Dear Friends,

One night this week was one of those incredible moments in life as five planets  lined up in the sky.

Jupiter, Mars and Venus could be seen with the naked eye, but Uranus and Mercury needed a telescope. I caught some of the spectacle in the early evening, having just finished supporting a group of young people with packing kit into barrels for our TurnAround canoe expedition to Loch Lomond next week.

It was a noisy and at times quite chaotic affair in a confined space. We take time to work with each individual and try to explain why certain kit is essential and to share our experience with them about this – tough for them when they have never done anything like this before and cannot relate to the info. Things like wellies over trainers (keep your feet dry in the canoes) , fleece over a cotton hoodie (heavy and won’t dry) and how to keep your sleeping bag dry (need your sleep and it is miserable when wet) etc.

However, once finished, stepping out of the lights and indoor space I found myself gulping a dose of peace, quiet and fresh air. The sky was a pale denim blue with Venus high in the sky and the moon shining brightly; trees were silhouetted against an amber horizon and a chill hung in the cold, still air. It was utterly beautiful and was one of those moments when busy life shuffles down to simple things and we re-connect with things bigger than ourselves, the mystery of the universe, being out of our heads and into our hearts… and experiencing the joy of being alive.

Earlier in the evening, we were blessed with our resident barn owl flying up and down the meadow outside the Education Centre. The whole group were mesmerised, excited at the spectacle of such beauty and wildness in front of us. It is so wonderful to watch them absorbed outside of themselves, and fully present in the wonder of this silent, beautiful bird. Something so small bringing us all together, a shared humanity focused on something other than human, that felt like some gift within our sight.

Personally, these tiny snatches of soaking into wildness, things beyond the human realm, soothe me, and calm me. I sink into a sense of awe and wonder and the rest of things, such a life’s complexity feel  irrelevant in the moment. We see this same effect in all 8,000 participants who come outside with us …whether for nature education or nature therapy. I see it in the faces of staff coming in smelling of woodsmoke or excited by something they have seen or noticed.

We are doing research into awe and wonder. Why do we feel the way we do in the face of nature that takes our breath away? Why did those planets in the night sky move me so much? Research in the Netherlands shares that we experience a lowering of the ego as one outcome. Drawings of the self before and after being in an awe inspiring experience show a smaller person drawn after than beforehand. We are reported to feel more humble, less dominant and less overbearing for other forms of life around us.

Additionally, the cycles of nature and the universe have a timelessness about them that I feel I can rest weary bones on and lean back for respite. When we ask our participants to share what the wild place we are in offers them, most commonly we hear back words like ‘freedom’, ‘calm’, ‘peace’, ‘space’ and ‘tranquility’. The feelings seem universal once we take the time to get out there, reflect and simply notice.

Then the reality and the truth kicks back in as I come out of this natural reverie as I acknowledge that all is not well for the natural world around us. In therapy we often look at anxiety people experience and then ask them to look at the difference between reality and the truth. Reality is the feelings we are experiencing, and then the truth is often very different but inarguable… it is a fact rather than a feeling.

Truth is, I have not seen the barn owl for months (which may be due to being stuck at my desk indoors in the late afternoons) but I swear I used to see it more frequently. So probably the owl is more of a rarity and my lack of time outside means my chances of seeing it diminish. But the truth also includes the fact that we found a barn owl that had been shot with a pellet gun in the meadows close to our woods, and close to the nesting boxes we have installed. It was heart breaking and frustrating.

At our base in Chatham Green on the rewilded parts of the farm, we have created perfect habitat for the owls with meadows suitable for voles and field mice. We have increased space for nature with our planted 12,000 trees maturing, and watch diligently as our various wild community proliferate or shrink. We see more fallow deer of late, but less of the resident muntjac, the nesting woodpeckers did not seem to be in their usual site, but we still hear them, and the badgers have been incredibly industrious with new burrows for their den. The reality is that they are as much a community to all of our team as our lovely neighbours in their houses. I feel like a crazy woman when I walk around the set at  lunchtime – just greeting them gently and hoping that they will understand we mean them no harm as we trundle over their heads.

As I write I find my stomach tighten at any prospect of this land not being there for the wildlife we have encouraged back in. As Chelmsford grows with increasingly rapid housing developments, our rented land most definitely on the map too over time, we are presently also being impacted by increasing road infrastructure.

Traffic is now a major issue as space for wild places and nature shrinks as human habitation grows. Noise pollution impacts our outdoor work and is something we have to adjust to, but was not there in this same volume five years ago. And this is before a large dual carriageway and road system due to be constructed will be less than half a mile away, over the next five years to come.

Like nature we have to adapt and shrink in our expectations, and what we hope for, or are used to. Progress – if we call it that – happens fast and furiously and before we know it – it has covered things over and we forget what was there before.

And then, what about the stars and the planet and the moon that I started this blog with? Our impact on them is hopefully less but we are planning more human engagement with them. However, alongside silent nights that are now lost to traffic, we are losing our vision and the chance of wonder of the night sky, through urban light pollution.

Do we truly need more than two lights outside our houses? We have houses in our rural village with over fifty lights on through the night –  almost like daylight. How does this affect nocturnal wildlife? We are calling for more lighting in towns and streets to feel safer, but the consequences are not always good. The balance could be right out.

The consequence of our bright bulbed lives is the loss of our stars to light pollution. The Times recently wrote that about a new concept called ‘sky glow, a kind of artificial twilight that prevented people from seeing the stars’. They continue to say that a team of researchers from the University of Salamanca in Spain now report that there are no remote places left on earth to install an observatory as everywhere has some form of light pollution. Not anywhere? Deserts, hidden places…all affected? That is hard to digest.

And yet, trying to do the right thing for climate change by buying LED lights with their 24 years life, has been good for using less electricity but has driven up more lighting as it is cheaper. What a crazy state of affairs to find ourselves in.

John Barentine from the University of Utah writes, again in The Times, ‘The loss of dark skies for humanity is essentially incalculable, given the many ways we have connected to the night sky for millennia. The night sky needs preserving and defending for future generations who may not know what we have today.

So with the barn owl, the planets and the stars..we have two things that need our attention. Firstly, to slow down, notice and savour the beauty and wonder that surrounds us whilst we can. It makes us nicer people, happier and calmer.  Secondly, to stay focused on making a difference. Fighting for wild spaces to stay wild – speak up and out, reminding people that green spaces are our natural hospitals and home to other life.

Concrete does not feed biodiversity.

Put nature on a par with ourselves (remembering the truth that we share DNA with bananas, trees and much else), turn off our lights or don’t put them on in the first place, turn our gardens into wildlife havens, and stay humble. Gaze up into the night sky whenever you can, learn your stars even if just a few, and stay small in the presence of galaxies and life that are just so much bigger than us and have existed for eons.

Happy gazing and wishing you all a wonderful Spring and early summer.

Jo and the Wilderness Team