I am Enough

From Hedge Witch To Harmony Gardens: A Life Rooted In Nature, Seasons, And The Sacred Feminine

• Lyn Man at Earthaconter • Episode 28

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What if the wisdom you’re searching for is already blooming through the cracks at your feet? 

Lyn sits down with Ruth Green, a feminist pagan and community gardener, to trace a life lived in conversation with nature—from childhood days spent still among rabbits to leading a small, potent circle that honours the Wheel of the Year. Together we unpack how beauty becomes a practice, why wildflowers are not “weeds,” and how pollinators turn a garden into a living system that feeds both vegetables and the human spirit.

We travel through seasons with close attention: the race to solstice bloom, the first cut at Lammas, the waning that invites pruning and renewal. Ruth shares how this seasonal literacy shapes her inner life, offering a model for emotional regulation and recovery—when you’re cut back by criticism, give it time, step under trees, and trust regrowth. We also step into the Sacred Feminine not as abstraction but as embodied archetypes: warrior as devoted energy, protector and provider as everyday service, sovereignty as authorship of one’s life. These frames help redress the imbalance between masculine and feminine energies and invite a fuller expression of who we already are.

Along the way, we question tidy lawns and tidy lives, explore community harmony as ecosystem design, and name a cultural wound around sexuality that needs wiser education and genuine respect. What emerges is a grounded path back to enoughness: look closely, tend what matters, prune with care, and make room for wild resilience. Press play to feel more rooted, more sovereign, and more at home in your own skin—and if this conversation nourishes you, follow, share with a friend, and leave a review so others can find their way back to themselves too.

Thank you for listening and taking the time to explore our podcast.

Earthaconter: Connection, Exploration and Expansion
www.earthaconter.org

Lyn Man:

Welcome to I Am Enough, the space where we explore journeys back to our forgotten birthright of enoughness, to draw a natural wisdom along with awareness, acceptance, and compassion, to support each of us on that journey and embrace our wholeness. Despite what society tells us, each one of us is enough exactly as we are. My name is Lyn Man, and I'd like to welcome you to this space where we explore enoughness, people's journeys along the path to feeling I am enough, and look at what can support each of us on that journey. Hello and welcome to another episode of I Am Enough, the space where we embrace our wholeness. So today I'm delighted to have with me Ruth Green, who I've known for the past couple of years as a member of our community. I think that's right, Ruth.

Ruth Green:

Yes.

Lyn Man:

Yeah. Okay, so Ruth has a passion for nature that comes through with such joy and highlights her deep connection. She describes herself as a feminist pagan, leading a group working with the wheel of the year to explore and expand their connection to Earth and themselves. Ruth works with the Sacred Feminine to redress the societal imbalance between the masculine and feminine. Ruth has volunteered at her local community garden in London since its inception 15 years ago and has been running it for the past 15 years. If you are interested in knowing more about the group that Ruth runs, you can contact Ruth on Rutharoot@ blue yonder.co.uk. So welcome Ruth. It is lovely to have you here. I'm looking forward to our conversation. So I just want to start with that passion for nature because I know when you start talking about what you've seen in our sessions, which are online, and people can imagine how you can connect with nature online, but you can through various different things. What always comes through and what everybody really enjoys is when you start talking about nature and that passion. So I'd love to understand what is it that ignited your passion for nature? Where did it come from?

Ruth Green:

