Denise Walton, an organic and Pasture-for-Life beef farmer from Peelham Farm in south-east Scotland and the chair of NFFN Scotland, was invited to speak at the prestigious opening plenary of the Oxford Real Farming Conference (ORFC) 2025. Tasked with exploring a key theme that captured the spirit of the conference, Denise inspired an audience eager for connection and knowledge.
When I was invited to contribute to this plenary on ‘wisdom’, I was very quickly challenged by putting wisdom into words to share with all of you, the most significant human collective of land and nature wisdom on the planet! It was like guddling for trout in a fast-running burn! Just as you think you have it in your grasp, you don’t at all – it's slipped away! Or even seeing the reflection of a star from the universe in a puddle at your feet: so close that you want to scoop it up in your hands and hold it; but of course, as you move towards it, it disappears.
I then realised what I knew anyway: that wisdom isn’t for grasping or catching or having. It's in all life. It's here. It's in us, it's with us, it's through us.
It is the cascade of ‘knowingness’ from the source within the spark of sentience in every living cell within and between all living things … multitudes in multitudes in a collective, connective continuum with the universe. Knowingness before knowledge. Feel it! Feel the wisdom within you, around you … can you feel it? Are you letting the wisdom feel you? This ‘knowingness’ of wisdom is the treasure chest of imagination - the beginnings of envisioning.