‘Enjoy it whilst it lasts’

Local development in the last two decades has encroached upon a countryside, already irrevocably changed by intensive agriculture in the last five decades, to a level not comparable since this road was first cut by the Romans two millennia ago. That process cannot continue; it is already beginning to fail.

That ‘failure’ is embodied within this path. Not just the impact of development, but the fact that government grants paid to ‘improve access’ a few years ago, which effectively erected a big barbed-wire fence down each side to corral the public, have actually made it worse. Therein lies a metaphor for ‘progress’ generally.

As in Murray Bookchin’s said:

When man becomes an extension of a machine, man ceases to exist for his own sake. Society is ruled by the harsh maxim, ‘production for the sake of production.’

The reasons why this path has slowly been erased from it’s two millennia existence over recent years have far more relevance for our freedoms today than simple being able to walk out and enjoy this view.

How we move through the troubling times ahead has everything to do with our relationship to the/this land.