20/11/2025
The nicest truest thing I have read in ages.
There’s something so healing, so quietly radical, about pottering. To potter means to wander without a destination, to move slowly and gently, without hurry or imperative, simply being in the rhythm of things. And when you potter in the garden or on your allotment — that’s the very soul of pottering, because nature gives you permission to slow down, to explore, to listen.
As our mentor, the herbalist and wizard-scientist Christopher Hedley, reminds us, “To be a good herbalist you have to be able to potter; potter in your garden, potter in your kitchen and potter in your clinic.”
In pottering, we don’t rush. We touch, smell, and observe. We let our hands float over roots, leaves, and soil. And in that gentle slowing, we reconnect — with the land, with the plants, and with ourselves.
Pottering is sacred. It’s in these unhurried moments that we notice how a herb leans toward the sun, how its leaves cradle dew, how scent shifts with the wind. Christopher Hedley believed that “how a plant is in the world is how it will be in you.” We carry this truth as we move slowly through our gardens, letting the plants teach us patience, attention, and care.
Today, we give ourselves permission to potter. To wander. To linger. To let the earth guide us. In this gentle, unhurried way, we find a kind of medicine for our hurried souls.