Sit and Spot Nature

Orla, Wild Figures Participant and creative writer, wrote this beautiful piece for us about how we can find creativity and ourselves in nature.

How to search Nature for your creativity

The doctors tell you you must. The media says Nature will transform you. Your therapist insists you find some creative hobby. Each day is a new journey into the outside. Making the nature process work for you has become a challenge for so many people.

I believe it is true that we need to re-connect and find love for ourselves whilst breathing in the deep peace of forest sounds. We have been living in our heads. We tell ourselves to get up, go there, do this, think this. All day every day we control our thinking.

The sun shining through the trees of a temporate rainforest, with ferns and moss rocks covering the forest floor — Temperate rainforest © Ben Porter

All the Indigenous Elders of Earth say we lost our souls and the only way to find our souls again, is through Nature. It’s a fabulous notion, but how does it work?

Step One is step out. Believing you are creating a new way of living can provide purpose. You are stepping out to find your still place first. A still place can be a sit spot. Somewhere you can take deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth without feeling like an eejit. A thermal camping mat cut small suits me. You might prefer a cushion. Warmth and comfort are vital as we sit and breathe. This is where we learn to switch off our heads.

All those endless tasks, notions, guilts and worries need to cease whirring. We have to learn ways to gather them up for release. Thirty minutes stillness, on your sit-spot, breathing deep will ease all your troubles.

You are informing your body that this moment is safe. I like to watch ants or wood louse. I like to wonder what their lives are like. I wonder how I would build a nest. I wonder how far down tree roots go. Creating the storyline of how you improved the quality of your life is important for some people.

Red ant by Billy Clapham, The Wildlife Trusts — Red ant by Billy Clapham

How you feel, when breathing in birdsong, is your own recipe for healing. I like a Nature Treasure. I like to discover something nature discarded, that I can have and hold and create a story for.

Below is a poem Orla wrote for our Wild Figures Practitioners.

Bird singing on a branch — Corn bunting (Milaria calandra) adult singing in hedgerow. - Chris Gomersall/2020VISION

The Birdbox in Beryl’s Garden - By Orla Broderick

For Jo and Simon, Wild Figures’ Nature Protectors

Last summer, pre-HRT, we took six wrong buses.
All day we went the opposite way.
My collie panted. I sweated.
Again and again, bus numbers swam into shapes.
We arrived in Devizes for a train.
The station closed in 1966.
My desire for fresh salad leaves manifested as four family size organic veg boxes.

Quantities, times, dates, bus schedules became the stuff of another dimension.
I arrived a week early for the doctor.
Explaining my cognitive confusion caused distress,
I was prescribed Nature;
Wild Figures counting creatures flying,

Every Monday, In some far-flung still place,
Frying veggie sausages
On a fire, we eased that fear
Of numbers.

Learning from Nature Protectors,
That birdsong is medicine,
We planned to build a bird box each.
Each group member baulked, refused.
Weeks of coaxing, Gentle coaching
We tried it anyway.

Out in a far-flung forest, on workbenches, with saws.
And birdsong,
A passing deer,
Dragon flies
Butterflies.

My dog watched me sweat and saw the correct dimensions, shapes, sizes.
I hammered home each nail.
I built a beautiful bird box.
Each time we take a bus, I think of bird boxes.

I can build and gift,
Therefore, I can overcome
With birdsong, dragonflies, a passing deer
And butterflies.