criminal Justice & Public Order Act deems ‘gatherings’ of 15 or more people as worthy of suspicion and infiltration, on the grounds that in such a setting a spontaneous rave can occur. According to the CJA, a rave is ‘wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats’ – so be careful what you listen to. Section 63 of the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act dictates ‘Powers to remove persons attending or preparing for a rave’, and last year under this section a barbeque in Devon was infiltrated when police claimed to have ‘intelligence’ that it was a secret rave.

The blunt summary is, that for smaller gatherings like the Sunrise Festival to continue, it needs to cover its licensing fees, as it doesn’t necessarily sell-out every year in the way that Glastonbury Festival is apt to. I’m all for the British festival season – Sunrise marks the beginning of the festivities for me – but unless we support the less commercial ventures over the massive money-making ones, the more independent gatherings will either disappear altogether, or be forced to become commercial events as well.

The sun has yet to set on the ever-increasing CJA versus alternative movement war (and I expect there is still more to come in that arena)- I just hope that it doesn’t effect the Sunrise.

That would be a real shame, and a massive loss to the British festival season.

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Zion Lights is a writer, poet and social entrepreneur. This week on the PRSD we have poem Perspective

When I have left you
I hope you will see
That I watch you in gulls’ eyes as they circle the sea.

When I have left you
I hope you will know
That it wasn’t my choice, to leave you, to go.

But now that it’s happened
I hope you’ll continue
To live with the zest
Of the life you have in you,

I hope you will breathe deep
As you tackle each day,
And carry yourself well,
With hope, not dismay,

As you reach for the moon
Like you did in that time
That  I lived by your side,
Me your’s and you mine.

I hope you’ll forgive me, and them, all the souls
Who wander the Earth searching faces of old.
I hope you’ll forgive them
As they go on their way
With tears in their eyes; on their faces, dismay
In their joints loveless pain
In their minds hate, insane.

I hope you’ll forgive me
As I ask you to smile
And remember the good times,
Once in a while.
For if it brings joy
To those who have lost
That’s a small price to pay
For a large human cost.
And since I have left you
And your time still remains
Please spend it well,
And bring stories to tell,
When we meet again.
For in Heaven or in Hell,
We may meet again.

When I have left you,
I know you will know
That I watch you in gardens,
And the grasses that grow.
And when your mind hardens,
I shall watch you in snow,
Do not grow cold:
I am the wind that blows
And the tide that turns
And the rhyme that flows
Sailing you back to me;
And I am the gulls’ eyes as they circle the sea.

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Beanfield, brought to stage by the Particular Theatre Company, is a play that tells the story of the tragic events that occurred at the Stonehenge summer solstice free festival on June 1, 1985. Shaun McCarthy’s intelligent script is played out by an energetic and engaging cast, who create a piece of thought-provoking theatre that is not to be missed.

Beanfield is a work of informative storytelling. Determined to stop the 12th consecutive free festival from occurring by any means possible, on June 1, 1985, the UK police launched Operation Solstice. A perimeter was erected around the stones, people were not permitted to approach them, and roads leaving the site were also blocked. A seven-hour stand off commenced, until the order came for scores of riot police (who had been hiding in nearby woods) to move in on the travellers and festival-goers who were being contained. Forced to flee their vehicles into a nearby beanfield, the civilians were brutally beaten: unarmed men, women, children and pregnant mothers alike. They were the Peace Convoy, and they were the rub in Maggie Thatcher’s unfolding narrative.

Ben Crispin’s passionate soliloquies in Beanfield retell this history through a narrative that follows the vibe before the festival to the occurrences of the day. It’s a simple plot: Steamer (Crispin) and his posh young lover Annie (Katie Villa) are on their way to the annual free festival. Annie is concerned about police presence at the site, while Steamer insists that he has no choice but to attend the gathering nevertheless: for him the event stands for the freedom of his lifestyle – living on the road. Annie’s private-school upbringing prevents her from understanding Steamer’s ideals, so when they meet Diane (Georgie Rennolds) en route to the gathering, Annie is less than impressed.

