Over the last few weeks and months we have been doing some work on our house. This has involved countless trips to IKEA, B and Q and the like – all at a time when I have resolved to consume less, to make more with my own hands, to produce more of my own food and to live more simply. All those middle class contradictions are getting to me again- particularly when in the middle of it all I read this;

…Even in the much-publicized rebellion of the young against the materialism of the affluent society, the consumer mentality is too often still intact: the standards of behavior are still those of kind and quantity, the security sought is still the security of numbers, and the chief motive is still the consumer’s anxiety that he is missing out on what is “in.”

In this state of total consumerism – which is to say a state of helpless dependence on things and services and ideas and motives that we have forgotten how to provide ourselves – all meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken.

We do not understand the earth in terms either of what it offers us or of what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

Ouch- I thought as I gathered up the cardboard wrappings of yet another flat packed piece of furniture.

All this stuff we accumulate as we go through life- endless cycles of gathering and clearing out. Journalist Mark Hudson proposed four stages in our relationship with stuff;

1. Wanting it all- life is about seeing stuff, wanting it, collecting it, playing with it, wanting the stuff other people have that is better than ours.
2. Getting rid of it all- As we head out into the world, we no longer need all those treasures of our childhood- we put it in bags, lofts and dustbins. Experiences become more important
3. Buying it all back again- We crave the stuff we used to have, and the feeling of security, pleasure and fulfilment we get from surrounding ourselves with walls of stuff.
4. Getting rid of it all again. As we get older, we become more discerning about the stuff we want to hold on to. And we begin to worry about all the sorting out our kids will have to do.

Standing in the middle of my freshly made room, I find myself asking again how on earth can we do it differently- how can we make a better way of being? Is it really possible to exist within this consumer driven culture of ours and not to be consumed by consuming?

Time for another quote;

“We have to create culture! Don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines, don’t even listen to NPR.

Create your own road show  The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you’re giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y.

This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told ‘no’, we’re unimportant, we’re peripheral. ‘Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.’

And then you’re a player, you don’t want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”
Terence McKenna

I don’t know much about this bloke- I think he was a bit of a Hippie ‘herbalist’, but I find myself in (albeit passive) agreement.

Many of us are longing for life that does not conform to the same tired, self destructive, addictive patterns. Perhaps this year is going to be our year of new beginning.

Let the wild rumpus begin…

It is coming. Christmas is hard to miss after all- our TV screens, magazines and on line portals have been full of it for weeks already. All the marketing hype might turn us all cynical, but for many of us there is still something at the heart of the season worth celebrating- whatever religious perspective we may hold.

The Dickensian ideal of turning away from naked profiteering capitalism towards the simple things – family, philanthropy and the smiling face of Tiny Tim – has become so integral to our idea of Christmas that it impossible to imagine any celebration of Christmas but through this Victorian stained glass lens. We start to measure all our Decembers against this Platonic ideal state.

And there is the rub because there is this other experience of Christmas that most of us are also familiar with which involves huge stress, pressure and potential debt. Christmas hype places a burden on us that is almost impossible to resist. People who are on their own or struggling with poor mental health or a low income are particularly vulnerable ( check out the Mind campaign.)

Most of us have seen the Asda advert which highlights the burden on women. A charity called Alternativity have been running a campaign to change our views of Christmas. Development worker Margaret Paul was quoted as saying this-

We know that our communities women bear the main burden of Christmas and what should be a happy time can be very stressfull, especially where money is concerned. 

Some women see Christmas as a chance to make things up to their children because they live in poverty all year round.

All this means that people are starting to push back and start to reform our collective celebrations of Christmas. This seems to reveal itself in a confused duality in most of the media outlets; alongside the expensive perfume and tablet PC adverts are articles inviting us to simplify, to spend less, to make gifts and to focus on family and friends.

