Hey Subscriber First Name,

I hope you’ve had a good bank holiday weekend. It felt really good to slow down and embrace the mixed bag of weather - a proper balance of beautiful sunshine and rain. Perfect growing weather.

On Friday evening we celebrated the ancient festival of Beltane at Four Acre Farm (where we host The Natural Network workshops). It was a truly magical evening of sun, storytelling and cake. Lots of cake.

At one point I laughed so hard my cheeks hurt. Nobody talked once about the state of the world, the challenges we face and the complexities of modern life. And yet somehow, by the end of the evening, I felt more equipped to meet all of it than I had at the start.

That’s what I’ve noticed about genuine connection. It doesn't ignore reality, it restores your capacity to meet it.

It's why this newsletter is called TrimTabs - the idea, borrowed from Buckminster Fuller, that small and well-placed actions create disproportionate change. It gives us back the power to see that change is always possible no matter how enormous the challenge might seem.

Living in these times and especially working in the broad field of ‘sustainability’ I can sometimes feel an obligation to be miserable and scared. It’s a constant, exhausting duty to be across every crisis, every breakdown and every alarm bell.

I really do understand why - the problems are real and the stakes are high. But I've noticed something important. The people I know who are genuinely doing the most meaningful work aren't the ones I see carrying the heaviest weight. They're the ones who've found a way to work with what's alive, rather than against what's dying.

How does that land? Life is tough for many but when we get the chance of finding some soulful joy, I think we should take it. And chances are that you’ll be with others, which multiplies the positive impact.

Which brings me to the thematic focus of much of my work currently - pollination.

At this time of year especially with Beltane just passed and the land in full expression there's something in the air that I don't think we should talk ourselves out of. Possibility feels real right now, not naively and not by ignoring what's hard. But because that's actually what this season is.

If we accept that we are nature, then we can accept that we respond to the seasons like other parts of the natural world.

Things emerge now that can't emerge at any other time of year as the conditions are right. The only question is whether we show up for it.

Over the weekend I watched The Biggest Little Farm, a documentary about a couple who leave the city to build a biodiverse farm from scratch on completely exhausted land. My friend Kate (Four Acre and The Natural Network co-host) had recommended and I’m so grateful she did.

What struck me most wasn't the transformation of the land, extraordinary as that is. It was the repeated lesson that the solution to every problem was already present in the system. You just couldn't see it until you stepped back far enough to see how everything was connected.

The thing that looked like the problem (coyotes eating chickens, the ‘pests’, the dying trees) turned out, in every case, to be pointing toward the solution. Nature can sometimes feel brutal and unfair but we need to look again. Nature has an integrity we may never understand but it’s not for us to try and control, let’s join the dance.

When we build genuinely connected systems, whether that's an ecosystem, a team or a community, things don't just survive. They begin to flourish in ways we couldn't have engineered or predicted, the mutual nourishment becomes the strategy. And it’s something we experience every time we gather for our workshops at the farm, when we open up space to connect, the wisdom is profound and deep (there’s still time to join us on Thursday, just sayin’!).

I spent a long time in corporate life feeling like I had to do it alone. My early traumas had given me a fierce self-sufficiency that looked like strength but was really just armour. I wore so many masks that I sometimes couldn't tell which one was real. It nearly destroyed me. The breakdown, when it came, was also the breakthrough as it was the moment I stopped performing and started thinking for myself.

What I found on the other side was something I hadn't expected. That my flourishing and other people's flourishing weren't separate things. That the more honestly I showed up, the more it seemed to give others permission to do the same. That connection wasn't a nice-to-have alongside the work. It was the work.

That's what Friday evening reminded me and that's what the film showed me. It’s why I bring love and compassion into everything I do - whether that's a strategy session, a coaching conversation or a workshop around a fire in a Hampshire field. It’s different, it’s risky but it’s my truth. And that’s what pollination means to me, to share what we find to see how we flourish together.

Upcoming Events

The pollination of ideas and connections always happen when we slow down and notice. That can be difficult to achieve in a beige meeting room, but much easier on a regenerative farm (Four Acre) or a renovated Edwardian building in Bournemouth (Patch).

We keep our events intentionally small and we’ll be back on the land on Thursday. If you have been sitting on it, now is the time.

The Natural Network at Four Acre Farm

7th May: 9.30am - 1.30pm at Patch. Tickets here

Our next seasonal gathering is this Thursday. We'll be at Four Acre Farm as the land hits full spring expression and the theme, as you might have gathered, is pollination. Time in nature, good conversation and the kind of nourishment that's harder to find than it should be. If you've been wondering what it might feel like to be part of a genuinely connected community doing meaningful work, this is a good place to find out.

If you’d like more information, please reply to this email and we can arrange a no pressure chat about the day. Plus, as a newsletter subscriber you get a £20 discount using the code - Naturalnetwork20

We're committed to building longer tables, not higher walls. So if cost is a barrier, let’s have a chat - no explanation needed. There’s also the option to add a donation if you’re in a position to support access to others.

The Natural Network at Patch

28th May: 10am - 12pm at Patch. Tickets here

We’re really getting in to our rhythm with these gatherings - always the last Thursday of the month between 10-12.

This month our guest speaker is Dr Sukanya Ayatakshi-Endow from Bournemouth University. I’m always inspired by Sukanya’s work so it feels a real privliege to be brining her energy to our community. Sukanya’s passion for social entrepreneurship aligns deeply with our philosophy of building flourishing, diverse perspectives with lived experience and reciprocity at the root.

Wrapping up

So to close us for another week, I’m inviting us to remember that the bee (often an icon of pollination) doesn't set out to feed an ecosystem. They just follows what nourishes them. And in doing so, they carry something vital from one place to another and life emerges as a by product. Following our heart and our deeper calling is just the same. But we have to slow down long enough to listen to our soul and access the blueprint inside all of us.

I think that's enough of a plan for now, to nourish the roots to face whatever shows up in our world this week.

As always, with compassion and curiosity,

Nick

Well that’s it for another week. But we don’t have to stop there.

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