Hope or Anxiety

Volunteer rescue team clearing flooded streets

We’re in a new decade and already it is setting the scene for what the future may bring. The outbreak of Coronavirus in China has highlighted issues ranging from the risks with ease of travel and connections to others, through to the supply chains of businesses and the damage to ‘just in time’ processes

Storms in the last few weeks have shown that we face increasingly frequent and severe weather events and highlight some of the hazards faced in changing land use. With violent storms producing vast rainfall over short periods we depend more than ever on the ability of our uplands to slow water flow, to retain moisture in the soil. That much of our upland areas are drained to provide habitat for non-native species, reared so that a few can kill them must be questioned. Surely naturally damming of water courses (perhaps by beavers), the planting not just of trees but of whole forests and the management of upland areas for the wellbeing of all would be a wiser investment for our future than the erection of temporary flood defences. The flow of water needs to be slowed, perhaps captured, not simply diverted. Perhaps as we also face hotter summers we will also need more water storage, more upland reservoirs, again creating facilities for other health and recreational activities.

Seen together, health crises and dramatic weather can be linked. Our ease of international travel means diseases spread quickly. This same ease makes ‘just in time’ production work. However the impact of rapidly transmitted disease also slows the supply chain when production lines are halted. The improvements in atmospheric pollution levels seen as a result of quarantine action in China demonstrate not only the contribution of manufacturing, travel and transport to climate damage but that with the right will, we can rapidly affect our climate positively.

How do we act?

Understanding our communication systems, identifying damaging impacts, and engaging with others can all produce positive results. Being mindful of our own resource use, our own lifestyles and making changes to benefit the ecosystem we are part of can send the message that no action is too small, it will have consequences. Maybe in improving our own health (walking instead of driving, eating less meat), maybe in enthusing others, and just possibly in sending messages that we want things to be different, we want everyone, citizens, politicians, businesses, to be responsible for our future and that of our children. Achieving this even on a small but replicable scale brings hope and reduces anxiety. We are now Global Citizens, facing all the hazards and opportunities inherent in such status. We can act together, addressing issues for the benefit of all. 

Waking Up

I wake up in the morning

To the sound that I’m not dead

It’s the tapping of the seagull 

On the window above my bed

Sometimes it takes an external stimulus to bring you in to the present moment. Whether it is the sound of the seagull or a bright colour, a movement, a shape, a pattern, anything that brings you in to the ‘here and now’, helps you notice.

Colour attracts

The sunlight draws your attention

Movement of the otter helps you notice

Again movement draws attention

Patterns or symmetry may be attractive

Living Mindfully, living with awareness, helps us come out of the ‘Conceptual’ mode common in today’s fast moving environment. An environment where we are constantly thinking, planning, analysing, regretting and my favourite word - catastrophising. A place where we are always wondering ‘what next?’, what if? And why? 

Mindfulness practice, especially a practice based in nature, helps us to enter a more experiential mode, a mode where we notice more of what is around us, a mode where we see the reality of the world we are part of rather than watching the fake reality that can exist in our minds, on TV or other media.

By noticing and engaging with this real world we can learn to be less stressed, less anxious. We can learn to be more appreciative of our senses, how they help us feel, help us simply be.

But there may be a downside. When we engage fully with this natural environment we are part of, we also see how our lives and those of others impact on it, how fragile it is. The key is not to allow the damage seen to cause more anxiety but to use it as a call to action, to engage with others in protecting our ecosystem, our planet, acting to reduce our impact, after all it’s the only planet we have. If we protect it, it benefits us and all other creatures that depend on it.