Linking with Nature

A newly-made friend gave me a book, called Tilly Greenway and the Secrets of the Ancient Keys, Book One – Watchers. I have reviewed it on amazon.co.uk. It is a great read and combines fantasy with some uncomfortable truths about fictional trends in our society today which skirt close to reality.

This entry is however not about the book, more about the musings it has released in me : from my bed, in our London flat, I can look out on a tree that has suffered badly in recent months, particularly from excessive pruning and damage caused by a scurry of grey squirrels. I look at it daily and think about how much it suffers, and wish I could do something about it. I have become an objective observer, like with so much of life.

What has happened to my childhood ability to emphasize, to merge with what I was observing!  The quiet scream released by a blade of grass, by the branch broken off unthinkingly, were once all part of my reality. As my commitment is to create a model community that can be scaled up to provide the blueprint for out cities of the future, I am vitally interested in how to find ways to linked into & merge with nature in the same manner as I once was able to do and those who live on the land presumably still do.

Talk of living sustainably, and in harmony with nature, is not enough – we need to feel and share in its consciousness. The book I refer to above draws on myths and legends that cross time and cultures and takes us back to when humans felt nature and put these feelings into stories that still evoke powerful memories of this natural harmony.

Does the city of the future have grassy pathways along which its citizens can walk barefoot? Have designated camp-fire areas in which neighbourhoods gather, share food and listen to stories told by professional tellers, while watching the dance of real flames? Plant hugging trees, ready to dispense comfort to those who embrace them?  Make growing fresh produce an easy communal activity? Create orderly environments in which wild animals can live alongside humans without being tempted to become a nuisance and be viewed as a health-threat (e.g. urban foxes)?

What are the ways in which we will be able to make the pulse of nature noticeable in cities? Clearly, looking at nature in cities and lamenting the squeeze under which we are putting her, and talking about becoming more sustainable, is not enough. Her spirit calls, her messengers beckon, I / we need to reconnect to her at the deep, deep level that was once the natural state for us to be in.

As I write these words, the feeling of being linked to our London tree is returning. She stands in our neighbour’s garden, immediately behind my chair and protectively leans over my garden-based office accommodation. A small piece of my childhood at-onement has returned (symbolised by the arrival of these green paraquets which originate from the foothills of the Himalayas, my place of birth)!

 

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