landscapes and meaning 3
mindfulness and nature
The scientific research is confirmed, and knowledge is becoming more widespread, about the positive effect of time spent in nature. Outdoors adventure and well-being are appreciated as happy bed-fellows, and eco-therapy is a burgeoning business. The physical aspects of wilderness therapy are obvious, fresh air and exercise being so beneficial to health. The emotional and psychological elements are beginning to be appreciated; lowering cortisol and increasing positive mood and creativity. But as thinking creatures, we find it impossible to switch off our mind entirely. Therefore I think it is important to consider also the intellectual aspects to green therapy. Few of us feel comfortable meditating for an extended period of time in our local park, and it is impossible for most of us to continue a mindfulness practice for the full duration of a walk. So it is important to consider the ways in which the mind can be healthfully engaged on a walk in nature.
making nature mean
People have varied ways of engaging with nature in meaningful intellectual ways. Some like to forage, some collect samples, others record birdsong. Many walking groups are based around story-telling, either fictional or historical. Geologists, meteorologists and conservationists will all have their aspects of focus for their walks. My personal interest is to use metaphors of nature as a way in to exploring the psyche and of better understanding human nature; my own and others’.
This is the third in a series of 4 blog posts, cataloguing some common features of walks, and suggesting some activities and dialogues to engage in, inspired by metaphors of these features. Since I couldn’t think of a more simple way to arrange these ideas, they are listed in alphabetical order, so this blog post will deal with M-R. Click here to read the first post covering A-F, and here to read the second one G-L.
meanders
Few school children can reach Year 9 without knowing, in intricate detail, about the processes of meander formation in rivers. For some reason, this is considered vital information for British adults, with the consequence that almost everyone I lead on a walk along Cuckmere Haven, at some point sighs wistfully over the wide curves and ox-bow lakes of the delta, reminiscing, no doubt, about geography lessons from dusty textbooks.
metaphor
I would go so far as to say that everyone loves a meander. They are so apparent, blatant in their structure, wearing their hearts on their banks, shouting out their shape, announcing themselves to the world as a sign of stately, majestic ageing. Utterly unapologetic about their slowness, meanders take their time, and dare us to do the same.
invitation
Slow down! Take the long cut. Follow the curvy path. Stay out after dark. Walk backwards. Lie down in the ground. Notice where you’re choosing to spend your time, and spend more of it.
The straight path goes through the curved one,
For if I do not exist, hardly will be any lessons learnt!
Embrace me, catch hold of me, be guided,
And I shall turn your sojourn a meaningful one!
Thus spake the meander!by Shaharyaar Kamaal Siddiqui
neolithic sites
Neolithic sites are common in South East England, and particularly on the South Downs. Stone Age mounds, barrows and enclosures dot our landscape, testament to the settlements and ceremonies of ages past.
metaphor
These lumps, mounds and hills are forts, burial chambers or sites of celebration. They speak of community, belonging and ownership. Stone circles are wonderful, democratic symbols; opportunities for dialogue, sharing and listening.
invitation
Circle up as the ancients used to. Take a moment to close your eyes and feel an ancient rooted connection down through your feet to the centre of the earth. Let modern sounds, concerns and ideas float away. Know yourself as animal, simple and primitive as those who first built these sites. We feel as they did. Our fears are theirs, our hopes the same, our desires in common. Look around your group. Take time to know each other. Ask questions. Speak your truth. And really listen.
How might your life have been different if there had been a place for you, a place where you could go to be with women? A place where you could be received as you strove to order your moments and your days. A place where you could learn a quiet centredness to help you ground yourself in daily patterns that would nurture you through their gentle rhythms. A place where, in the stillness at the ending of a task, you could feel an ancient presence flowing out to sustain you, and you learned how to receive and to sustain it in return.
From ‘Circle of Stones’ by Judith Duerk
orchards
Kent is the Garden of England, and walking the North Downs Way, much of the route crosses through orchards. To walk beneath apple trees feels bucolic and timeless; one can imagine a Chaucerian pilgrim plucking an apple and munching happily on his way to Canterbury.
metaphor
Orchards are symbols of fecundity and fruitfulness, productivity and procreation. They are infinitely hopeful, positive and leaning forwards into the light, towards the next harvest.
invitation
As you stroll, consider what aspects of your life are proving fruitful and which frustrating. Which seeds have flourished, and which have fallen on barren soil? Which projects are bearing gifts, and which feeling burdensome? Where are you flourishing, and where floundering?