Despite the confusion, Christmas still contains within it something that feels important; something that allows us to celebrate aspects of who we are, what we want to be, as well as reaching out to others as we do so. The question is rather about how we do this. So in conversations with friends over the last few weeks, I often hear people describing interesting ways to celebrate Christmas. Some have arranged gatherings of friends, at which they exchange ‘Secret Santa’ presents (each person supplying just one anonymous gift.) Another friend describes how his family have agreed to only by presents of less than £5 for each other, from charity shops. They know they are likely to get tat (but sometimes will be surprised by treasure) and they will be supporting charitable causes in the process.

There are some more organised campaigns out there encouraging us to think again;

Buy Nothing Christmas takes a radical approach from a churchy perspective.

Then there is the wonderfully irreverent Reverend Billy, and his ‘Church of Not Shopping’. Great fun- check it out and laugh out loud. You should also take a look at his ‘Choir raid’ on the Mall of America.

Lots of Charities now offer ways of giving to others whilst at the same time as giving to those in need. It started out with Oxfam, with their ‘Oxfam Unwrapped‘  range. I have several Donkeys, some chickens and the odd medical person wandering around Africa in my name.  They are becoming more creative in the gifts options.

You can also twin your toilet to enable the building of local community facilities elsewhere.

However you spend your Christmas, may you celebrate richly, and experience deeply.

Life coaching has moved outdoors. Or at least Argyll based coach Nick Smith has taken it there. For Nick, wilderness is not just a pretty office- it is a dynamic psychoactive experience all on its own. What he has discovered is that by conducting coaching conversations in wild places, people are open to possibilities in new ways. Nick combines his experience as an outdoor instructor, life coach and business consultant in a business called Square Pegs Coaching, and I asked him some questions about how he used wilderness as a therapeutic tool. Firstly I asked him to describe his journey into his current business;

Following a short career in engineering and IT, I retrained as a youth worker and focussed on being outdoors, using wild environments to help people step away from ‘normal’ life and look at themselves. I subsequently left full-time outdoor work and got into more training and coaching but quickly realised that not only was I not cut-out for an indoor life but that there were many other people in the world who felt the same way. I now use a mix of environments, both indoor and outdoor in order to facilitate the training and development work that I am involved with. Personal development courses in leadership or team building subjects will have elements of outdoor work and I aim to do as much of my life coaching outdoors as possible.

Next I asked Nick why he wanted to site his activities in wild places- what is special about coaching outdoors?

Going to wild places helps us to cut off completely from the reality and busyness of everyday life, allowing us to immerse ourselves in a place without any distractions that relate to normality. We can choose to survey the surroundings or not. We can interact with the environment around us but there is no requirement to, no phones ringing or email to be checked. Time slows down and reflection sets in. This then provides the perfect environment for people to consider their lives and how to improve it. Coupled with that, with so many scenes of natural beauty to look at, it is quite acceptable to be talking and looking around – for people who find it hard to sit face to face and talk, this is the ideal excuse to never have to; walking side by side, admiring the view and yet still talking in depth.

I asked him to describe this process in action;

The wild places I pick for individual coaching tend to be picked for their proximity to travel options if it is a standalone session. Generally though I will try to pick somewhere with an elevated open aspect to allow us to gaze at the view, getting a long distance vision, providing a metaphor for the future they are looking to create. As well as that though, it tends to be the point where people realise why they decided to be coached outdoors – it makes it worthwhile for them and often is the point where you see visible signs of further relaxation. The coaching session / leisure time boundary is at its thinnest here. Group sessions will often be located in a place good for specific activities but again there usually comes a point of realisation that the surroundings are beautiful and special. This can bring on a great sense of connectedness with the universe as a whole and in one case specifically brought hope that there was a point to it all and a happiness appeared to ensue from that point on. People react differently to the natural environments that I use but all in a positive manner that brings with it an attitude that is more helpful for the coaching process

Finally I asked him where he saw his practice developing towards;

I plan to continue to use wild places for coaching people, possibly building in more metaphors that can be useful for them. Whilst I always want to be free to use convenient places,  I’m constantly looking for new places to journey with people which can provide more useful experiences for them in terms of relating it to everyday life.

