A week ago today, I had the honour of receiving the Environmental Achievement award with Essex Business Awards for 2022. Winning this award 2-years running means so much to me and as you can tell by the cheesy grin plastered on my face, I was equally shocked and over the moon to receive the award.
I remember winning this award last year, during lockdown when the awards process was via zoom, not the beautiful gala event put on by the lovely team at Essex Business Awards this year. It came at a time when I was struggling, and I want to share this moment with people, as it plays a vital role in my work as an environmentalist, and in my second book, Dominion, due for release in a few weeks' time. This was my acceptance speech, and every word of it, is true.
Winners Statement:
Thank you for shortlisting me to win this truly humbling award, words cannot express what it means to me, so instead of trying, I'd like to share a story with you.
This time last year, I was walking through the woods close to my home, sunlight flittering through the clouds, and as I walked, a gunshot fired out. Urgently, I called to my canine companions and together we hid in the undergrowth, when moments later, people emerged.
Confused, I asked what they were shooting.
“Deer,” they replied.
And to my utter despair, behind them, a doe lay slain upon the ground.
Despair engulfed me as realisation dawned, that for every reader that I manage to rekindle a love for nature through my writing and workshops, there will be others who harm her, and in that moment, I wanted to quit.
Yet, fate had other ideas, as he so often does, and my phone vibrated with an email.
As I read, the skies opened, and I stood, soaked in the pouring rain, reading that I’d won the 2021 Environmental Award with Essex Business Awards. It was a surreal moment that I will never forget as tears streamed from my eyes as heavily as the rain pummeling down around me.
I understood Fate’s message.
He was telling me to keep going. To never give up. To never think that the small acts aren't as impactful as the big ones, as trying, in most cases, is enough to create positive change.
For, if the people who love nature give up, and don’t try to save her … then, who will?
Some may think that the above is reading too much into that moment but as an eclectic witch and a believer of all moments in life holding a message from above, below, and all that lies between, I know that it was a message. And I received it loud and clear. With gratefulness in every moment.
The fallen doe and her family hold a place in my heart forever, and in the moment that transpired above, I went home, pushed back the publication date from June 2022 to November 2022, and added new characters into the sequel; Bayard and Fawn, and their ma. If you are a reader of the Earthlings tale, when you stumble across Bayard's chapter in Dominion, please think of that fallen doe, as I think of her every day, and know that you have the power to do what is in that chapter every day, and to try to save her.
I will use my voice for Mother Nature every day of the remainder of my life... will you?