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
‘The Trees’ by Philip Larkin
pots
In the Yorkshire Dales, near Horton-in-Ribblesdale, there are two striking chasms in the ground, on the lower slopes of Pen Y Ghent. Both Hull Pot and Hunt Pot are huge canyons, where rivers flow deep underground. A wonderful circular walk from Horton takes in both the mountain and these chasms.
metaphor
The shape of our psyche is made by the currents which flow deep within us, the patterns we were shown in our early childhood, and the experiences which have touched us. Our ‘shadow’ is that part of us which we normally keep from others, from shame, fear or anger, and it is formed by the lessons we imbibed in our early years.
invitation
Come into communion with your shadow. Approach the darkness. Sit with it. Get to know it. Explore it. Enquire of it. Wander around in it. Get bored of it. Make friends with it. Find out what it has to teach you.
I know we often want it all happy and positive,
but that’s just not where much of humanity is.
Many of us are overwhelmed with pain,
undigested sadness, unexpressed anger, unseen truths.
This is where we are at, as a collective.
So we have two choices.
We can continue to pretend it’s not there,
shame and shun it in ourselves and others,
distract and detach whenever possible.
Or we can face it heart-on,
own it within ourselves,
look for it in others with compassion,
create a culture that is focused on authenticity and healthy emotional release.
If we continue to push it all down,
we are both creating illness and delaying our collective expansion. But if we can just own the shadow,
express it, release it, love each other through it,
we can finally graduate from the School of Heart Knocks
and begin to enjoy this magnificent life as we were intended. Pretending the pain isn’t there just embeds it further.
Let’s illuminate it instead.
Jeff Brown
quarries
Quarry sites are common in our hilly landscapes, making dramatic landscape features. Stone cliffs, huge pits, dramatic drops, sunken lakes; all marks of mankind’s economic and industrial relationship with the landscape.
metaphor
The word quarry has a number of meanings and etymologies, which intersect in interesting ways. The mining site is related to the Latin word ‘quarreria’, being to do with cutting stones into fours. From this we get the verb meaning to tease out or extract. The meaning of quarry to do with prey comes from the French ‘cuiriee’ for entrails, being to do with hunting. Both roots combine to create the sense of searching, questing, seeking. Quarry is both the thing we are seeking, and the process by which we might find it.
invitation
What are you searching for? What are your aims and ambitions and how might you go about achieving them? Have a go asking your walking companion some searching questions, going deep into what might be their aspirations for the future. See how much you can tease out, and how one’s ‘quarry’ might change the more we ‘query’ it.
“As you slept
I was thinking about the quarry,
about light going deeper
into earth, into rock, the hurt
of light hitting layers
that should be hidden,
that should be buried,
and how when it rained
for a long time that absence filled
with suffering, and we swam.”‘Quarry’ by Melissa Stein
railway lines
Walking, or cycling, an old railway line is an absolute delight, in part due to its almost total flatness. The lack of incline, the simplicity of the route and the direction is extremely satisfying, getting you from A to B in a generally straightforward manner.
metaphor
The simplest route from A to B, a railway line gets you from where you are to where you need to be with efficiency and convenience. But it may not be the most interesting, stimulating or useful route. It may serve a purpose, without serving your higher purpose.
invitation
As you walk a railway line, consider the extent to which you are on a path chosen and carved out by you, or laid down for you by another. Does this path serve you, interest you, nurture you? Or do you merely tread it because it’s there, simple and ahead of you? What might it feel like to get off this track? To forge another path? To change direction?
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Next time you go for a walk’n’talk with a companion, why not look to nature for inspiration? See if you can match your conversation to the features you see, making use of nature as a mirror; a way in to greater understanding of yourself and others.
And do get in touch if you fancy seeing how all this works on a real ipse wilderness journey!