Compost for the soul roundup: January 2025

Welcome to this month’s compost for the soul roundup!

It’s no secret that I, as a specialist sustainability translator, spend a lot of time consuming all sorts of different media about our relationship with the land and the planet more generally.

Quite a lot of this is captured in my monthly CPD roundups, but some is not exactly CPD in the conventional sense (and frankly I already do more than enough to meet the requirements of my professional bodies). And rather than letting these brilliant sources of inspiration go un-noted, I share them here, in a monthly roundup of inspiring and moving blogs, podcasts, films, articles, etc.

The idea is to showcase a few things every month that have either shifted my thinking or that have in some other way inspired, uplifted or motivated me over the month. They represent words and ideas that have taken root in my mind, and I offer them to you now, in the hope that you will find fertile ground in your life too.

And if you don’t want to wait a whole month for the next roundup, you might want to follow me on Instagram, where I share one of these every week. In the meantime, you can find previous summaries here.

The whale's already saving us by Jules Pretty (Story for Climate and Nature Recovery)

I make no secret of my affiliation with the Essex Wildlife Trust, so when I came across this YouTube channel created by the Trust's president, I had to check it out. There are a few really lovely videos that I could recommend, but this one struck me as particularly relevant at this time of year because of how it reframes coldness as invigorating, rather than debilitating – a negative framing that I all too often fall into. As I plan the year ahead, it's also a useful reminder that the year's tasks may seem daunting, but that they can also feel more manageable if we remember how much progress has already been made.

The whales, it seems, have the power to gift the Sun.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6g-gDC5sYo

A River Reborn by Ben Goldfarb

There's a lot to love about this essay, not least the love that apparently went into writing it with such vivid detail. But what strikes me most about it is how the people involved in the project acknowledge the scale of the problem, but also understand that the solution will inevitably be a gradual one as a result. In the end, I felt that the quote below better capture the spirit of the piece, but there was another line about how simply blowing up the dam would have been cathartic but also devastating. At this time of year when the tasks ahead can feel daunting, it's a useful reminder  that major ambitions are made up of many small, much more manageable steps, and that trying to "unleash the dam" all at once can be counterproductive.

I imagined the now-silent pipes rumbling and rattling with the river’s trapped ferocity, and felt a vertiginous awe—both at the technological savvy that enabled humankind to bottle a river, and the shortsighted bravado that compelled us to try.

Available at: https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/a-river-reborn/

How to be Alone by Tanya Davis

Perhaps this seems like an odd pick for a time of year when the overall collective impulse is seeming to huddle together. Or maybe not – the festive period (of whatever denomination, or none) can involve spending a lot of time together in a way that can feel quite intense. Hopefully in a joyful way, but intense nonetheless. And I don't know about you, but I enjoy retreating back to my solitude for a little while after it. Not for forever, but for a little while, I enjoy my alonedom. And it's comforting to see that acknowledged rather than vilified.

Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if after a while no one is dating them. But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless. And lonely is healing if you make it.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs

If I can stop one heart from breaking by Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson needs no introduction from me. Her most famous poem may well be "Hope is the thing with feathers", but I've always loved this short piece more. And it feels like an appropriate way to sum up this month's other choices in that it expresses a real and practical ambition, and the importance of celebrating wins that may seem small but are lifechanging for another.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;

Available at: https://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=2330