A NATURE and revolutionary writer has called on Scots to fight back against UK Government austerity by reconnecting with nature.
Callander-based Patrick Phillips has also urged the Scottish Government to include a “right to cultivate” in land reform after a five-year battle failed to secure allotments for people in Killin. Despite the village being in the midst of open countryside, most of the land is in private hands and unavailable for community use.
Phillips’s new book, Mountain Love, is intended as a survival guide for Scots who feel beaten down by endless austerity.
He told the Sunday National that he hoped it would help people find their connection with nature and, by doing so, improve their mental and physical health and quality of life.
Phillips said he had experienced the “deep pain” austerity can cause and had found that nature had helped him to “transcend” such a reality.
“Nature is important to be able to survive the level of austerity that we’ve seen over the last decade and the kind of psychological damage that it causes to millions of people – it’s a form of deep state oppression,” he said.
“It’s stripping us of everything we need to live in the world but nature keeps me intact. It stops me from fragmentation and enables me, against all the odds, to keep something of my being in check.”
While he writes about his own relationship with the mountains near his home, he says people don’t have to climb hills in order to connect with nature.
“If you have a garden or a park nearby, just being in that environment can start to immediately improve your quality of life because you’re connecting with what essentially you are made of,” said Phillips. “A basic plant in a pot can contribute to your quality of life. Even one small flower on its own can still be very powerful.”
He added: “The majority of us are exploited for a low-wage economy and perhaps the only way you can survive this level of profiteering is by interacting with nature. Whether you cultivate plants or go see a mountain, as long as you can see nature and be in it, you have a fighting chance of moving forward.
“By taking a stance with nature against austerity, you’re fighting back because you’re putting something of yourself first rather than carrying on with the exploitation and doing nothing about it. Putting nature first begins to turn the tables and enables people to be stronger.”
Phillips pointed out that Scots are in a fortunate position as nature is never far away, even in the cities.
A supporter of independence, he added that Scotland had the potential to be “one of the best wellbeing countries in the world”.
Land reform is essential to make that happen, Phillips believes, and it could start now with a “right to cultivate”.
“Private land ownership in Scotland is such a big problem – it’s the cause of so much misery,” he said. “For example, there’s alienation from plantations in communities that still have no allotments and estates with way more land than they actually need.
“Having spent nearly six years now in the Highlands, more and more I see good land going to waste. Land that not only could be creating solid and sustainable livelihoods, but also help with the climate crisis and the housing crisis as well as producing organic food that could contribute to Scotland’s national economy.”
Phillips said people in Scotland had to do everything possible to fight against austerity and today’s “global profiteering elite”. A start could be made by putting nature first.
“If you’re really determined to fight and to survive, you need to do everything you can to look after your mental health and not put up with this level of austerity which puts vulnerable people in even more vulnerable situations,” said Phillips.
“And even if austerity comes to an end, we have to make sure that the levels of austerity we’ve seen over the last decade don’t happen again.”
Phillips has written articles for The Stage, Elsewhere Journal, CommonSpace, Scottish Left Review, Freedom Press, Scottish Farmer and The National. In summer 2021, he published his first book of essays, Eternal Mountain: Essays From Afar. Mountain Love is his third non-fiction book. He is now working on his latest project, The Modern Giant: How To Be A Giant In An Age of Neo Ontology.
An ebook version of Mountain Love is available here.
A paperback version will be available from major booksellers from August 1. Published by Expressive Press ISBN-13: 978-1838424770
