Resurgence & Ecologist magazine Issue 337 • March/April 2023
Love is a verb

In this issue of Resurgence & Ecologist we visit a place called love, not the Disney-sop version – rather a more real, gritty, demanding and often heart-breaking place that pushes us to evolve into more compassionate beings. Through the main theme of ‘Love is a verb’ we explore all the ways in which love as an action already shows up in our lives, and all the ways we could, if we choose, find more space for it.

Raiyah Butt opens our themed section by writing about how self-love is an act of political will, not self-indulgence. We meet a professional climber putting his love of Nature above his climbing ambitions, and learn from a modern Sufi in America, Omid Safi, that taking care of the natural world is one of the three core tenets of the Qur’an.

In our Connected Life section Annabel Heseltine dives with the Biospherians bringing life back to the coral reefs in Bali, and we celebrate the ceramic sculptures by artist Courtney Mattison that honour Indonesia’s coral reefs.

As AI takes ever more prevalence in our lives, neuropsychiatrist Iain McGilchrist warns of the dangers of allowing left-brain thinking (and information) AI to dominate how our lives are run in our Feature Story ‘The Matter with Things’.

Throughout this issue we explore all the ways love as an act can manifest and we pay homage to the simple, yet powerful idea, that if you love something, you take care of it.

Highlights

Acting Now for People, Animals and Planet: Joyce D’Silva
Stewards of the Biosphere: Annabel Heseltine
Tales of Urban Birding: Yasmin Dahnoun
The Matter with Things: Iain McGilchrist
The Qur’an of Nature: Omid Safi

Featured articles

Acting Now for People, Animals and Planet

Campaigner for animal welfare Joyce D'Silva invites us to stop seeing 'other' and start seeing all people and all other sentient beings as 'another' - advocating this as a pathway to a more compassionate world. She also explores the health, wellbeing and planetary benefits of moving away from a meat-based diet.
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Tales of Urban Birding

Yasmin Dahnoun spends a day birdwatching with The Urban Birder, David Lindo at Wormwood Scrubs, London. She learns about the struggles the birds face every day just to survive against threats such as the controversial high speed rail development. For Lindo, birdwatching is more than a hobby, it is a way to protect the landscape and birds that he loves.
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Choosing Yourself By Choosing Community

Struggling with a depression made worse by the enforced isolation of the pandemic, Raiyah Butt shares how she found strength in the words of bell hooks and the radical idea that loving your community is an act of self-care. For Raiyah this manifested through sharing food in her community.
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The Qur'an of Nature

It is not so well known that in the Islamic spiritual faith, taking active and loving care of the natural world is one of the three core tenets of scripture, and so by neglecting that duty we neglect our very spiritual lives. Iranian-American Sufi Omid Safi considers the role of trusteeship towards creation and what it means for the environment.
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The Dataset's Dream

Artist Bryony Benge-Abbott and poet Thomas Sharp worked with scientists at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology to explore themes of grief - and hope - around biodiversity recording and loss. "By inviting a poet and an artist into their project, the scientists embarked on a surreal, sensory exploration of their dataset and all the records and gaps it contains. And thus our dataset began its first dream."
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How Did We Get Here?

Tony Gillam asks, "What happens to our mental health when we can't get together to sing or make music?" He talks to singer-songwriter Lizzy Hardingham and learns about her project documenting the experiences of musicians and audiences through the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns. Telling stories about mental health through the medium of music has never been more important.
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Picture Credits

Cover image: Artwork by Melpomeni Chatzipanagiotou @menis_art; Acting Now for People, Animals and Planet: Artwork by Elicia Edijanto; Tales of Urban Birding: Wormwood Scrubs at dawn © David Lindo; Choosing Yourself By Choosing Community: Artwork by Japneet Kaur @storyofaseed; The Qur'an of Nature: Stars of Mount Noor, 2019 by Elisabeth Deane; The Dataset's Dream: installation by Bryony Benge-Abbott, photo courtesy Ewelina Ruminsk; How Did We Get Here?: Illustration © Sophie Casson / Ikon Images.

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