Well, thank you for that question. When I think back to my early life, I remember I lived on the border of North Wales and Shropshire in a very rural place. And I used to go off by myself into the fields and just sit there until the rabbits stopped noticing me and started just walking about and grazing in front of me. And I was quite young at the time. I also used to talk to all sorts of animals, and they always appeared to be listening. I felt as if I was communicating in some primitive way. I I just felt this very strong connection to nature itself and to the animals that dwell on this planet. And I I started when I was still a child, I started studying herbalism as uh how how different things can cure common ailments. And I started using sage tea to cure my tonsillitis, which it did. And then I realized that you don't actually have to resort to allopathic medicine for everything, because many things you can treat with more natural remedies. So I I was, I think I became what people often call a hedge witch, which is just somebody who who uh operates by by themselves and just is very closely connected to the earth and to how nature can help us in all sorts of ways, especially just by being in it. So I would say that that was I just grew up that I just grew up that way. And then, of course, when I was a young woman, I did get a bit caught up in in uh in social life and the things that young people do. And then I came back to nature and I realized that I have to be in nature, I have to be in it every day, even if it's only for a short time, even if it's just eating my cornflakes on the doorstep. I have to be in it, and uh yeah.

Lyn Man:

I love that that even as a young child, you know, when what comes through from the you know, the young child is sitting there, you intuitively knew to sit there until the rabbits stopped noticing you and just let things go by and having that connection. So they were accepting you as you were. But even just going then to you know being the hedge witch and using become, you know, finding that, discovering that you can heal yourself. How do you take that forward in in life? Not not just even with plants and using the herbalism, but but just looking at nature as a whole, you know, in your life, how does it support you and help you these days?

Ruth Green:

As I said, I have to be in nature every day. I have to I have to be there. And everywhere I go, I'm I'm looking for the most natural parts. Even if I'm walking through streets, I'm looking at everybody's garden, everybody's garden, and I'm looking at the plants and and their health and how natural they are. And when I find places where things just grow naturally, like um my neighbour has a bit of grass outside outside the house and there's yarrow growing in it, and the the the the the cows will come and spray it with glyphosate every now and then, the edges. And after a few weeks, the yarrow and and the the the the English variables come back, and also mallow and and a few other plants. And I just think it's so amazing that that that they could be in this poisoned ground and then they could just come back again and they're not going to be deterred even by poison, they're just going to quietly wait in seed form underneath the soil until all is well again. And I just think it's such a wonderful aspect of nature that it can recover itself, and it and it does the same for us. And I feel that if I'm if I'm feeling out of sorts anyway, I just go to a local park and I just look up at the trees and I just feel so much better because I'm just part of a very, very beautiful planet.

Lyn Man:

You know, I love that because it's that recognition that there's there's beauty and everywhere, and there's nature is everywhere. So you're in North London, so you're I know London is actually a fairly green city, but you're still in, you're now in the city having been brought up on the edge of the countryside, and still able to find nature and looking for nature anywhere. And I think, you know, for me that is important that people become aware of that, because often people think, oh, I'm in the city, you know, how do I connect to nature? I I don't have the luxury of going out and and being in the countryside. But what you've just described is that nature's all around us, and we can learn from nature in the way that you know it's the plants have been poisoned off, and then they come back up, and it's that resilience. So, what other things have you learned from just the nature around you?

Ruth Green:

One of the things is that nature pushes through anywhere where it hasn't been prevented, even little cracks, little cracks in the wall. There's there's fleabane growing abundantly, or or even on buildings that haven't had the mortar repaired. Buddleia trees start to grow out of walls. I've seen it quite a lot, and they can get really big. And I'm thinking, if you try to plant tulips, they wouldn't grow. But here these little seeds can can take root and then thrive in the tiniest little cracks. And I keep thinking there can't be many nutrients in there, in a little crack in the wall, but somehow they they find what what they need. And that is just so remarkable and and wondrous. I found it very inspiring.

Lyn Man:

Yeah, and it's it's a a lovely reminder to us that actually when we focus on what it is we really need rather than we think we need, that we can grow, even if we're feeling restricted and constricted and limited in the space, we can find ways to to make it work for us, is what I'm hearing nature's telling us there.

Ruth Green:

Yes. Yes, well, I think it's about letting it, because we we do so much to prevent nature. You know, we we live in artificial spaces with artificial lighting and electromagnetic rays coming from all our devices, and we don't have to stay inside those spaces. I mean, I know it's tragic for people who have to go to work in in really horrible offices for a long time. But you know, we we can get out, we can get out into nature, and it's so important to do that. And then you can find it anywhere, even in live even being in in the city, where everything looks arid, but then you start to look down and around, and there's little plants poking through everywhere where you wouldn't expect, and it's easy to walk past them and not even notice because they're small. Yeah.

