I miss abundant nature
It feels like a yearning. Like a loss. But I’m struggling here. Humans are nature. So why do I feel so disconnected ‘from nature’, when I am nature, and people in this city are also nature? What am I missing here?
The old city of Lüneburg where the horizon hides
I am mostly spending my time in the centre of a very old city. Cobbled streets, brick buildings that are two to three stories high. It’s a very pretty city. But in amongst the buildings I miss the horizon. Of course I can wander to the edge of the older part of town and see it. But when I am within the confines of the city itself, the feeling is destabilising? No. It’s disorienting. I can’t see the sun or the direction of the clouds and the wind. It’s been raining here but I can’t understand the context of the clouds - how big are they, where are they coming from, how long will the rain last.
I think being surrounded by so much nature both on the property where I live and the daily walks I do in the bush and along the beach have created an expectation, or a standard, of expansiveness and nature diversity? But also of a very clear connection to the broader environmental patterns of my daily life. The movement and directions of clouds, wind, the sun, moon and tides. This small city feels like a microcosm of life in a much larger city - what must it be like to not have these ecological anchors each day?
I appreciate this is an old city, and there are efforts to include trees and plants (such as the creepers that cover buildings), but I really miss trees. I found one when I was walking around last night and spent some time within it’s amazing canopy. It’s leaves and branches fell all the way to the ground and I felt totally cocooned. It was a beautiful feeling and unlike any I’ve had here so far. I wanted to stay there, it was so peaceful. It reminded me of the lyrics in Eddie Vedder’s song: “Out here, realigned; A planet out of sight; Nature drunk and high.”
A tree canopy I spent some time under to ‘connect’.
An incredibly beautiful form: Japanese anemone
I am also soaking up these small ‘flower islands’. Next to the front door of some houses is a very small patch, and sometimes just a crack in the stone pavers, that grows flowers such as roses or hollyhock and often other species that I assume were not intentionally planted. I have found myself taking photographs of these pretty flowers that come in many colours. I have also found myself smelling the roses and lavender. I must miss the smell of nature. I am even crushing leaves to see if they have a smell. It feels like I need feedback from nature somehow?
The small plants I am finding here are incredibly beautiful though. I am drawn to attune to plants here that back home I would ordinarily walk past. Perhaps it’s because they are isolated pockets of green, where I usually experience a continuum. Some of them have the most incredible growth forms. Like some kind of alien life: leaves and buds and small pom-pom shapes. All different shades of green within the one plant. I am finding incredible wonder in these small moments. These individual plants. I admit to feeling a bit self conscious though. No one else seems to notice the flowers, or stop to smell them.
I am also finding myself very curious about all the berries here. I use my phone to try and figure out what species they are and if they’re edible. Of course the blackberries are, but many others are not. Again it feels like another contrast with the coastal vegetation in Australia that is often edible. My habit is to determine if I can eat the fruits or other parts of the plant at home. That is definitely something I have become more interested in over the years of living in the same place, understanding the various benefits of plants for people.
So what then is this need to connect with the more-than-human world, to experience diversity, ‘big’ nature, to enliven the senses, to be ‘nature drunk’? Is it felt because where I live is such a contrast to here? Is it because of the persistence and intensity of biodiversity that I am surrounded by daily in my life in Australia? Is it ancestral?
I want to keep thinking on this. Perhaps read some more. I can’t necessarily explain it in this moment, but I can definitely feel this deep pull to be surrounded by nature.
