The Willow Worlds Podcast

This summer has been a season of steady, visible change at Willow Worlds. When I walk through the plantation now, I see a place that is not only maturing but beginning to shape its own character. What was once a patchwork of rods is slowly filling out into a living landscape — one that carries the marks of the weather, the efforts of volunteers, and even the curious damage of deer testing their an...

It’s been windy out, we just had Storm Floris (04 August 2025). The fire, in Edinburgh on Arthur’s Seat yesterday (10 August 2025) was made worse by wind fanning the flames up the steep slopes. Wind clearly made that incident worse—but didn’t we hear something about the world becoming less windy, and would that be a good thing? Remember “Global Terrestrial Stilling”? Between about 1980 and 2010, r...

I recently learned about Solarpunk and I’d like to add Solarpunk as an attribute of the Willow Worlds project. I’m saying that Willow Worlds is Solarpunk, but what is Solarpunk? Solarpunk is both a literary genre and an artistic and lifestyle movement that imagines a positive, sustainable future where people live in harmony with nature. This Substack is Solarpunk but unfortunately, it would be Sol...

Outgrown. When I was 14, I grew some trees in plastic milk cartons and planted them in the woods. Of course, not all of them survived. One nearly didn’t survive being planted as I remember I broke the top off by mistake when I was carrying it. I planted the little oak anyway - and maybe that’s why I remember it. And now I can still recognise that broken crown, except it’s huge. It towers over me l...

The second-coming of Donald Trump may only last a few more months, maybe a year, maybe four, and he’ll be gone. Unfortunately, he is accompanied by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They arrived ahead of him and will stay with us much longer: global heating, plastic pollution, ecosystem collapse and world famine. There is a 5th Horseman, but didn’t show up, he just stayed home, he’s playing tha...

There’s a little red-breasted bird who takes an interest in what you are doing in your garden. It’s a Robin and they usually make me feel cheerful. But this month, while I was cutting willow down in Kirkcaldy Walled Garden in the late afternoon, there was a robin who did not like what I was doing. His sharp little eyes seemed to flash at me. In fact, I stopped and went home without doing all that...

Imagine a patch of grass transformed into a dense, thriving forest in just 3 years. That’s the promise of what Jake M. Robinson calls the 'Miyawaki forest revolution.' Is it the ecological game-changer we need, or just another distraction? Let’s find out. NOTE: The text below has more than the podcast actually says. Fife Council’s Grasslands Project. Link: https://www.fife.gov.uk/kb/docs/articles/...

In this installment of Willow Worlds, I want to put in a philosophical thought about why I’m so excited about the idea of using willow in the way we are. I’ve decided to write about affordances . Affordances, the main idea in the Theory of Affordances, is quite simple and only grows into something more complicated as it goes on. For the bits that ‘go on’, I would refer you to thinkers such as Stua...

Willow Worlds at Muiredge Park, as a story, begins with the opening of Levenmouth Academy next door. The nature restoration stories at Bat’s Wood are a sort of Silmarillion to the the Willow World’s Hobbit. Fortunately, the nature restoration stories of Bat’s Wood are much easier to read than the early mythology of Tolkein’s Middle Earth and, I’m not just making it up. It’s all true. Willow Worlds...

Willow Worlds is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this project, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. November has 2 posts and in this first one - we’ll cover baselines, the shifting baselines effect and our project’s site: Muiredge Park. Get full access to Willow Worlds at willowworlds.substack.com/subscribe

Willow Worlds is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Willow Worlds at willowworlds.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Willow Worlds at willowworlds.substack.com/subscribe

My first podcast, a brief introduction to the Willow Worlds project. Get full access to Willow Worlds at willowworlds.substack.com/subscribe