Lyn Man:

Yeah. So so just looking at that, you know, would you you've you've got that that passion for nature. How did that support you or influence in you in exploring the pagan tradition?

Ruth Green:

I came across paganism when I first came to London in the late 70s. And I I I I was in a number of different groups and it was interesting, but somehow there was something missing for me. And then I uh the pagan federation used to put on seasonal festivals in Conway Hall. And I went to a few of those, but I mean they were big public things, anyone could go, and they were really packed. And it was very important that they did it, but I still felt I needed something a bit different. I joined a lot of different different groups, I've had a lot of experiences, and then I joined some women-only groups, and that was a excuse me, a different take on everything. And after a while, I I felt that there were some aspects of all of this which I could accept and really were real and important for me. And there are other aspects which weren't, because obviously the patriarchal world is is in paganism as well, you know, because people are brainwashed from birth, and they just think it's uh they they bring it with them to a certain extent, not not terribly badly, but a bit. Anyway, I don't think that I'm not making any criticism of of how other people do it, because everyone does it in the way that they want to. That's the beautiful thing about it, that we are in an age where we're free to choose, which is the church hated us having the freedom to choose how we would we would conduct our spiritual lives. But but the fact that we do have we do have it now is is is such a such a such a gift. And so I've heard people speak very disparagingly, religious people say, oh, you know, they think that they can just choose the bits they like and reject them. Yes, we can. And we do, and we do, and we're rejecting all those nasty bits, and the bits which are meaningful to us, we're keeping. And then after a while, the the groups tend to last for a certain, you know, they they have a life expectancy, and and then I then when the group, my last group, no longer existed. We didn't have a group for a while, and I thought, I'm missing this, and so I formed my own group, which seemed pretty logical. Yeah, so I just formed it. It isn't it isn't very large, usually about eight people come each time, but we we we do we we do one of them on Zoom because there's people from all over the country, including Ireland. And then there's another one which we do in person in London. Have I answered the question?

Lyn Man:

Yeah, it's n it doesn't matter, it's an exploration, we go wherever. So you raise you bring in some interesting things there in that it's a choose and it's looking at what's meaningful to you about the aspects that you relate to and focusing on those. And I really would just like to go back to that because it's it's an interesting place to explore for want of a better word, because as you said, it's when we don't take that opportunity to choose, we end up going down a path that isn't ours. And we're we're taking we're I I have this image almost, it's like it makes you uncomfortable and shrink because you might relate to part of it, but not all of it. So so just within with that for you in the groups that you're there, and what is it, what elements were there that were important to you and that continue to influence you in your work today?

Ruth Green:

It's a difficult question for me because my memory isn't very good. I haven't really asked myself this. I mean, I do know what is important to me.

Lyn Man:

L et's just go there then. What's important to you?

Ruth Green:

Well, the thing which for me makes life worth living is beauty. That is the primary first number one. So the beauty of nature is the most important thing to me, and the the bounty of nature and the generosity and the persistence and the ability to survive, all of those are important too. And the reason why I I love the making gardens, and I I make I've got a small garden of my own, and there's a community garden which you mentioned, and also I I go to all my friends' gardens and help out there, is because growing things is such a it's such a gift to be able to do that, to to have the to have the freedom to to take seeds and plant them and look after them and grow them. And and the thing about gardening is it there's a lot of um selection. All the time you you're taking out invasive weeds, and um, for me I'm always saving the wildflowers. So when people say everything I didn't plant is weeds, no, no, no, no, no, not in my world. Everything that grows is a wildflower, unless it's super invasive, in which case I have to take them out because I want the variety. Yeah. So I'm very keen on wildflowers. Some people who come to the community garden, they say, what's all this space taken up with flowers? Well, it's for the bees. How are you gonna fertilize your vegetables without the bees and the other pollinating insects? They need to feed all through the air. Well, you know, from except for the dead of winter. And so they need they need the flowers. So I've made sure there's uh there there's a lot of um flowers around. I've forgotten the question now.