If you are interested in finding out more about what Nick has to offer to both individuals and groups,  check out his website.

The promised land always lies on the other side of a wilderness

Havelock Ellis

Many of us who love wild places constantly will describe the transformational effect of being immersed in wilderness. We may consider many subjective benefits- the lowering of our stress levels, a deeper appreciation of our place within the ecology of life, our sense of the ageless beauty of natural things.

Measuring these benefits objectively is more difficult. There are of course clear physiological advantages to exercising in the outdoors, but what (if any) psychological benefits can we point towards?

Peter Kahn and his colleagues at University of Washington have been working on this for a while- in one simple experiment  they installed plasma TV “windows” in workers’ otherwise windowless offices for a period of 16 weeks, and then took various measures of psychological function. They found that those with the “views” of parkland and mountain ranges had a greater sense of well-being, were clearer thinking, and a greater sense of connection to the natural world.

Next they compared office workers with plasma TV’s in their offices with people with real windows overlooking trees and grassland, and exposed them to mild stress- the sort that raises the heart beat- and waited to see how long it would take for them to calm down. What they found was that those with the real window calmed down quicker. The TV seemed to have no more benefit than a blank wall. If you are into reading academic papers, it is here.

What might be going on here? University of Michigan psychologist Marc Berman suggested that nature might actually shift our brain from one processing mode to another. In cities, we are constantly stimulated- so we use a more focussed analytical attention style. In this way we are able to deal with rush-hour traffic and sirens and all those other urban noises. Berman suggested that this is also the kind of attention we need to study for exams, make financial decisions, do business deals and so on.

It is also the kind of attention that we use up. It burns out, or burns us out. Berman’s theory is that being in wild places shifts the mind to a more relaxed and passive mode, allowing the more analytical powers to restore themselves. Berman too did some experiments to test his theory;

He gave a group of volunteers a very difficult mental reasoning test that measures the kind of focused attention needed for school and work. They were then given additional task to further deplete their normal ability to concentrate, to mirror a typical high pressure day at work. Then all the volunteers took a three-mile walk- half the volunteers took a leisurely stroll through a secluded park, while the others walked down a busy city street, after which the psychologists again measured their focus and concentration.

You can see what is coming- as reported in the journal Psychological Science, those who had been on the nature walk had significantly better focus and attention than those who had been required to negotiate the city streets. Being in nature does indeed appear to replenish our reserves of concentration and analytical attention capacity.

It also suggests that being in nature allows us to switch to a different kind of attentiveness- less focussed, more holistic and open.

There is also some interesting research about how this kind of attentiveness might affect irritability, even aggression. This from here;

The hypothesis laid out by Frances Kuo and William Sullivan of the University of Illinois was a marvel of logic and sequence: If fatigued attention is related to irritability, and irritability leads to aggression, then perhaps people deprived of nature’s restorative qualities would be overly aggressive (Kuo & Sullivan, 2001).

Kuo and Sullivan tested their premise on 145 female residents of a public housing complex in urban Chicago. The complex provided natural control and study groups: Some residents lived in buildings that overlooked “pockets of green,” while others had a view of only bleak concrete. The researchers reported significantly lower levels of aggression and violence in residents with apartments near nature than in those who looked onto barren lands. When handling disputes with their partners, women in the nature group used fewer “psychologically aggressive conflict tactics” and fewer “mildly violent conflict tactics” than those whose randomly assigned housing unit was denied exposure to nature.

So, the next time you need to undertake some kind of task think of this- if you need space, then find some.

It might do you more good than you think.

Even the National Trust are doing it now – inventing classifications of mental illness.

In fact it was a US based writer Richard Louv who first began to use the words ‘nature deficit disorder’ to describe a growing dislocation between children and nature.