Dianne does not look like the average festival-goer, but she is also young and disillusioned with life, and excited about the prospect of briefly living life on the road- though perhaps not so keen on ‘free love’. Stereotypes like this are nicely and lightly challenged throughout the play; and they are often overcome. Steamer welcomes Dianne aboard ‘the van’ and she remains throughout the play as a reminder that the Stonehenge festival welcomed all people; not just the ‘hippy delinquents’ portrayed by Thatcher’s media at the time. The message innocent Dianne gives us is: this could have been you, and it’s a message that stays with us as we watch events unfold.

The set, designed by Phil Wyatt, is minimalist, but ingenious in conveying the atmosphere of the play, and the performers use the small space well. The live music provided by Ben Goldstone is surprisingly powerful at times in setting the mood for scenes, and commanding the audience’s attention.

An important contextual point in the play is portrayed by the Birmingham-based married couple (Rennolds again, and Ben Simpson) who demonstrate the way the media in the 80s shaped views of the Peace Convoy/hippies by juxtaposing news from The Guardian against the opinions of The Sun. Although their Brummie accents are not quite spot-on, the dialogue between the characters is fluid and the scenario of a married couple’s political differences is too familiar for the audience not to be drawn into it. Despite the chilling history of this story, we find humour and comfort in the play in scenes such as these.

Beanfield also reaches out to the literary-minded. It has an impressive Shakespearean edge rooted in the story of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it employs the language of the Bard at intervals, which gives the play a strangely ethereal feel – much as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

It is a political play and a well-crafted one; reaching out to those who recall the Thatcher era, and those who don’t; it shares something with the festival-goers of our own time, people with an interest in UK history, or the law, and it speaks to those of us living ‘alternative’ or ‘unconventional’ lifestyles. If we had been around in the 80s, we would have been forced into the beanfield too.

For those who assume that what happened on the solstice that day was an unprecedented accident that got out of hand, or that it could never happen again, permit me to remind you that on June 5, 1986, Margaret Thatcher said that the British government was ‘only too delighted to do anything we can to make life difficult for such things as hippy convoys’. Beanfield retells and remembers the brutal truth of these words, which are just as relevant to today as they were under the Thatcher Government. Thatcher launched a tirade of assaults on civil liberties in the UK following the battle in the beanfield, in the form of the Public Order Act of 1986 and the Criminal Justice Act of 1994.

It is worth remembering too that the media dubbed the incident as the Battle of the Beanfield, which is how it is remembered to this day despite the fact that the various families, travellers, festival goers, activists and party goers attacked at Stonehenge that day were not able to fight back. They were a Peace Convoy, and a thorn in Maggie’s side, and they were unable to put up a fight. The word ‘battle’ implies and equal fight. ITN reporter Kim Sabido was with one of the few camera crews who witnessed ‘the battle’, and reported that: “The number of people who have been hit by policemen, who have been clubbed while holding babies in their arms in coaches around this field, is yet to be counted… There must surely be an enquiry after what has happened here today.”

There was no enquiry following the events that unfolded in the beanfield, and if the Earl of Cardigan hadn’t witnessed them, the truth may never have reached the public eye, as various news reporters had been chased offsite beforehand or could simply not gain entry.

This is a common occurrence with protest movements in our own time. I have witnessed similar horrors to what happened at Stonehenge in 1986 at recent climate camp gatherings. For example, riot police stormed the peaceful gathering at Kingsnorth in Kent in 2008. I saw unarmed, nonviolent people hit indiscriminately by police officers who had their badge numbers covered, there were thorough searches on entry to the site and upon leaving it, and harmless items such as soaps and toothbrushes were confiscated by officers.

