STRANDS, THEMES & RAISON D'ÊTRE
Welcome to our "Passion Project" – Just Gentle Go. This has been some time in gestation and combines many strands and themes developed during the time we have been exploring the deep relationship between Nature and Human wellbeing. Our reason for embarking on this is quite simple. We sincerely believe that there are huge dangers in the way technology has now taken over so many aspects of how we live our modern lives. We are not ‘technophobes’ or old-fashioned Luddites, there are many advancements in technology that have greatly improved people’s lives. But we are genuinely concerned about the way technology has been used to ‘homogenise’ and 'sanitise' the way we ‘tick’ as critically thinking beings, the way our bodies react to the environment around us, and the visions and messages that are presented to us to 'consume' on those ‘Digital Screens’.
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Please start by watching the short little vignettes below on the Themes that have shaped our beliefs and then follow each Strand through the links and explore more of the pages on this website, which are being regularly updated as the Project develops.
1 minute vignette
1 minute vignette
Leave only Footprints
1 minute vignette
Connecting with Nature
Discovery
In essence, Technology is now rapidly breaking that integral link that Mankind has forged with the Natural World stretching back over millennia, through deep emotional connections built from continual exploration and personal discovery.
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There are many reasons for this, but the habitual carrying and viewing of 'Smart Phones' wherever people go has created a form of 'technology driven psychological dependence'. This dependence is continually dragging the mind away from being "in the moment" with Nature and towards narratives and agendas being set by Big Business, Big Foods and Big Pharma.
In addition to the more addictive aspects of 'Social Media' - the tittle-tattle gossip society, those real, or faux, outrage storms - our minds are continually being bombarded with manipulated messages and stories that deliberately pull at our emotions. These being manufactured basically to drive 'click-bait viewings' that open us up to consumer opportunities that are placed before us by those huge over-bearing Tech Platforms for pure profit, not to inform and enlighten us - (that early dream of the idealist pioneers of the world wide web.)
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More and more facets of our modern life are requiring you to carry a "Smart Device" at all times (in order to access services such as banking, payments for parking, entry to buildings, booking flights and passing through travel gates, registering for health services etc) It is clear that this trend is now firmly set to deliver us into an all-consuming dystopian future where you will need to be continually "connected" and have your actions verified by the technology and its A.I. algorithms.
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This is now no longer a tool for your own convenience or benefit (which was the original promise made to us) but is now there to drive your attention and actions in a more and more robotic way. Critical thinking is being lost. Top-down initiatives, such as The "Great Reset" , are destroying the innate balance humans have felt for the Natural World. Our 'hunter-gather' and ''farming-based' heritage is being destroyed, consciously suppressed and eliminated, all for the benefit of ultra-processed chemically enhanced "food", manufactured in huge factories, sold to us by Huge Corporations.
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You are welcome to browse our website to find out more about our "Just Gentle Go" philosophy, or contact us with any of your thoughts or comments.
Here are some of Julie's writings describing a walk in the grounds of Downside Abbey near Chilcompton on the Mendips in Winter
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"The Storm has passed, but the sky is still grey. I set out to walk, scuffing through piles of russet leaves brought down by last night's winds. Trees that only a week ago were dressed in autumn colours, flaunting their beauty, are now stark and bare against the leaden unforgiving sky.
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A once mighty giant of a tree has crashed across the path, felled inexplicably by the wind. Cracked and splintered branches are strewn around. The tree still looks stunned and helpless, stranded somehow.
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Squirrels busy themselves on the forest floor, searching for the spoils of the storm, looking up expectantly as you pass.
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A branch creaks in the stillness, a blackbird scuffles in the dry leaves, a swirl of rooks cry out and return to the bare tree tops.
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The day that began seemingly moments ago is already fading. Winter is upon us"