Mental Meandering and the Outdoors By Kate Macairt (Director CLR) Children of all ages need to go outdoors to support their mental health and wellbeing. Children need the enriched sensory inputs which outdoors can provide. This does not have to be a beautiful wild landscape or forest, there are wild spaces in every city worth discovering. In her TED talk (30/9/16) Emma Marris stresses there is no division between humans and Nature. We are part
May 18, 2021
Earth Day
Earth Day 2019 ~ Earth ~ How beautiful you are, Earth, and how sublime! What wisdom in your obedience to the light, and what nobility in your submission to the sun! How seductive you are when veiled in shadow and how radiant is your face beneath the mask of darkness! How crystalline are your songs at dawn and how marvellous are the praises sung at the hour of your twilight! How perfect you are, Earth,
May 18, 2021
Neuroscience: Mental Meandering and the Outdoors
Neuroscience: Mental meandering and the Outdoors – System 1 and System 2 By Kate Macairt (Director CLR) I am inside a box sitting by a window and the window is slightly open. Outside my window perched on a telephone line are 2 swallows; whatever it is they are communicating to one another, it is clearly something of great interest to them. Their chattering is a non-stop percussive melody, a complex composition with background hum of
May 18, 2021
Health, Well-Being and Spirituality
Health, Well-Being and Spirituality: An Unspoken Connection By Salvatore Gencarelle Health, Well-Being and Spirituality. The anguish that people are afflicted with has little to do with injury, physical disease, starvation, or other ills that historically caused great sorrow. Modern medicine and industry have all but eliminated those types of pain. The new illness that people suffer is from their inner world. It is more elusive, more subtle, and thereby more difficult to distinguish. If we
May 18, 2021
World Autism Awareness Day
World Autism Awareness Day – whether we have a diagnosis or not (which can be helpful or not), we are all individuals and one response or label does not fit all. World Autism Awareness Day is a day to celebrate us all – especially those that are ‘different’ and find it more difficult to communicate with others in ways we expect or understand. The popular term ‘neurotypical’ is stating that there is a
Challenging Behaviour – how does the outdoors promote a balanced brain? This was a question put to me on a play structures course last weekend. I had been talking about challenging behaviour and the way ‘movement and making’ can help people of all ages regulate behaviour. So to the question. First what do I mean by balanced brain? I was working with a youngster this autumn, Jordan, who, providing he was succeeding with a task,
May 18, 2021
Spirituality, mental health, wellbeing
Spirituality, mental health, wellbeing Written by Marina Robb (Director Circle of Life Rediscovery CIC) Spirituality is the innate aspect of being human. We have a natural capacity to be spiritual. The search for meaning and purpose in life is a central pillar of spirituality. The UK school curriculum aims to “Promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental, physical development of pupils at school and of society.” (Section 351 of the Education Act 1996) Many of us
May 18, 2021
International Women’s Day 2019
International Women’s Day 2019 – Celebrating women and our internal connection to nature’s cycles I am delighted to be celebrating International Women’s Day on 8th March 2019! I will be going up to London on March 9th to the WOW (Women of the World) festival to spend the day with men and women, to be part of a global movement that believes a gender equal world is possible and desirable through empowering women and girls. Particularly