Lyn Man:

What's important to you? So we were talking about beauty, but I'm going we'll we'll ignore the question for a moment because I want to come back to what you're describing actually, is the beauty of how nature works. And that when we go into a garden and we create it in a way that maybe isn't as natural, maybe is limited on the the types of flowers when we we pull out all the weeds. Um which my mum always described as a plant you don't want in that space. It's so it was the it wasn't making the weeds right or wrong, it was just how we classified things, which relates to what what you're saying. But it's very much that what you're reminding us of is the need to have things that are natural, natural to the area. But we can't have a vegetable garden without having flowers, because things they need the nectar and they need the the we need the bees and the various other insects that that pollinate. So just if we look at your community garden right now and the other gardens you work on, as the ecosystems and everything working together, what else do you see when you're you're in though the gardens and and how things work as a whole?

Ruth Green:

Yeah, how things work as a whole is so important. I mean, I don't claim to know everything about vegetable gardening, so I have delegated certain tasks to different people who are more dedicated to the details, but how a thing works as a whole, it's interesting because with with a garden, which is run by all we're all volunteers, you get all kinds of different people together. And as you know, when you get very different people together, sometimes there's a few sparks flying around. Yeah. And it's my job to put out the flames and to to help the harmony, because it's called harmony gardens. I keep saying to people, it's called harmony gardens for a reason. We're trying to have harmony here, not only in the in the phantom, but with between the people as well. And so we're we've all got peculiarities, and we need to uh tolerate each other's peculiarities and be trying to at least tolerate and at best help each other. And mostly that is what happens. When people help each other, people get on with it, and everything's smooth. Just now and then there's a little spark shy. I just I just have one recently.

Lyn Man:

I think I've dealt with. So it's it's interesting you talk about that because it's that it comes back to that variety. So we need a variety of people. You're saying that you know you you have your ability is to to kind of see how people work together and and put out any fires that start burning. You've got other people that are focused on the garden. But it's it's interesting because it is that reminder that nature is is a variety of things. So so with that that variety, we get the the variety of people, we get the variety in in nature. But I just want to now loop this back to the seasonality of things. Because you mentioned going back to the gardens and the flowers that the the insects need in the pollen, except in the dead of winter. And I know that when you're looking at the the wheel of the year, you're very much looking at the different the seasons and what's going on and following almost I'm seeing the the light in winter, we go deep within. So just for you, what have you learnt by following the the seasonality of the the wheel of the year and also observing the seasons out in nature?

Ruth Green:

It's so important for for me to to be deeply in all the seasons and in the turning of the year, to be really conscious of what's happening. It's easy. I mean, I know a lot of people they go from the door to the car and from the car to the door, and they don't actually see very much in between. It's just very sad, but I I feel that it's very um healing for people to to be much more deeply aware and connected. So, which is what I try to do in my group is to help people to have that awareness that it isn't just like like for instance the difference between Lamas and Autumn Equinox. Lamas is the beginning of harvest, it's it's the festival of fresh fruits, and Autumn Equinox is the it is the the high point of it. But all in between, you may say, well, it's the same thing, it's all about harvesting, all about six weeks in between. But it is not the same. I mean, I go into my garden every day, and when it's around Lamas time, I notice that a lot of, well, uh go back a little bit, a lot of plants are trying to flower by summer solstice. You can see the growth coming up in May and June is so fascinating, trying to get to that point where they can make the flower by summer solstice. It's a race that's on, and I I sense it every year more and more, and then they flower and they flower and they flower. But by llamas, some of them have finished, and they start to to uh wane or or go brown, and they've they finish the flowering, and then it's the time to start cutting cutting back. And one of the symbols for me of llamas is is the cutting tool. Because the cutting begins. Lamas across is loafmass, which is the first loaves of bread made from the new crop of grain that has just been harvested in the first of that year, which is what that festival is about. But from that time of the first cutting, there's a lot of cutting going on for things that have finished their cycle or part of their cycle, and then they're going to start again. Some plants you can cut them back nearly to the ground, and then they start to spring up completely new leaves, and they make another flower in mater, and others they finish for the earth. But to just to watch all these different cycles happening at the same time is very beautiful to watch and it's very inspiring and nourishing on a very deep level. So I ask people to try to be much more deeply connected to what's happening. Because it's easy to just say, oh yeah, yeah, this is like intellectually to say, yeah, yeah, done, done that. But there's a deeper connection, and although we do the seasons, the same seasons every year, some people said to me, I at first I took it more superficially, but now I'm feeling deeper layers and deeper levels of understanding this, which was very gratifying to me because it was what I was hoping for.