Inside the camp, we felt terrorised and under constant attack. The police have, this week, begun to issue compensation to some of the people who were repeatedly searched at Kingsnorth, but this doesn’t remedy the fact that the peaceful camp, gathered in protest to climate change, saw the same kind of violence as the G20 march, but a lot less coverage and footage of it, as cameras and phones that attempted to record what was happening were promptly confiscated under section 44 of the Terrorism Act.

Back to Beanfield, I found the scenes featuring police to be constant highlights throughout the play, as they succeeded in capturing the darkly comic yet realistic nature of the tale; a hard act to balance on stage. Eli Thorne’s stage presence will not be easily forgotten: his speech before the attack shook me to the core.

However, if the truth of the tale is too much for the audience to take in, the play offers us a way out. At the close of Beanfield we are told not to take the story heart, if we want to, we can simply forget what we have seen, and wake up, as if it was all a dream.

As Bottom puts it: “The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.”

Personally though, as long as we still have the Criminal Justice Act, and as long as ‘hippy gatherings’ continue to be persecuted, I know I won’t forget a word.

• Beanfield is showing at The Bike Shed Theatre until June 19, and will appear at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol, from August 24 to September 4.

Read Natasza Kuler-von-der-Luhe’s Beanfield review on our Arts+Culture

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I had no intention of writing a follow-up article about the book launch, but it seems one is necessary as there has been so much energy and inspiration buzzing around since the event, but no single ‘summing up’. So, to summarise…

The book launch was a success! Hundreds came, but luckily not at the same time as the venue space was a fairly ‘cosy’ size. I made a gigantic pot of chai from scratch and kept the supply constant, and there was cider available but the chai proved to be more popular! This is exactly the vibe of the event that I had worked to create – an engaged and relaxed audience, without the need for drug-induced comfort. The smell of spices aromatised the evening and drew people off the street and into the event, and it contributed towards balancing out the sense-feast of displayed artwork and the flow of music and poetry on stage.

People started arriving for the exhibition before we were quite finished getting the artwork onto the walls, however the spontaneous arrangement of artwork in the morning went towards creating a colourful and unique atmosphere that sparked some fantastic conversations and creativity in the evening.

The stage opened at 6pm. I had organised the line up so that there were two poets to a musician, which mixed the wordiness with the music. All the performers were magnificent poets and musicians who I’d seen at different events, so it was fantastic to get them all into the same place and into a space where they could meet each other and perform before an audience that isn’t usually exposed to poetry in particular.

Even though I was celebrating the launch of my book More Thing Should Be Thought Out Thus, it was meant to be something to share with other people (and certainly not for profit: I made a ‘loss’ in monetary terms at the event). All of the artists showcased their works and performed for free; we do this for the love of art, not for gain as in almost every other area of society.

And this is why arts events can be the truest of community events.

Whenever I read new poetry I imagine that my words might not come out right, or might be interpreted ‘incorrectly’  and that my hard work and vision will not be understood. At the launch my vision was realised because as they left people who I did and did not know thanked and hugged me (sometimes repeatedly) with utterances of how amazing the event had been and how inspired they were, and how many wonderful people they had met.

The warm weather and sunshine helped, of course! And the myriad of exceptionally talented local artists created an amazingly colourful and creatively energising event. It was free and there were free vegan cookies and brownies for all who came.

And this is how true community spirit is created; by giving and sharing, not by putting the word ‘community’ in the title of the event, or creating an event for profit. It’s a hard thing to balance of course, as artists cannot survive as artists without some form of payment, because that is how society works. These events must be supported if we don’t want to end up with malls and car parks on every street corner, marketers instead of painters, and the occasional museum dedicated to an artist who had the monetary means to create such a venture for his or herself. It would be a sad thing if all the buskers were to disappear, and sculptures only appeared in fancy pay-per-view buildings.

People should be able to gather to appreciate and enjoy art without the need to make money and without the unspoken list of rules regarding what can and cannot be done or said, or how a thing should or should not look or sound. For this I thank the wonderful people at Book-Cycle; their openness, flexibility, and generosity in allowing me to use the space as I wished was essential to creating the event.