The NT are quoting findings from their Natural Childhood Report by naturalist and author Steven Moss, who suggests that a steady stream of surveys have highlighted how a generation of children are losing touch with the natural world.  The NT are planning to launch a consultation into what we all think about this.

The Trust argues that the growing dissociation of children from the natural world and the growth of what it calls the “cotton wool culture” of indoor parental guidance impairs the capacity of children to learn through experience.

It cites evidence showing that:

• children learn more and behave better when lessons are conducted outdoors
• symptoms of children diagnosed with ADHD improve when they are exposed to nature
• children say their happiness depends more on having things to do outdoors more than owning technology.

Yet British parents feel more pressure to provide ever more gadgets for their children than in other European countries. This from here;

The statistics reveal that things have changed dramatically in just one generation:

• Fewer than ten per cent of kids play in wild places; down from 50 per cent a generation ago
• The roaming radius for kids has declined by 90 per cent in one generation (thirty years)
• Three times as many children are taken to hospital each year after falling out of bed, as from falling out of trees
• A 2008 study showed that half of all kids had been stopped from climbing trees, 20 per cent had been banned from playing conkers or games of tag

Authority figures and layers of bureaucracy have combined with a climate of ‘don’t do that’ to create an environment where fewer and fewer children play in the outdoors. This has led to a situation where kids having fun in the outdoors are painted as showing signs of anti social behaviour.

The research shows that capturing children before they enter the teenage years is crucial with the research clearly showing if you get kids hooked before they reach twelve years old, you’ll create a lifelong passion for the environment.

It has to be said that there are sceptics. Some see the NT study as nothing more than a slightly sensationalist money raising campaign, aimed at adding another layer of guilt/concern on to middle class parenting.  Others have questioned the science- writing in the Guardian, Aleks Krotosk had this to say;

…public discourse needs to be balanced and critical. Using emotive language such as “electronic addictions” and “the extinction of experience”, as this report does, undermines the so-called “science” that the National Trust is presenting in this document. Scientific claims are backed up by evidence. Preferably primary sources – not press releases.

Researchers have spent more than two decades untangling the web’s effects on our lives, and have discovered where it disrupts our existing social practices, and where it doesn’t. This is indeed an important issue for public scrutiny, but the method of wrapping up a half-truth in a lab coat and presenting it as an evidence-based review of the literature is as insidious as a PR company commissioning an academic researcher to find a predetermined outcome.

Evidence-based argument is the hallmark of the lively and informed debates we as a population have engaged in since the reformation, and is the cornerstone of an engaged and critical society. The 27-page press release published by the National Trust that describes a made-up disorder is only intended to inspire a reaction and fuel uncertainty. Rather than open up debate, this kind of thing serves to close it down. And that is just not scientific.

She has a point. People said listening to the wireless would make us deaf and watching TV would turn our brains to jelly. Of course all the changes brought about by the internet on the way we humans interact may indeed be considerable but they are also irreversible.  We are on the brink of one of those paradigm shifts and it is difficult to know exactly where it will all lead, but there is no going back.

However, many of us will read the words of the NT’s National Childhood Report and feel that it is saying something important. It may be rather difficult to scientifically quantify, but we instinctively sense that our disconnection with wild places might yet be a huge mistake.

It might be a huge mistake because in losing our place in the natural order of things, we lose something of ourselves.

It might also be a huge mistake because in losing our connection with the natural order of things, we might also be part of the destruction of everything.

When I was small, my mother took me camping. I found a dead squirrel and it was so lovely that I sneaked it into my tent along with a lot of still alive fleas. I swam in a river for hours and ended up with stomach ache from something I swallowed. I climbed trees and had to be rescued.

We also joined a rambling club. I still remember those long trudges through Derbyshire, almost too tired to speak.

These experiences, good and bad, never left me. They became the platform for my own adventures as an adult. I hope for the same for my own children. And theirs.

I believe these are reasons for optimism.