Lyn Man:

So so with uh just sticking with the the seasonality, because you know, I know for me, and it's it I'm going back to your analogy of people getting in the car, getting out of the car, and not really seeing what's what's going on around them. And I know personally that when I've gone back and I've really connected in with with nature and what's going on around, I can I can see it's like you're describing, you see the stages. You know, for for me this year, for some reason it's been the brambles that have just drawn my attention. I don't know if that's because there's been there's so many bushes around where where I walk in different places, but it's it really has been from when they started to flower. But even noticing that, you know, some are still flowering while the the fruits are starting to form on the others, you get it's not that everything happens at the same time, even on the same variety of species, even on the same bush, you can have flowers, you can have fruit just starting to form, you could have green fruit, you know, there was a real evolution of that. And I think for me that comes back if we look at ourselves and look at those around us, that everybody's, and it's something we talked about just before we were coming on was about phrasing of things, because everybody experiences things differently. And what I'm hearing you saying is by doing this work, you're actually helping people to experience life in a deeper manner than they were before.

Ruth Green:

Yes, and to to to see all the different variations. Like for instance, in flowers, they've got all sorts of different ways of maximizing their chance of being fertilized by the pollinators. And there's one of them, I mean, there's so many different ways that they've evolved, but one of them is a plant called Ribwort Plantain, and it grows as a flower spike, and it forms a circle of flowers, like a ballerina's tutu. And then when those that circle of flowers are finished, it grows a little bit longer and it forms another circle further up. And when they finish another one, and so it's got a long period of flowering, so that in the end it's it's its flower spike might be like one and a half centimetres long, but it's it's it's only flower one circle at a time. Now that gives it the maximum chance for fertilization, because the weather might be bad, it might be raining, it might be windy, and the pollinating insects can't fly. So instead of just flowering once and hoping it was good weather, it's all it's made this arrangement so that there's a long period of having flour. And of course, when you have flour, you have pollen and you have nectar and you can be fertilized. So just one method out of out of many, many, many methods of um prolonging life and survival. Yeah. And people have all sorts of methods of of survival, and they're very, very different. And the different ways that people try to protect themselves or nurture themselves, they're very immensely. And we can never say, oh, you know, you should all be the same. Like Mark was saying in one of those chats about when you're in school and the teacher's trying to guide you in a particular way because they've been taught that this is the way you're supposed to go. So they're rewarding certain things and punishing other things, which would be all very well if it was. I think it was um if if the values were such that it was enhancing the whole person and and embracing all of their abilities and needs. But it isn't, it's it's it's the value is an academic principle, you know, to get to pass all the exams.

