Skeletons of the Summer - memories of our past being.

We are deep into winter, only a month or so to go before the snowdrops and daffodils begin to venture from the earth. But there still stands, in sheltered places, the bleached skeletal remains of the summer past - delicate and intricate reminders of the verdant life that, six months ago, was swelling with green abundance. 

I have been wanting to make an image about this for a long time - a midwinter homage to the plants that are sleeping as seeds deep in the earth during the winter months and will bloom briefly, only to dry up once again as the season turns cold.

For me this image ‘Skeletons of the Summer’ is the closest iteration of the philosophy I believe is behind my foraged still life arrangements. I’m not really interested in exotic flowers, showy specimens or colourful floral abundance, I want to celebrate the unnoticed, commonplace plants that surround you on the most average of country walks. Because once you stop to really look at a humble verge and tune in to what is there, the forms are as exquisite (in my opinion) as anything you could find in a botanical garden!

There is something important to me about this idea, it relates to our psycho/social constructs around appreciation, stimulation, dissatisfaction, and notions of worth. 

I remember a teaching I heard once about appreciation: to illustrate the teacher spoke about owning cars. He noted that when we finish a journey we don’t thank the car for working well that day. In fact more often than not, it is the exact opposite - when the car brakes down we kick its tyre, curse its brokenness not realising that its been working hard all this time with no thanks. This says a lot about taking everyday things for granted, when there are, in fact, continual miracles (like cars that work) happening around us all the time. 

I have found that foraging allows my appreciation to expand, for it slows me down and makes me notice the small details. Unlike the scanning vision of taking in wide vistas, you adopt a much more focussed and mindful view instead. Then when your vision penetrates beyond the immediate broad impression of a patch of scrub, you become aware of the myriad of jewel-like creations; so easy to overlook. Ones sense of appreciation is allowed to relax and expand into deeper and finer realms. 

I have found foraging to be very much like a meditation practice, where the attention is focused and tuned in to incidental phenomena such as the sound outside of your window or the feeling of your legs on the floor. Things that might go unnoticed or even be a source of annoyance can become interesting, and fascinating phenomena to contemplate and even appreciate, once the judgement of good vs bad or nice vs unpleasant is set aside.

A few days ago I was in the woods picking grasses, moss and stems - dried up skeletons of the summer past - for my latest arrangement. As I moved through the trees I noticed a slowing of my being - a kind of calm, like being soothed by a caring parent. It was only in the noticing of the quiet that I understood that for the past few weeks and months there has been a growing disquiet. Of course many are feeling it at this testing time of being locked up and watching newsreels full with virus disaster stories. It was a blessing to be reminded of another world quietly going on whilst our human drama unfolds. 

To connect with nature regularly is really helpful for me; I do experience a calming of my spirit, but most notably when I forage. This is because what I’m doing is inadvertently engaging in a practice that the Japanese call Shinrin’Yoku which translates as forest bathing.

Forest bathing is distinct from a brisk walk and much more a practice of mindfulness of ones natural surroundings. It is to be done slowly, mindfully and by paying attention to little details. Much has been written over the last few years about this simple, calming experience and there is suggestion that it may soon be ‘prescribed’ by doctors as a powerful mental and physical health solution. But beyond loose ideas of “connecting with nature calms you down” that the magazine wellbeing columnists speak about, I wonder what is going on? It is worth taking time to ponder what re-establishing a connection with nature really means, and why it should bring about the observed de-stressing benefits that it does?

It is an obvious assertion that, in stark contrast to our cosmopolitan, and increasingly  virtual existence, we used to live in a much more connected and aligned way with nature. Tribes subsisting on simple agriculture or hunting and gathering were of course more connected with nature, but is that all we are referring to? I am reminded of something the roguish philosopher Alan W. Watts once said: “We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.”

‘We come out this world, not into it.’ This idea stands in opposition to the dualistic notion that our soul comes into the physical world from some other spiritual realm. Rather, Watts suggests that we come from the world like leaves come from a tree. Then he goes on to state that every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature. This is to say that there is an unbroken causal chain of expression (one thing comes out of another ) stretching back from each individual all the way back to what we think of as The Start Of It All - the Big Bang. Each expression of the universe caused the next - resulting in the present you. 

One can see this for oneself quite plainly by the act of tracing our ancestors back through generations. As we go back in time we will eventually arrive at the point that we became modern humans, if we continue on and on back in time, we go past mammals, amphibians, fish, and plankton to primitive single celled organisms - your earliest ancestor. Further back to a time before there was anything we could call life, just ‘primordial soup’. We can assume, to the best of our current knowledge, that life was caused by some kind universal conditions at the time -  life came from the universe and not into it. So from the beginning of the first hydrogen atoms after the big bang, through the formations of the heavier elements and the birth of suns, to the starts of life right up until your birth you have been the universe expressing - in one unbroken chain.

This, I believe is the connection to nature so often spoken about. What it means is there is not simply a connection - which implies two discernible entities attached in some way to each other, but in fact one thing - The Universe, of which you are as much a part as any of the other elements of existence. You are it. 

To use Watts’ analogy - what is a tree? From a distance it is one thing, but as we move closer we begin to label separate parts - leaves, bark, roots, trunk, branches. Each is the tree and the tree is each and all of these things, yet somehow we separate them. In our current state of being it is as if we are all leaves who are mistaken about our true nature,(the whole tree). From our limited ‘leaf viewpoint’ we feel like our short life, spent in a small community of leaves on the end of a certain branch, will soon be over. Fallen to the ground in the autumn wind - we forgot that we were the whole tree.

The feeling of calm and wellbeing one can experience when really tuning into nature is - I hope - a kind of primal memory if you like. It is perhaps a dim and distant awareness of our completeness that we have forgotten about. For what could be more calming and beneficial than to be complete and whole?