Anja Murray: Looking deep into nature for understanding and comfort
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The darker part of the year is here and this can be a challenging time, especially when it comes to maintaining regular connection with nature. Getting out for a decent ramble along woods, shorelines or in the uplands is a little less appealing than it is during the brighter, warmer months. Whether it's walking, canoeing, cycling, angling, or whatever your chosen favourite way to be in the outdoors is, getting motivated for a winter outing is just not as easy. Good preparation is needed, with full waterproofs and flasks of tea packed. Most of the time, the easier option is to rest up in the warmth of home during these winter months.
But just as clouds have silver linings, there are things we allow ourselves in this darker part of the year, such as sinking into the sofa with a good book — or even a pile of assorted reading — for the whole afternoon. Allocating extended reading time becomes utterly permissible when it's drizzling all day and dark from 4pm.
Most of what I read is thematically related to nature. Novels, narrative non-fiction, ecology and history, all infused with observations that help us see and understand the word.
I just spent a rainy weekend indulgently immersed in The Vaster Wilds, a novel by Lauren Groff... travelling with her words to adventures in other times and places. Her writing is mesmerising, stunningly observant, and visceral. For days I was transported to the vast wild woods, rivers, and canyons of eastern North America in the 17th Century, as English settlers first established towns and fortresses there. The young heroine of the story, surviving on her wits and the bounty of the natural world she knows little of, comes to her own profound understanding of light and dark; the perspectives of trees, ducks, and wolves; and our place in among them all.
To me, this is the power of literature, to mingle knowledge of the world with compelling stories and insights. Books such as these can help us to navigate through landscapes both emotional and material, holding our hand and urging us on as we delve into deeper understandings of the non-human living world and our role in connecting and adapting.
Poetry too, can prompt us to reflect and deepen our understanding of the world around us.
In this collection are poems that fall as treats in our lap to sweeten and steady us. Poems commemorating new life, lost life, leverets breaking fast, marooned seals, wily children, and blackbirds’ eggs. There are reflections among bilberry blossom on mountain hikes and rows of stitching sitting tight like swallows on a wire. The poems span a full century of Irish nature poetry, with poets including some of the greats (including Francis Ledwidge, Seamus Heaney, Moya Cannon, and Paula Meehan) and are arranged in chapters: woods and trees; birds; lakes, rivers and the sea; animals; and hills and mountains.
Poetry and literature are channels that I find help me to reflect upon the daily digest of distressing facts and information... another native bird species nearing extinction... another set of fossil fuel extraction licences issued by our nearest neighbour... another night of bombing in not-so-distant lands.
Feelings are filtered and refracted in a way that creates the emotional space I need to consider such profound occurrences. Poetry and literature help both shield and connect, expanding my ability for empathy as I hide myself away on the sofa, sheltering from the onslaught of new information and more bad news. Reading can even renew our resolve to stand up for what matters.
One of the greatest exemplars of this combination of factual understanding and poetic reflection was the writer, Micheal Viney. Each week he brought readers’ attention to linger on the tiny creatures, meadows, shorelines, and hillside habitats being devoured by land drainage, afforestation, and changing farm practices. He often wove together the wonders of the natural world with those intrepid scientists and explorers who helped reveal them to us. He presented us with losses occurring and the mechanics of the practices driving them. All the while he shared glimmers of the world as it appeared through his eyes, offering a beacon of insight and inspiration for many.
His latest collection of writing, Michael Viney's Natural World, completed not long before he died in May 2023 and published recently, contains writings that spans ancient landscapes as understood through pollen cores and paleobotany; reflects on James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis; and describes the daily routines of otters on the shoreline by his home on the coast of county Mayo. His gorgeous illustrations adorn almost every page and as such, this book will be a delight for anyone with even the gentlest of interest in the natural world.
When we choose our books wisely, reading is one of the most reassuring and constructive ways to fill the darker part of the year, helping to process bad news, counterbalance overwhelming feelings, and nurture knowledge and connection, without losing sight of the severity of the crises unfolding. Writers and other creatives frame how we see what is going on around us, and those who conscientiously digest and disseminate the things that matter are the ones who can allow people space to contemplate ‘big picture thinking'.
Reading is as relevant today as it ever was.
- Anja Murray is an ecologist and broadcaster. Her book was published in March 2023