A Place of Belonging
Writer and Rural Environment Advocate, Wales, Angus D. Birditt
Written by Angus D. Birditt
Angus D. Birditt is a writer, photographer, poet, award-winning food producer and founder of Our Isles. He is an advocate for the rural environment, celebrating and encouraging its appreciation through his various works. He writes and photographs on food & drink, agriculture, nature and rural heritage. Through his work, travelling to various food producers and rural environments, to his own personal familial shifts, Angus embraces and shares with us his spiritual concept of ‘home’.
What does ‘home’ mean to me? Well, that’s a good question and one I think about on a regular basis. Is it an emotional state, a figurative idea or a physical entity? Is it a place or object? Or is it the people that surround you?
More often than not, when pondering such questions, I’m drawn to the fresh air of the countryside to walk the banks of a nearby river or follow the trodden pathways through a woodland or field to gaze upon the seasonal flora and birdlife. This, you could say, is one place where I ‘feel’ at home, the countryside; a place I have known for the most part of my life and where I feel most happy. So is ‘home’ where I am most ‘happy’? I guess you could say that!
I am a food writer and photographer, and I love to travel. Travelling to different places in the UK, meeting new people, discovering new landscapes and nature and finding new food and drink products is what I most enjoy – the latter I would often gleefully consume on arrival! My travels aren’t want I would call ‘home’, but they do certainly broaden my knowledge and perspective, which I am certainly grateful for. Travelling is a wonderful thing but I do always look forward to going back ‘homewards’ after a time away.
In terms of a physical place, I have a house in a small rural village with a few amenities and plenty of wonderful walks. For me, a physical home has been undefined most recently, or more appropriately, in constant flux.
Now with a new job, travelling further afield to meet food producers, and more recently, a family divorce that has moved us away from my childhood home.
Leaving a childhood home is difficult for anyone, where many events and meetings (good and bad) have been etched into memory. Our childhood home was a 16th Century cottage, so I like to think of it as we have been stewards of the house, leaving it in a better way than we had bought it, for the next generation to enjoy. We rethatched the roof using traditional methods and created a haven for wildlife in the garden, including apple and pear orchards and wildflower margins for butterflies and bees to thrive, plus two ponds for frogs and other pondlife to live. I loved it as a home, but how it is a house, a home for another family to enjoy.
I had mixed emotions leaving, but inevitably it was the correct decision. It has since made me appreciate (even more so) that home is not simply a physical thing – four walls and a roof over your head – but an emotional connection to the people who surround you, friends and family. They, for me, are my ‘home’ and what I ‘feel as home’.
As peacemaker and environmentalist, Satish Kumar, once said to me, to be united as one ‘spirituality must be in everything you do and in everyone that surrounds you’. So that is what ‘home’ is to me, being united with friends and family who have the same mutual sense of spiritual belonging to one another.