A soft breeze slid in through my office window. Spring was here and I was still inside. The outside and all its wonders is waiting for me to unbundle my COVID-19 adaptive isolation and enjoy the sweet benefits of just being outside.
My garden awaits my ministrations. Left without supervision, it has developed a rather ragged appearance with garlic mustard, celandine, dandelions, black walnut and maple seedlings advancing on the hapless herbs and perennials. There is so much to do.
There is also my village, with its homes, churches and shops, waiting for a wander and, perchance, a meeting with an old friend or the possible beginning of a new friendship.
And there is Baltimore Woods, with its meandering trails, endless inspiration from woodland, wild flowers and brooks. I can once again explore the delightful Marcellus park where I have walked the trails many times.
I have to move out, untangle the comfortable hold of isolation and experience the loveliness of the natural world that nourishes us with its quiet, its sweet air, its memories of ancient times.
St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, taught the world that all the earth’s creatures were part of God’s creation, each part of the larger whole, part of a plan that linked all in a concert of life. The earth shimmered with purposeful life. He was focusing on the natural world, not the world that the wealth of his family offered, but the dirt and the stones and trees and the creatures that lived there.
A bit more challenging is the idea that the whole earth has a resonance, linked to the rhythms of our bodies. Think of biorhythms, monthly cycles, seasonal affective disorder, the need for sunlight’s Vitamin D, etc. Are we missing something because we are more attentive to the electric beat from our earphones, our computers, cultural “advancement?”
How do we connect with the resonance of that natural life that exists all around us?
I am thinking of those who were connected who weren’t saints but whose cultural life included meaningful connections to the earth. My father-in-law was an expert forager. A factory worker, he retained his connection to the earth. Taught by his mother, an immigrant from Italy, he knew the earth’s rhythms, knew when to look for the tender shoots of milkweed, the wild mustards, lambs’ ears and mushrooms that grew on trees and others with names I don’t know. He also knew, as Robin Wall Kimmerer said so beautifully in Braiding Sweetgrass, that taking from the earth required taking only enough, leaving enough for growth.
It may be his Italian heritage that kept him connected. As you drive along the Autopista in Italy you will see acres and acres of small gardens, cultivated by city dwellers. Even the most sophisticated urbanites retain the need to be close to the earth.
My English grandmother, too, retained that connection, knowing the signs of when to plant and when to harvest. She knew that taking us for walks along country lanes and pointing out the different kinds of plants as we ambled by was an important part of our educations. When we stayed with her, we were outdoors most of the time, playing in the woods and along the stream that ran next to the unpaved lane behind her house.
I know that I am a different person when I am in my garden. When I walk through the beauty of the woods. When I am picking berries to make jam. When I stand outside in the sunlight and watch the life all around me, the birds, the insects, the flowers, the trees … all living purposeful lives connected to the earth and each other.
There is a growing knowledge that being in nature is important for healthy children and adults. The premise of “The Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv tells us that we are separating ourselves from the very thing that created who and what we are. Our bodies and minds are the creation of life in nature, not changed by inventions, often stressed by the need for our ancient home.
Japanese physicians prescribe time in woodlands as a doctor here would prescribe medicine.
While the stresses of our modern world’s digital devices are often the biggest barrier to our being attentive to that which surrounds us, we can turn them off, or at least put them to sleep while we explore outside.
From “The Last Child in the Woods” there are these words:
“In our bones we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chapparal, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness. We require these patches of nature for our mental health and our spiritual resilience.”
I’ve got my outside shoes on, weeder in hand … I am out.
