The journey through nature
Anum Farooq is a little bit lost in nature, and recommends you should be too.
How many moments have you actually lived? Or reflected upon, or marvelled… or just, been? Now, this is not some kind of hippy wisdom, this is an understanding of the world around us. Have you ever ran through rain puddles on a sunny day and seen a rainbow at your side? It might seem comical, but try it, and then we’ll see who is smiling. Tennyson personifies nature as an eagle:
He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring’d with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.
As a fifteen year old studying this poem, I was captivated, so much so that I began dreaming. Dreaming of exploring nature and being lost in the wonderland, and through travel I have attempted to fulfill this dream. Really though, what I was searching for was always around me, right from the day I was born.
Just spend a minute looking and you will notice something you have never seen before
Try this: stop. Right now. What do you see? Zoom out. Look at the big picture, at the patterns that emerge. Zoom in, and see if they are still present. Now, take a moment and look outside, outside of yourself, outside a window. Just spend a minute looking and you will notice something you have never seen before or thought about. See life unraveling before you.
In the mad rush that is our lives, time is a luxury. Paradoxically, the more we have to get done, the more efficient we become, and a good dose of adrenaline helps pump us through the day. As a bachelorette, I run on a 12-hour day: work and countless chores multitasking. I teach, and so despite the lack of time, with a stern but tantrum like tendency, there is always time for nature, despite staying back for detentions! The mix of adrenaline and nature is enjoyable. Or maybe, I just need to get a life.
Often, it is as simple as just hopping through the park, and chucking bread at the birds and finding it funny to chase the ducks. Of course, avoiding dogs (put them on a leash darling). As an undergraduate, occasionally my pilgrimage to Hyde Park consisted of walking all around the lake, stopping at the bridge and just being stunned at the ecosystem before me. Sitting under trees to reflect for a while is normal, my friends tell me it must be tree dampness, not dog wee, where I happen to sit. I believe them.
Exploring greenery is not unlike Enid Blyton’s (yes, old skool!) descriptions. As a teenager, I used to cycle in the Lee Valley and my God, that was truly an incredible experience. There are these paths swamped with willows, hollies, ivies, bushes, trees of all sorts. The path winds through them, eventually coming to the marsh lakes and the canals, with the sky spreading endlessly before. Forests are those magical places where every type of weather is an adventure. In autumn, you can run over the crunchy fall leaves and the branches with closed eyes. There are the emerging snowdrops in winter. And the tree climbing scrapes in summer. Spring, of course, spring, when all of nature is in its element, actually add your own description here.
Waterfalls, valleys and mountains and the eco-kaleidoscope are not mere descriptions, but realities and reflections to reach out to, to explore and make connections with. Would it be fair to say, as we age, that our only horizon was the expansive urban dis-utopia with shots of adrenaline? Even if, even if, we have no time to stand and stare. Why not actually observe your daily journey, your commute, the path you’re walking on. Here’s a challenge, take a moment out every day in your ‘normal’ routine, to stop and see the nature surrounding you and just learn something. Every single day.
Perhaps. I’m just a wannabe hippy thinker; the passion for nature is an innate tendency. My biological mother used to put me under trees as a baby, as some sort of experiment. I guess the connection was made, with the family of trees. Nature, it seems, knows how to look after its own.
The whispers of nature echo…through dusk and dawn In the fields there is nothing but to run with the butterflies In the family of nature Laughing at the whooshing wind As the orange coloured sky turns to pink to navy It only takes a moment to realise The transience of life
