03/08/2020
Just returned from a five day wild camping trip around the Brecon Beacons. I had been planing it for some months, and liked the idea of just walking out my front door and immersing myself in some of the hills and forests of Wales.
Fortunately the weather was mainly very good, and part from the usual practical issues (always test your gear before you use it, especially if its been up the attic for a year!) a few thoughts struck me that I would like to share.
Lots of people have been struggling with lack of connection and loneliness during these last few months, including myself. I think its a huge issue in our society and at the root of a multitude of other problems, depression, substance abuse and the ensuing suffering they cause, and has only been exacerbated by Covid 19
My experience with it is that I find that at the root of this lack of connection is this feeling that there is something lacking or missing, and if this lack was addressed by another person, a bigger house, a bigger car then all will be fine. Of course, we kind of know that isn’t true, but it doesn’t stop us in this pursuit.
But over the days, through again and again allowing my senses to open and applying techniques of mindfulness and Shin Rin Yoku I started to have a visceral sense of the water that ran through the rivers and streams was no different to the water that ran through my body, which is made up of the elements of the earth I sat upon. I began to remeber how it felt to melt into the environment and through being part of the environment become connected to every being around. How could I feel alone when I was a living breathing part of everything around me, and subject to the same? It was at the same time profound and somehow mundane, a bit like coming home after being away for a long time, only to find things hadn’t really changed, home had always been there, only you had been away.
I also became very saddened to really see how our ancient forest has been decimated to the point where there are scraps of it left, mainly clinging to steep valleys that have no use for buildings or agriculture with beech trees clinging on to the side and a few noble oaks here and there. There are lots of forests, true, but almost completely made up of a monoculture of one or other species, and planted so close together and forced to grow so tall so quickly they remind me of shackled prisoners in an overcrowded yard. They are then harvested in great swathes, leaving ugly scars on the landscape
I firmly believe that these natural environments are critical to who we are, they are part of us and we of them that should we lose them all then we will have created a monster of our own making. They are vital for our sense of wellbeing, and of course for the environments that is dependant of on a complicated matrix of interconnected interactions between all its constituent parts. The thought that these forests that have flourished over thousands of years may soon be gone to make way for train tracks and more development was a difficult one to comprehend.
But on the whole it was a highly positive and affirming experience, invigorating and refreshing. Really exposing myself with purpose to the natural world again and again and deepening that connection that is inherent to us all.