Throughout the evening numerous people asked me for a spoken word or music slot. I didn’t want to turn anyone away, which meant that the event ended up lasting over six hours! At half past midnight I’d already officially closed the stage and started taking the artwork down off the walls, but as the night drew darker and closer around it, lit only by a near by streetlamp and the few solar fairy lights hung around the stage, people began to sing together in ways that I have only ever witnessed before around campfires with very close friends.

Someone came over to me and said that her view of the world had changed, ‘because people are actually so beautiful and amazing’. Importantly, she was sober when she said it, because the space welcomed that; it was a space created for her to open into, not asking her for money or to buy alcohol or to keep the banter down; and in that open space, in the openness of the community present, her eyes were opened.

It’s all about bringing the festival vibe to the city. If you enjoyed the event, I recommend Sunrise Festival in Somerset, which starts next Thursday. I’ll be there stewarding, and if you bump into me, I’ll be sure to offer you a chai

Here are some of the comments from people who attended my book launch:

Well done for organising it! wow – so much work goes into getting something like that together… lovely bunch of people. Chai was delicious . what’s your recipe – cardomom spices and cloves…?

Thank you for making it happen – you are a special person – one love xoxoxox

Really wonderful night Zion, well done. Such a great venue for everyone to get together.

I feel so lucky to have met everyone. Met some truly great people and proud to be a part such a perfect evening. Love to everyone!!

What a fantastic evening! It’s amazing how many mind-bogglingly brilliant people there are in this little town. Thank you for putting on a great show and for letting me be a part of it x

Fab fab fab – thank you. xx

What a feeling of happyness and inspiration!! Was a truly awesome night last night, met some interesting amazing people!!

I had a great night at Zion’s book launch, poetry, music and wonderful people… What a talented community Exeter has!

Alfresco open mic nights are the way forwards. Brilliant night, AMAZING chocolate brownies! Thanks to Zion for organising it!

It was terrific

Thank you for asking me to play and well done for such a fantastic evening. It went brilliantly and you did so well getting it organised and keeping at all going, I hope you feel very proud of yourself because you should!

I had a really good time playing at Zion’s book launch at BookCycle Exeter last night. Nice talented people chilling out in the sun on cushions and a well crafted home-made stage. Lots of love went into bringing that event together for sure!

What you and the tribe pulled off last night was incredible. It was an amazing evening and I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you for having me, and I really hope your book sells out

LOVED Saturday. Such a good vibe in the shop/garden. Hope it to be the first of many more events like that! xx

You did a fantastic job keeping everything together on Saturday which is commendable but more importantly you actually created a memorable event that was centred, not just on your book (which I think should be pushed by everyone that attended that event, let alone bought) but on the spirit of giving and celebration. 
There are not enough of these events; events that are about the celebration of music and words rather than just entertainment. I think to anyone who was there it was clear that you had put a lot of hard work and love in to creating the space and the atmosphere.

Your book signing event was an amazing evening and I also liked the free Vegan Cakes.

Was such an amazing night!!

Even within the short duration I was there for, it looked good and the atmosphere was perfect! Also, the cookies were a complimentary addition to the already set scene. So, all in all, you should be proud; well done!

It was an amazing day, I knew that scene existed in Exeter but you managed to bring them all together and truly create it! There was such an amazing vibe, you could just look around and see that everyone was feeling it- including me of course, I had such a buzz!

What an amazing night, you did a fab job of organising it! You have really opened my eyes, what amazing people there are about, the world isn’t such a bad place after all, am proud to have been part of it, thank you!

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Zion’s off to the Bristol Eco Veggie Fayre, and it’s inspired her poetic flare. Take a read and you will see why she’s a vegan veggie. Erm… quickly, over to you Zion…

I wanted to express to you
Something about to me
But I didn’t want to come across
As offensive or preachy

So what better way
To communicate meaning
Than to write you a verse
Of the tale I am telling?

