Tiny Glimmers #2 - Radishes of Hope
How they helped me get a tiny step closer to the future world I want to live in.
👋 A big welcome to Tiny Glimmers’ 61 new subscribers, I’m so happy you’re here!
Since sending my very first Tiny Glimmer out last week I've been feeling quite uplifted and hopeful.
But then, over the past few days, I've noticed an old, familiar shadow settling over my mood: full-blown eco-anxiety. ☁
Maybe it's worth taking a moment to clarify what it is exactly:
Eco-anxiety is a term used to describe the range of negative emotions that many people experience when thinking about the climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity, and the uncertain future of our planet. It can take many forms, including feelings of stress, fear, anger, and grief over the destruction of the natural world.
😓 Importantly, eco-anxiety is a natural and reasonable response to what's happening in our world. It's not an illness to be "cured".
But as climate change advances, we do need to develop personal resilience and coping strategies to navigate these difficult feelings.
That is where imagination comes in.
I have noticed (and there's research1 ) that imagination can help reduce anxiety and stress. Whenever I practise my imagination, it helps me feel more optimistic, hopeful and empowered; like I have agency and am not completely helpless.
Crucially, it can move people into action,2 which also happens to be one of the best ways to combat eco-anxiety. Win-win. 🌀
While I was feeling blue about the planet this week (no pun intended), I remembered that it's important to take action anyway, even if it's a tiny one.
Because frankly, if we all waited to feel hopeful before we take action on climate change, well, excuse the language, but we'd be utterly screwed.
So today I won't share a letter from the future. Instead, I'll share a little story I wrote a while ago (but never shared) about a time I took a tiny action that had a big impact on my life.
It's a story about a little radish of hope.
(#WeNeedARadishEmoji)
[A Saturday in early March 2022].
Last weekend I decided to grow radishes.
That might sound like a very uninteresting thing to do but for me this is huge.
I am one of those people who can't keep a plant alive. Even hardy cacti have perished under my watch. 🌵
And despite having access to a garden for a few years now, I never attempted to grow any of my own food.
But the other day I was engaging in my usual doom scrolling, followed by a long despairing rant about how awful everything is. 😱
You know: “The planet is on fire🔥, the bees are dying 🐝, capitalism will kill us all…!”
And where's the revolution already? The one that will usher in "the good future"?
"The Good Future" is the place I hide in when it all gets too much. 🫣
I've been dreaming it up ever since I read "The Future We Choose" by Christiana Figueres, a few years ago.
It's a future in which we manage to turn things around just in the nick of time.⏳
We keep global warming to well under 1.5 degrees, plant billions of trees🌳, get rid of capitalism... and then live happily ever after.
Ok, maybe not happily ever after, but you get the idea.
In all the different scenarios I've come up with for "The Good Future" there are always two constants:
We always end up living in some sort of communal situation with all our friends. Either it's a Tiny House community, a big farmhouse or some futuristic floating village.
We always grow at least some of our own food and then cook and eat regular dinners together.
I've been talking about this with so many friends who share this vision in one way or another. We dream it up and then... well, we go about our days and hope it'll magically happen one day.
It’s never the right time to make this happen because... we don't have enough money, or can't decide where this idyllic community should be, and then life gets in the way.
Until Saturday.
On Saturday I realised that even if this magical dream future were about to come true, then I would still be woefully unprepared for all that planting and growing of food. 🤷♀️
I've never so much as grown a tomato.
So instead of despairing/dreaming, I decided to get practical and learn how to grow one thing I could eat. 🌱
This was a small, actionable thing I could do right now, to get even one tiny step closer to the future world I dream of one day living in. It felt small but huge at the same time. 👣
So that Saturday morning, I lured my boyfriend Simon to the garden centre with the promise of a cooked breakfast in their cafe, and then it was time to get serious.
After a quick phone consult call with my mother-in-law, we decided that radishes had the best chances of surviving my (lack of) gardening skills.
We selected a happy-looking radish variety from the 20 or so different options they stocked (who knew there were so many radishes?), schlepped everything home and then I spent 2 hours watching Youtube videos about growing radishes from seeds.