Lyn Man:

Yeah. And it and it's interesting. Because if we we go back to that into how we are from an early age, how we're actually guided into a way to conform, and then we look out at everything around us, and it teaches us that actually it's not about conforming, it's actually about expressing yourself in the way that is right for you and your uniqueness. Now, that doesn't mean to say everybody needs to throw tantrums and that, you know, that's not what I'm meaning, but it's coming from that understanding of what's in going back to what we were talking about before, what's important to you. So you were saying, you know, actually beauty was the first thing that came out as being really important to you. And I can see even on your your walls there, you have you know your own drawings and images that you've created representing that beauty as well as representing other elements that are important to you. And I think it's for me, you know, just what I'm reminded about is for us to really learn to be able to express ourselves and who we are in a way that comes from what's important to us. But going back to what you were saying about people sparking, it's a way that we understand ourselves, but we also listen so that we can understand others. And we don't act like the invasive plant and try and take everything over. We actually act like a meadow where each plant has its own place, it finds those that the word that comes to mind is work well, works well with, but the ones that you know plants and there's always some plants that you'll find next to each other because they're complementary or they support each other in a way.

Ruth Green:

I'm not sure how to provide for them.

Lyn Man:

Yeah. So so with that, it is just it's just interesting because there is so much we can learn about ourselves when we go out and pay more attention to what's around us.

Ruth Green:

Yes. While you were talking, I just remembered that I remember when I was in my twenties, I was in a park, and the whole of the ground was covered in daisies. And I'm not just one or two and that here and there, but absolutely covered. So what you'd see was white, as if it had snowed. And then suddenly I heard this sound, and it was that tractor mower. And so the the park staff was coming with this great big tractor mower, and he was just coming towards this patch of daisies, and he couldn't just shave them all off. And I ran in for the track and we got all this thing, no, no, no. You can't do that. Poor man was very disconcerted, he'd never experienced such a thing.

Lyn Man:

But the amazing thing there is they do come back, assume.

Ruth Green:

Oh yes, I know. Yeah. But um it'd be nice if they weren't taken off when they're in the full flower.

Lyn Man:

Yeah.

Ruth Green:

I keep saying about our our local parks. You know, can you please not mow down the the violence, the violent leaves, after the flowers finish, just leave a few weeks for the leaves to do their thing, you know, so we can have more violets next year. But they do take no notice.

Lyn Man:

Yeah.

Ruth Green:

Yeah, they're not gardeners, they're just okay.

Lyn Man:

But it's interesting, isn't it? Because that comes back to the perception that the grass in parks should be mown, it should be kept nice and and pristine for want of a better word. And it's it's almost reflective of how we often hold ourselves as well in those expectations that we have to behave in certain ways.

Ruth Green:

Yeah, absolutely. I I have to say, when I go to those parks, you know, there's some parks and they have like a circle and they have two kinds of plants and they're all geometrically placed exactly this distance apart, and I can't feel any pleasure in them. I look at them, I think, well, these are flowers, I love flowers, but I can't get the pleasure. It's just so horrible. It's just so unnatural. I just w wish I could just plant just just plant them in natural ways instead of uh what is it in their heads that make them think it's gonna be better if we make it look more artificial? But yes, it's true about people as well, because we're all brainwashed from the day we're born to be a certain way and not to be other ways, and those messages we get when we're young is so difficult, difficult to shift. Really difficult, even though intellectually you may know that this message was absolute rubbish and that they should never said it. But to actually get it out of the psyche is so hard. So hard. I mean, I had the message that I'm worthless and I'm a bad person. I know that isn't true, but I still feel it. If anybody criticizes me, immediately after, yeah, yeah, that's true, I don't have a bad person. Actually, often it's not true, but I still feel it's very serious. Bad conditioning in early years is just such a terrible thing to do to kids.

Lyn Man:

It is, it's um it is difficult. And and with that, you know, so now when you feel those criticisms and then recognize that they're not true, how do you bring yourself back to actually being grounded and due and full of that joy again?

Ruth Green:

I have to give it time. I have to give it time. I mean, when you cut down plants, they don't spring up immediately, you have to give them time before they spring up again. So I have to give myself time to it's letting the dust settle, which is an emotional process, and then I can start to stop feeling this is a native emotion and to start to replace it with a more wholesome remembering that I am a child of nature, I'm part of it all, and um in my case, go out go out for a walk in the park. Yeah.