Aged 8 years old
I saw a lamb in a field,
And asked mum why it was called
The same thing as a meal.

She spluttered, and uttered
Wittered, and muttered
No answer came;
From dad, the same.

Years later, on holiday
A pungent smell
Of the bone factory –
An animals’ hell.

Again I asked
And again was denied
‘Look at that fairground!
Look at that ride!’

Then 14 I was
When with some elation
I found a leaflet on
‘Animal Liberation’,
All about how
These things that we eat
Are real living beings
Cunningly labelled ‘meat’.

The connection was made;
The tofu-shopping began;
Then tempeh, lentils, quinoa,
Instead of mince, fish and ham.

I made an ethical choice,
But was still on the dairy
Until another leaflet told me
About the Milk Fairy:

‘Those cows that you don’t eat
Are still treated as meat;
They still suffer on their feet
So that you can drink
And not think
That the milk you consume
Is only produced
When the cow has a calf:
Another female milk woman.

(The male is of no use;
it gets turned into veal,
for a slightly different meal.)

So I cut out the dairy
And learned some new words
To communicate the depths
Of what I had learned.

Aged 17 and yet
To my surprise
People already knew;
They just closed their eyes.

So I stopped spreading awareness
To avoid sounding preachy
I avoided the factories
As I’d rather not see,

Paul McCartney said
‘If slaughterhouses had glass walls
We would not eat meat’:
Would not eat it at all.

And now they are saying
That the industry is killing
Not just those animals
But our own species.

For trees in the Amazon
Are being cut to grow soya
90 per cent of which
Is for animal fodder;

Imagine how many people
That fodder could feed,
If we replaced convention
With what we really need

For example, the grain quinoa:
A complete protein,
With all the amino acids
That the human body needs.

It’s in all our veg,
Cereals, nuts, beans;
There are omegas in seeds
With no risk of mercury.

I hope you will ingest;
Digest these few words,
For we’re running out of land
Because it’s used to house herds
And the herds need more land
So that they can be fed
When in fact we
Could be eating their crops instead

And there’d be no need to clear rainforest;
No need for GM,
No need for the murder
That separates ‘us’ from ‘them’

In Korea they eat dog meat
Our people wonder how
But in India they look at us and ask-
How can they eat cow?

Some reply ‘then why eat plants?
Surely they are alive too?’
But a plant will not fight for it’s freedom
Like an elephant in a zoo,
And a plant will not shed a tear
If you take away its spawn;
A plant does not play or sneeze,
Or cuddle, bark or yawn.

Now I’ve covered enough
Of what I wanted to say,
I hope that this rhyme
Has brightened your day

I cannot do much
To stop the fighting in Bangkok
Stop glaciers melting
Or turn back the clock
And stop Hitler’s insanity
Or change history’s errors
But I can change my diet:
A small step for the better.

Please forgive me the message
In this rhyming instance;
I just wanted to say
On this literary Sunday
That when I sleep at night,
It’s with a (finally) rested conscience.

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“Doing what you love is your gift to the world.” – Cornelius Crowley

I often come across this saying, and my reaction is always the same: I smile a little smile to myself in acknowledgement of its truth.

So why do I organise events for free? Isn’t it all for self-interest, really? I occasionally see this latter question on the lips of sceptics, and I won’t pretend that I don’t love community events – but I don’t live for them. They are my passion, but they are also hard work to organise. If I was a very self-oriented person I’d be living in a cob house in a Dartmoor, spending most of my time growing plants and writing books in green surroundings instead – organising events involves a lot of admin work: phone calls, emails, networking, so on. Not that people who live in cob houses in Dartmoor should be living in cities working to bring people together; my own conscious simply wouldn’t allow it. My goal in life at present is to find connecting issues within people and help them to reach each other, and I expend most of my energy working on projects that aim to bring people together.