It was highly informative and each of the 10 garden influencers I watched said something completely different so I went with my old trusted technique of “winging it” 🤞 and planted my tiny baby seeds in their new pot.
As I gently placed them in the soil, I was struck by how tiny they were.
We’d hauled a whole car boot full of equipment home. A selection of frost-proof terracotta pots, a 50-litre bag of peat-free compost, gardening gloves made from recycled rubber and other "essentials"... but ultimately, what it comes down to are the few dozen teeny tiny little seeds I held in my hand.
They might not look like much, but they are... well everything.
They are life.
Over the next weeks, I obsessively checked my pots every few hours, to see if any of my seeds had sprouted yet. I meticulously watered them every day (using an upcycled oat milk carton), monitored for snails 🐌, and kept moving the pot to the sunniest spot in my garden☀️.
If Simon had let me, I probably would have camped out in the garden to protect them at night.
Needless to say, I was ecstatic when the first little sprouts peeked their almost neon-green tips through the soil. 🌱
As a trained chemist/biochemist, there is nothing like witnessing the power of photosynthesis.
✨ It was pure magic. ✨ (and I mean that in the most scientific way possible).
So I kept checking, hoping and watering every day.
Then, just over 4 weeks after my desperate trip to the garden centre, here they were. My first radishes, ready to harvest. 🪴
I know I can have a flair for the dramatic. 💃
But I am not joking when I say that the moment I pulled out my first ever home-grown radish was one of the happiest and proudest of my life.
(told you I was a bit dramatic)
Not only were they beautiful (and delicious) but that day, these tiny beauties brought me the tiniest bit closer to the future world I want to live in.
And that meant everything.
It felt like the journey had finally begun and I invite you along with me! I hope you like radishes!
(and seriously, when will we finally get a radish emoji??)
✨ What does your “good future” look like?
I bet you also dream about a different world 🌏 once in a while, right?
What does it look like?
What kind of life do you live?
And what is one tiny action you could take today or in the next few days to get a tiny step closer to your “good future”? 👣 (this could be researching something, going to an event. reading a book, having a conversation, or planting a seed)
I would love to hear about it! Please leave a comment below! (that’s the beauty of Substack!)
(Or if you feel stuck, then let me know too, maybe we can imagine something together!)
🍄 Signals of Change 🍄
"Signals of change" are what futurists call clues that a certain future might become reality. And while we can never predict the future, we can use these signals to help us get a better idea of what it might look like. And how to prepare for it and usher it in.
I'll be sharing some with each Tiny Glimmer:
🪴 How gardening can help combat eco-anxiety.
🌾 A transition to regenerative farming could bring in $10tn benefits per year (in addition to, you know, saving the world)
🧠 The Mental health benefits of gardening. "Few activities are more life-giving."
✨ Imagination can help with stress and anxiety.
💪 Eco-anxiety can move people into action.
📚 Tiny Bookshelf
This is a new section I’m experimenting with where I’ll share my favourite climate/imagination/”better world” books. Or those on my TBR pile that fit the topic.
I’m also working on a Resource Section for Tiny Glimmers, where I’ll collect interesting projects, articles, etc that have inspired me. I hope it’ll be ready to share with you next week!
🌳 The Well-Gardened Mind: Rediscovering Nature in the Modern World by Sue Stuart-Smith
This beautiful book is a gift from my lovely friend Sophia (who you’ll hear more about in future, as she’s inspired me a lot!) and I yet have to read it. 🫣 But it fit so perfectly with today’s topic that I just had to share it (and it’s a good reminder to move it to the top of my pile).
Summary:
“The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the "real" life that lies outside. But when we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Gardening is one of the quintessential nurturing activities and yet we understand so little about it. The Well-Gardened Mind provides a new perspective on the power of gardening to change people's lives.”
Have you read it? if so, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Have a lovely day and I’ll see you next week with the next Tiny Glimmer!
Jenny
xx
There is something about growing your own food that is just so special :)
Growing things and making things really do something ~special~ to the soul!