Enchanted Ground

Steven Lovatt addresses a dangerous and urgent topic: how do we rediscover the sense of where and who we belong with, and not slip into nostalgia, fantasy and tribalism? In this splendid essay, Lovatt shows us how and why we need points of orientation, in mind as much as body - how, when some things are ‘fixed’, we know how to ‘place’ the other things. We’re shown here how we might re-enchant our world by opening up to the whole of our ecology, in human memory, relationship and story, as well as in place and object, learning more fully what it is to know ourselves as more than brains on sticks, and how we might at last let ourselves be fed and transformed – Rowan WilliamsIn the best way, Lovatt makes language strange again – Noreen MasudA wise and powerful book, one that helped to answer questions I didn’t know I had, as well as questions I had but could barely articulate for myself. It describes a deeply personal journey, yet discovers meanings that are enduringly universal, and also effects the most extraordinary transformations, turning lostness into arrival, bewilderment into aliveness, and placelessness into enchantment. How might we grow roots in a broken world? To that most important of questions, this book provides a moving, memorable and beautiful answer. Read it and pass it on – Michael Malay

Steven Lovatt is a writer, teacher and editor, and the author of Birdsong in a Time of Silence. He lives in Swansea with his family.