Wild Service is a collection of essays; that were inspeired by a paper released by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences which measured fourteen European coutnries on three factors: biodiversity, wellbeing, and nature connectedness. Britain came last in every single category. The editor states that the findings are clear, we are suffering, and nature is too.
This is a series of thirteen essays, and I did not take notes on all of them; I did however note down some key points. One part of Jon Moses essay on Reconnection discussed a rope swing; and in particular how a rope swing can be used an artefact of when a space becomes a place.
Some other points I noted:
‘Eco-anixty has been incubated in this environment, as an unattended grief is paired with a complete lack of agency to do much about our dyign landscapes and kin. Our options have largely been limited to litter picking or paying a monthly subscription to an institution to ‘do the work for us’ while the decline continues.’ (pg 40)
‘In a time of ecological crisise, who are landowners accountable to? Some landountes like to invoke future generations as the beneficiaires of their stweardship. This at least has the merit of invoking long-term thinking. But futre generations by definition, do not yet exist, so can conveniently exercise a judgement over one’s acitons in the present. It’s the secular equivalant of landowners only being answerabl to God in the Last Judgement.’ (pg 50)
‘We can all relearn our connections with nature. Through immersion in nature, kinship comes naturally. I’ll never forget trespassing in a forest at dusk. After nervously panting up a hillside, I stopped and heard nothing but a faint drumming and in a rush of fear and excitement, realised it was my own heartbeat. Just for a moment, it felt as though inside me was the beating heart of hte forest; the animals, plants and fungi were listening and inviting me to listen back. John Berger called such moments ‘forest incidents’, events giving us momentary timelessness amid the energy and complexity of a forest. Through such connections, we can walk alone in the woods without feeling lonely, superior or ashamed to be home but simply part of the whole.’ (pg 89)
‘Community is one of hte most powerful ideas (or insticnts) we have ever had as a species. The thought that the common place, and the things we have in common, can bind us all together – as something that entwines, supports, connects, and brings along with it (like wild clematis or hneysuckle through a hedge) is extraordinarily common in itself. It is a concept full of hope and possiblity in these times of multi-crises.’ (pg 119)
‘Responsilblity or stewardship for nature doesn’t therefore lie just with the landowner. That’s a heavy load to bear (or not bear) and must be shared amoung us all, one way or anohter, if we are to stem the catastrophic loss of it and stop cutting off hte branch we are sitting on’ (pg 127)
‘To reconstruct our conection to land we have to resurrect our connection to myth. We must use our imagination, the wildest creature in teh menagerie of our minds, to conspire with nature. We must tell stories, old and new, that regnerate a culture of mythos that exposes logos for the madness that it is. And Worzel is no bad place to start. If England is hte ten-acre field of Worzzel Gummidge, then its people are the two protagonists, oprpahned children search for a home in nature. And the scarecrow, a turnip in a hat, is the bridge between our experience and that of hte living world; he is the imaginative leap that bridges the human and non-human creates conneciton. It is easy to dismiss Worzel Gummidge as make-bleive. But this, too, is a symptom of logos. Becuase the root of the word make-belive could well be the source of our new mythos, the first step to regenerating a culture of care. From the Germanic lieben, to make-bleive is to make beloved. (pg 150).
As much as we need nature, nature needs us. Nature needs us to show up in our most songful, artful ways. The real progress begins when enough of htese sommonings amalgamate and trigger a tidal surge. Their gathered iridecence glowing so bright, so irresistible, that at some point their inherent demand for a better way collectively prevails over the laws and lawmakers that legitimise and prioritise nature’s decimation. This is when the dreamwork really happens. It’s then we wake giants, the dragons stire, adn the revolution of priorities, of what needs saving, can begin. (pg 209).
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