Alan Heeks 
This excellent book is subtitled How to be strong and positive in a changing world: it’s a short, practical primer on techniques to raise your personal resilience. William’s books inspire me by their skill in presenting ideas which are potentially complex or strange, in common sense mainstream language. Here, he explores the physiology of resilience, … Read more
One image sums up my time in the Omo Valley: the remote area in south-west Ethiopia where tribal cultures still flourish. I’m attending a wedding in a village several miles down a dusty path, barely usable by vehicles. The woman in front of me has the braided, red-dyed hair typical for women of the Hammar … Read more
In gardens, farms and forests, each stage of the cultivation cycle is important, and the same will often be true for your work and life generally. Most of us tend to focus too much on a few stages of this cycle, and neglect others. This checklist can also be helpful in looking at how a … Read more
GUEST BLOG by Tom Henfrey It felt like a disaster, and in conventional respects probably was. In summer 2015 I had moved into a new home at the side of the Calder River in West Yorkshire. That Boxing Day the record-breaking floods that ravaged Hebden Bridge and other towns along the river left the house … Read more
For four years the focus of my learning and teaching was resilience. I believe it’s a crucial skill set for all of us in these uncertain times, but I’ve now decided to put another focus beside it: natural happiness. Since 2011, I’ve learned lots about the benefits of resilience, but also the limitations of the … Read more
This is published by Action for Happiness, probably the biggest UK network focussed on happiness. It may be stretching things to call it a book; it’s a 28-page free download from their website, www.actionforhappiness.org. Along with the ten keys, all helpful, the book suggests ways to use them, for example creating a local group, or … Read more
A hand-made easel, a mango tree, and a goat: resilience training in rural Ethiopia: I feel so honoured and touched that this flipchart easel has been hand-made locally for me: square section steel, painted grey, with a big panel of wood bolted to its front. Its two coat hooks just about fit with the brass eyelets on the pad – ironically, made in China.
Handmade easelWhy here? Why me?
Face-offs with cows, and flying chickens. Lessons in community from Ethiopian roads.
It happens so often, you suspect the animals must enjoy it: why else do they spread the full width of the tarmac, instead of using the broad gravel verges? The cows are the worst: they glower balefully as if they might charge, and only turn aside from our approaching vehicle at the very last minute. At least the goats lose their nerve sooner.
What we think about when we try not to think about global warming By Per Espen Stoknes
Guest Blog by Jane Sanders
There’s a Permaculture principle called the ‘edge effect’ which describes the incredible richness and diversity that is to be found where two habitats meet … for example the edge of a forest. This book brought this to mind as I experienced the weaving together of psychology and climate science, Per espen stokneseconomics, and deep ecology. As a reader it invited me to stretch my edges too, venturing into new territories. Per offers an integrated holistic approach to the diagnosis and the ‘treatment’ of the earth’s malaise like a holistic medicine practitioner who looks deeper than symptomatic treatment to heal the body.
Testimony of Light by Helen Greaves
Is there an afterlife beyond this human one? What is it like? If we knew more about the afterlife, could that guide our human life here and now? This book offers some of the most convincing answers to these questions that I have found.