This Saturday, May 22, is my book launch. I spent two years writing a work of fiction titled More Things Should Be Thought Out Thus. The event is about promoting my book, but if you’ve read it then you know that the message I am spreading through it is meant to help connect people to life and each other. The launch aims to be a celebration of various kinds of arts and artists in the South West.

I enjoy art exhibitions, live music, and poetry readings, but what I love more is to mix the three. It’s not a common occurrence, and in this respect the book launch is unique: the stage, which will open to audience members later in the evening, will host both music and readings, for musicians and poets are writers first and foremost, and I wish for them to celebrate the link. Lyrics will be spoken, and words will be sung, and all of this will occur in a bookshop – Book-Cycle – dedicated to spreading the word to all who seek it: for it is funded entirely by donations, and regularly sends books to schools with few resources in less economically-developed countries, for example, Tanzania.

To complete the musical-lyrical stage experience, there will also be ‘mounted’ art. Like Banksy, I baulk a little at entering a building purely to see different types of art on display, framed and horizontally-aligned within their individual spaces. As if art is a separate experience to life. Hence the book launch is about amalgamating the people in the bookshop with and within a surrounding of artwork. This Saturday, Book-Cycle will blend the threads of colour, words and notes between various creators and receivers: the walls and ceilings will be adorned with paintings, photography, home-made crafts, sculpture, recycled decorations; colourful and black and white, challenging and comforting together; sharing the same space. Just as us humans do.

And the stage will attempt the same thing. I use the word ‘attempt’, but there won’t be conscious effort involved, for lyrics and script are spurious distinctions already; I think it’s more of an effort to put the lines in place in the first place. So we’ll have vocalists, guitarists, didgeridoo players, harmonicas, performances, poets, book readings, and theatrics all on the same stage, reflecting the varying creative folk at the event, whether musical, lyrical, or simply beautiful in the way they engage with the art.

Somewhat predictably then, I recommend that you come along on Saturday to hear some profoundly poignant poetry by Tim King and others, and experience the wonderful musical sensations Hannah Martin and Phillip Henry of The Roots Union, who connect through their music in varied and subtle ways. There will also be cakes, cider, and face-painting – for those who dare it. I may even offer you a home-made chai. And I won’t even mention my book.

• Zion won’t mention her book, but we will! More Things Should Be Thought Out Thus is a story of  the evolution of a lifetime via a collage of captured moments, and is available from Amazon, WHSmith, Waterstones and Lulu. Pop along to the launch event at Book-Cycle in Exeter on Saturday, May 22.

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A project I am currently involved with is Permaculturists & Organic Growers Of Exeter (POGOE). Spring is the ideal time to discuss this sort of venture, for POGOE is a growing grower’s movement that sprang out of the Exeter Seed Swap & Permaculture Day, which takes place on the equinox every year.

POGOE is a collective of Devon folk who have come together with concerns about the reality of peak-oil, concerns about lack of community in society, and green fingers that want to mould positive solutions out of the earth. For the POGOE launch we showed a documentary that was filmed here in Devon: A Farm for the Future, which demonstrates our aims and is free to watch online:

(There is also a free showing of the documentary this Monday (May 10), 7pm at the Exeter Phoenix.)

POGOE want to leave aside the negatives of current methods of growing, and work towards community growing ventures instead. We envision community permaculture gardens, city forest gardens maintained by local people, community permaculture allotments, community orchard and fruit and nut trees planting throughout the city, local and affordable permaculture courses, inspiring talks and documentary viewings, and a community cafe space with a permaculture library where people can get together for networking, inspiration and locally-made beverages!

In my mind, community events and green living form a perfect combination. My household is a green one. We have no gas connection and no central heating. Our electricity comes via Ecotricity, where 50 per cent of the energy provided is from green sources and money is spent on creating alternative energy sources. We use a waterbutt to water the garden, grow our own herbs and some foods, and get a weekly Shillingford Organics veg box. We compost or recycle most of our waste, and our household produces less than one black bag of waste a month. We don’t fly or drive. But what does any of this mean if it means living as a hermit? I certainly don’t! The energy of low-impact living, for me, converts to high-impact community initiatives, and POGOE is a perfect example of this.

