This is a time when so many of us are holding Ukraine in our hearts and thoughts.  But it is also a time when, for us in the Northern hemisphere, the earth is pouring herself out in a profusion of life and leaves and joy.  For me, this is a balance and a healing.  We need the life and the joy to balance the huge amount of anger, fear and sorrow that are being released at the moment. And for those who are feeling weighed down by this, the natural world can be such a place of healing.  Take a walk out where it is green. Breathe in the beauty of new life, and breathe out the pain.  We are about to enter our summer months as Beltane or May Day is the next day, May 1^st.

I love May

I love May.  Everything is here, new-born after winter’s absence, fresh-green and glowing.  The newly hatched leaves are translucent and are as perfect as a baby’s toes, eliciting the same surge of awe.  The trees swell to their full size and you can just catch them in their playdays, unfurling fingers, learning the lure of the sun before they settle into the majesty of their maturity.  The world is green again, and for a moment it is surprise, it is joy, it is balm, before we acclimatise ourselves and it becomes backdrop to our everyday occupations.  I love the green, I drink it in deep breaths to water my parched heart.

And not just green.  The hedgerows are bright with white, hawthorn flowers above, cow parsley below, not the cultured pink of cherry blossom but mile upon mile of the bounty of the wild.  They shine as you drive past, they declare the winter dead and gone and celebrate the opening of the earth.

In May the sun can warm you mellow, playing remembered tunes on white skins.  It calls you outside, out of the dark domain of buildings and into the open air, newly refurbished and ready for custom.  And the air, the air is sweet, perfumed by the abundance of flowers so you don’t even need to hold one close to smell it.  The scents mingle with the sun to bathe you inside and outside with splendour.  At my house there is a waterfall of wisteria blossom over my porch door, and a cascade of white clematis over the back so whenever I enter or leave I am filled with the scent of May. 

I have been reading ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer which I do recommend. It blends scientific knowledge with indigenous wisdom particularly regarding plants. She quotes the Anishinaabe story of creation of the first man, Nanabozho. ‘As he continued exploring the land, Nanabozho was given a new responsibility: to learn the names of all the beings. He watched them carefully to see how they lived and spoke with them to learn what gifts they carried in order to discern their true names. Right away he began to feel more at home and was not lonely anymore when he could call the others by name and they called out to him when he passed, ‘Bozho!’ – still our greeting to one another today.’

This could be the basis of the parallel biblical story in Genesis 2.19: ‘Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.’ However the way it is written gives the impression that Adam (and therefore us) had some kind of authority and superiority over creation. Naming here looks like a way of control instead of knowledge, respect and relationship, not helped by Genesis 1.28 where they were told to subdue and rule the natural world. However the instruction in Genesis 2.15 was to work or serve the land and to take care of it. Let us follow this way, serving and taking care of the land, and the way of Nanabozho, watching and learning from the more-than human beings so that ‘each step is a greeting to Mother Earth’.

In accord with its name

The summer is sizzling the lawn. The short grass has bled its green into the dry earth and has taken on its colour, brown with yellow highlights in its hair from the steady sun. The longer blades are still green so the lawn is mottled with tufts of grass and suckers of trees, and with the green of wildflowers that have now come into their own. Clover predominates, trefoil leaves like lace and white flower heads with russet at the roots. In one corner I have a patch of bright yellow flowers waving in the breeze with deep purple below among the clover. The purple I know, it is self-heal, such a powerful name for so unprepossessing a plant. Perhaps previously we would all have know its uses, all have welcomed it as an easy remedy for infections or inflammations and picked it for our wounds and sores. That knowledge is no longer part of the common fund but is kept in herbalists’ purses. For us it is just a wildflower, but one I treat with respect because of its heritage.

And above, the yellow. How many dandelion-type yellow flowers there are, all glorious in their wild brightness. There are hawkbits and hawksbeards and hawkweeds, not to mention catsears, sow-thistles, nippleworts and various lettuces. I think mine is the lesser hawkbit. I have had them here for years and have never bothered finding their name before. Names make things more intimate, we have been introduced, we have a relationship. I have also found out the name of the wildflower that colonises all my beds, one I always addressed as ‘number 4’ as it was my fourth worst weed. It is herb bennet, and now I find I have to treat it more kindly in accord with its name.

We are now more aware of how beneficial it is for us to spend time in nature and particularly with trees, both for our mental and physical health. Trees of course give off oxygen. But the main cause of these health benefits are chemicals called phytoncides.

Phytoncides are antibacterial and antifungal chemicals that plants emit to create a field of protection around themselves against harmful bugs, bacteria, and disease, but they also protect and help us. The oils boost mood and immune system function; reduce blood pressure, heart rate, stress, anxiety, and confusion; improve sleep and creativity; and may even help fight cancer and depression. When we breathe in these chemicals, our bodies respond by increasing the number and activity of a type of white blood cell called natural killer cells or NK. These cells kill tumour- and virus-infected cells in our bodies.

Exposure to green space also reduces the risk of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, premature death and preterm birth. In comparison to the urban environment, walking in trees lowers people’s blood pressure, cortisol levels, pulse rates, and sympathetic nervous system activity (related to stress), while increasing their parasympathetic nervous system activity (related to relaxation). Hugging a tree also increases levels of the hormones responsible for feeling calm and happy, and for emotional bonding (oxytocin, serotonin and dopamine). So go and enjoy your local green spaces as often as you can.

Wild places

The hazel and hawthorn trees dapple the foxglove and campion. The bracken breaks through like a bishop’s crook, the brambles arch and the nettles gather. They hold silence like a living quality of air, broken by birdsong and bees hum, and the river stroking stones in the hollow. There is a magic quality to wild places that restores the soul.

So what of ourselves? Do we allow wild places to grow in rampant chaos, or do we cut and control our inner being? Is there room for birdsong in our plans and processes, do bees visit our memories? Do we allow nettles and spiders as part of our harmony, or do we prefer manicured thoughts and concrete paths? Can I breathe in an inner silence, can I trust the pillars of trees that border my feelings? Are there rivers I listen to although I can’t see their source or destination? Am I green, can I make my own oxygen?

And when error or disaster have bulldozed pain through my orchards, can I give it time to heal, can I let new growth cover the scars and enjoy the wild flowers that thrive in new-made clearings? Can I trust that the chaos of wild places is as important to my creativity and sanity as my carefully constructed buildings?