Lyn Man:

So we talked about earlier with the the work he did with the the wheel of the year, and you you gave us the example with Lamass and the Autumn Equinox. But I know you also bring in the the sacred feminine, fine feminine. I just would like to know how has that impacted you by connecting to the sacred feminine within?

Ruth Green:

Oh, I'm going to have asked this because every time I do one of the festivals, well, first of all, we we concentrate on the fan fear and the life of deeper connection, and then we do some other work around it. But then the second part of the of the session, we we we do one aspect of Goddess. For instance, the warrior. And in everybody's brain, you know, we're brainwashed from early years to think, oh warrior that's a bloke, you know, in armor, he does this, he does that. But we're all warriors, but we need to find the warrior within ourselves. The whole concept that worries about killing people is so patriarchal and wrong. The warrior is the person who uses their energy to fight for something they really believe in, something of value. So we'll also do the the hunter, the protector, and the provider, which are different aspects of how we use our energy in this life to get or create certain things, or to protect something which we value, to provide, you know, to our own community, whatever we can provide, to stand up to whatever we feel is is is right for us because not everybody can stand up for everything that's wrong. There are so many things that are wrong, and and you know, some people are going on the march for Gaza, but not it isn't everybody's thing. I'm I'm it's not for me going on marches. So we have to do it in our own way for the things which we believe in. Yeah. And another aspect is sovereignty. Of course, we're very much the same, you know, sovereign somebody else, you know, that they get to be sovereign. I'm just one of the serfs. But actually, we're all sovereign, we're sovereign of our own life, we're captain of our own ship, and to not just talk about it in roads, but to actually feel that sovereignty within, to feel I'm not this middle person who's who's just um shoved about for the good of the rich people who are in control. I'm a person in my own right, and I'm as much as possible in control of my own life. And to actually feel that on a deep level, is my ambition is to help people to feel it. And then once you feel it, you can become that that hidden aspect, or previously hidden aspect, and to to bring it into into life, which which is pretty marvelous. If you even begin to get a little bit of it, like it's a strength which was there all the time, but you weren't using before.

Lyn Man:

I think that's really interesting, just saying that that it's a strength that was there. Other people may use different words, but it's I think there's definitely aspects of ourselves that we shut off or we don't we've never seen. And and what you're saying by doing by working through and looking at different aspects, we can actually start to see how it shows up for us. So I love what you were saying about the warrior, in that it's the protector. And if you think of most mothers, they would protect their child before anything else. If you think, or you know, I'm just thinking of you, you talked about the provider, I'm thinking of you in the community garden, you know, and stand in providing for, you know, coordinating it and providing. And there's so many different ways it can show up. And it really does take go back to the the words and how we're interpreting them, and when we can expand beyond it, beyond our original, maybe of how we were brought up or how we were led to perceive that archetype as and see that it can be reflected in many ways. What I'm hearing is that then allows you to see how it is within you and to draw on that energy within.

Ruth Green:

Yes. Yes, definitely.

Lyn Man:

That's beautiful. So just with that, and sticking with the the the warrior energy, I just want to ask you one final question, which I ask people, and that is if you could change one societal belief that would benefit humanity as a whole, what would it be?

Ruth Green:

Oh, sorry. That's so hard because there's so much. Yeah. One. Oh Lord. It's very hard to choose one. I think I made notice of that question. I think what one is one one of the things, one thing, I wouldn't say it's the same, but one of them is people's attitude to sexuality, although it's a lot better than it was, you know, the way that it's taught, it isn't taught, you know, not in a in a healthy society, children would be getting the knowledge in a very healthy way. But instead they have to resort to pornography because they they want to find out what it's all about. And that's that is their source. And I really wish there was a very healthy system of teaching people not only about sexuality, but how about how to how to be in in relationships, especially sexual ones, because our society is just so sick in that department. There's just so many people who who are just going along a very unhealthy path because that's all they know. They don't know anything better. And and even new generations, especially of boys, oh girls too, girls think that they're sex objects and they've got to dress up as them, and boys think that they just got to screw around. I don't think they're quite going to say it, but anyway, that's one of them.

