The importance of play.

Grow to Glow workshops have proven to be a success. A day full of foraging, gardening and making with an organic lunch included where very happy participants have gone home goodie bags in hand.

What I've noticed is that aside from learning new skills, another positive effect of the workshops is the sense of play. Rather than moving through the landscape admiring it's beauty, we are interacting with it in the most tactile of ways. Adults are taking time out of their busy lives to play! To feel the surface of a leaf, to identify scents, to gather a range of textures in a basket and to observe detail in different species is a very sensory experience. I've recognized that the process itself is truly valuable, bringing us into the moment. 

Back in the kitchen during workshops people gleefully say they feel like a child making potions, recounting stories and reveling in the simple act of making. Attention paid to colours changing as infusions are made, the marvel of an ointment solidifying or a cream emulsifying connects people to their childhood. It seems that play is very therapeutic for us 'grown ups'. This ethnobotany is ours. Just one or two generations ago ointment making was a more common skill and so the making of our childhood potions connects us to our heritage. We are empowered by a re- connection to our ancestral knowledge. One participant told me how her children point out all their aches and pains to be cured by their Mummy's special ointments, how brilliant that they too are re connecting to plant use through their Mum. All this through simple heuristic learning, playing outdoors and in the kitchen.

Stomping Grounds is a play centered Forest School  lead by Forest School practitioner Sophie. After requests from parents Sophie decided to put together, 'Stomping Grounds for Big Kids' as a collaboration with Grow to Glow and The Wild Orchard. Applying the forest school ethos to adult learning. Grow to Glow is very excited about this collaboration, making the fire from scratch to make our ointments on out in the open is the perfect compliment to the process of making ointments from plants. Our first event is a day designed for women in particular and it has sold out. We hope to host more of these collaborations in future, celebrating the art of play and having a whole lot of fun in the woods!