For me, community projects and the arts are entwined with green living. Many artists such as myself find that their inspiration comes from nature, and after a busy day at work I find that I gain perspective from spending time amongst the growth in my garden.

It’s difficult to explain the concept of permaculture because asking an avid permaculture grower what permaculture is is a lot like asking a fish what water is. In the garden, permaculture combines nature’s methods with people’s needs. For example, instead of relying on fertilisers, chemicals, oil-powered machinery, and so on, we look at the fact that nature works cyclically, without producing waste, and we interpret this by making reusing our waste too by composting our food scraps and using it to improve soil quality.

We also use companion-growing, which basically means planting crops together so that they benefit each other. An old, well-known example of this is The Three Sisters, where squash, maize and beans are planted together to form three layers of a mini-forest. The plants work together: the maize acts as a structure for the beans to climb, the beans fix nitrogen in the soil, and the squash grows on the bottom layer of the mini-forest, blocking sunlight which helps prevent weeds and acting as a rich ‘living mulch’.

It can be as complicated or as simple as you like. The more I learn about permaculture gardening – through my own garden – the more I realise that a) this concept can be applied to everyday life situations, and b) other methods of growing are nothing short of absurd! Although companion planting methods have been around for a long time, people have mostly moved away from old organic growing methods, and so permaculture- coined by Bill Mollison by combining the words ‘permanent culture’ and ‘agriculture’- has come about as a method of reviving old methods with a view to sustainability, ie developing methods that are as adaptable as nature and therefore long-lasting instead of temporary (like the current reliance on fossil fuels to produce our food). Permaculture has community and local initiatives at the heart of it.

I went on the Wellbeing & Transition radio show on Phonic FM on April 21st, to speak about this, and to talk about why POGOE has come about. It’s online here – 16:02 minutes into the show.

POGOE wants to bring people together, gardeners and non-gardeners alike: for, green-fingered or not, we all need to eat, and that means reducing our dependence on oil to produce the fuel that is required to run our bodies: food. What better way to do this than through creative experiments in shared green spaces; shared allotments; a shared café?

We need lots of different people to get involved with POGOE’s (voluntary) work. If you’d like to get involved, visit the POGOE site or pop along to a Book-Cycle Seedy Sunday for sowing seeds together in a bookshop. Inspirational green community arts are the way forward – take my word for it!

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Dedicated vegan climate activist, language-fanatic and literature-geek Zion Lights begins the first of her columns her on the PRSD. To find out what she’s all about, read on. Over to you Zion…

I’m an active person round these parts. You know that quote, ‘if you need something doing, ask a busy person’? I’m the busy person: that quote is about me.

I’ve been given a task here: to share what I do. I cannot separate what I do from why I do it, so what motivates me? My events are always voluntary. I dedicate a lot of time and energy to organising community events and attempting to bring people in society together. If this was a paid role I’d be a Community Events Coordinator… But then, this IS a paid role – just not in monetary terms. It is paid by the strong feeling that I get that I am doing the right thing.

I have a passion for the arts; literature, music, paintings, sculpture. I want to bring power back to the people and away from massive corporations, encourage people to grow their own food and make their own clothes. I want to help educate people to do for themselves those wonderful things that we tend not to have time to do – preferably together.

You may not know me, but you may have heard of some of my projects, such as The Exeter Seed Swap and Permaculture Day, Knit and Natter, Chalk for Peace, ExAct, MultiVox, and projects I have played a role in, such as Critical Mass Exeter, KnitExpo, Food not Bombs, etc. I live in Exeter and I’m a writer, poet, teacher, grower, singer, knitter, cyclist, and everything else in between, and my name is pronounced to rhyme with ‘eon’.

Welcome to my Sunday Section: Literary Lights – I hope you’ll be a regular reader.

Word.
Zion

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