Lyn Man:

It's but it's it's interesting even that taking it further than that and going back to what you I said in the introduction to yourself. It's like redressing that imbalance between the the masculine and feminine, but also recognising that it isn't about it's it's about being able to have the relationships with people without it being overly influenced by the sexuality, if that makes sense. As in we should be able to have male friends, female friends, and just connect as people, and there's lots there's something there that I see needs healing in that the way we perceive also sexuality.

Ruth Green:

Yes, right. Um when when I say sexuality, I'm not just talking about having sex, yeah. Because we are females and um and the others are males, and they need to to be that. I don't know some people in between, but people need to be what what they are. But in in all all of their life, no, not just in in their sexual basis, but in all of their life. Yeah. What's happening is that people brain must be thinking no, this is this is what a male is like, and that's what a female is like. So I I'm I'm talking about sexuality, like the whole thing about being a female and the respect for for the feminine, which is lacking in the society all over the world, let's see.

Lyn Man:

Yeah. I think it's it's bringing it goes back to, as you said, it's re redressing that that imbalance, but also recognizing that we have diff different mix of the aspects within us. So we may be female, but we have a masculine energy.

Ruth Green:

We have both, yeah.

Lyn Man:

Yeah. And I think it's when we recognize that and we can recognize that there is a sacredness about both, then it really does change. Um it it's about how everything works together as a whole, going back to that.

Ruth Green:

Yes.

Lyn Man:

Not as in forcing one over the other.

Ruth Green:

It's it's about really recognizing both the male and female within each of us and respecting it and nurturing it. Yeah. Nurturing it to be what it truly needs to be rather than what society tells it thought to be.

Lyn Man:

Yeah, absolutely. And and with that, seeing that it it really comes back to recognizing that however we show up, we are enough as we are.

Ruth Green:

Well, yes, as we are in our in our inner nature. Yeah, way the way we were born. We were born innocent and then we got corrupted afterwards.

Lyn Man:

So it's now now go working our way back.

Ruth Green:

Yes, working our way back to our innocence, yes, yes, that's it, working our way back to our innocence, to our joy in life. And and to in in a in a sense, to to a childlike, the ability to be childlike again, innocent, not nothing childish, but to be to have that innocence where you can play.

Lyn Man:

Yeah.

Ruth Green:

And and just enjoy life for what it is. And if you're presented with something, you explore it and you you play with it, and you don't judge it and you kick it away because somebody's told you that's not a good thing. Yeah, it's um getting back back back to the joy because uh quite often it's it's just misguided adults who've just squashed their children down, squashed them into what they thought they ought to be. And then getting out of that squash state and uh I'm free.

Lyn Man:

Yeah. Seeing who you truly are.

Ruth Green:

So I tried to to um create a field around myself and and others of feels filled filled with love and hope. Because it's so easy to get bogged down in negativity, and you know, all these terrible things happening, and everybody's sick and depressed and anxious and what's another. But it's no good living like that. You've got to you've got to put some hope around yourself and that then let that delight in so that so that um you can connect more with with the good things. And remember that actually life is this earth is so beautiful and wonderful, and people can be absolutely wonderful. But don't forget that, it's really important.

Lyn Man:

Yeah, absolutely. That's a beautiful place to end. So seeing the beauty, connecting with love and compassion and acceptance. So thank you very much for coming and having this conversation, Ruth.

Ruth Green:

Thank you then. Thank you then for inviting me. I was I'm very surprised and delighted.

Lyn Man:

You're welcome. Thank you for listening to this episode of I Am Enough. We hope you enjoyed it and are inspired to see yourself as Enough and create possibilities. If you would like to discover more, please visit earthaconter.org.