Weather Patterns
the tonic of wildness
On an early evening walk around our local Beacon Fell at the edge of the Forest of Bowland, I stop for a while at the summit trig point, listening to the wild winds of Storm Jocelyn blowing through and reflect on the weather patterns here over the last week. The temperature is now 11° at 4 pm, whereas just a few days back at the same time it was -5.
In a short time, we have seen a period of high pressure that brought snow, heavy, lingering frosts with temperatures not rising above zero over 3 days, to be replaced rapidly by the high winds of Storm Isha and now Storm Jocelyn. On these walks I have enjoyed wading through snow, skittering on ice over frozen paths and now feel exhilarated in the high winds
Yet storms are participatory. Standing at the cliff-top I do not simply watch a storm, I am interacting. I do not merely feel its power; there is an energy exchange, an almost recognisable communication between the storm and me. We are made of the same stuff. Together we are emotional, physical, chemical, and fundamental. ( (Windswept, Life, Nature and Deep Time, Annie Worsley))
Changes in weather patterns continually show how intricately linked everything is, how things are more complex than we think they are, how the climate is changing our weather patterns, and with it affecting our moods, from feeling depressed under blanket dull clouds to feeling alive in cool temperature when the sun bounces off the frozen ground.
… love wind as it trades so much light, sound, colour and scent … (Windswept)
Last week had given a day of brilliant clarity with stunning sunset views to North Wales, 50 miles Southwest …
and to the Lake District 50 miles to the north …
Cailleach Bheur, the Celtic goddess also known as Beira, the Queen of Winter, is said to bring forth the winter season each year by creating the first snowfall. She is also responsible for shaping our mountains and hillsides
Spending time in the different weather patterns, with rapidly changing temperatures and winds, being able to visit and interact with nature daily over several years, to be able to witness and feel not only the changing of seasons but also of micro seasons, all leads to a greater connectivity a greater awareness of systems and has brought me to where I am in my thinking and passion within the regenerative and nature-positive space.
“Touching the earth seems to ground something erractic in me, to attune me to some pattern deeper than my own”
And it is through reflections such as this, on a low-lying windswept fell, walking and taking time to be nature that has led to the biophilia walks and biophilic sessions I facilitate for many projects, organisations and groups. Here we explore not only what we see, but how being in the elements of nature makes us feel, and how we bring those feelings into our lives, our designs, projects and organisations.
We need the tonic of wildness to wade, sometimes in marshes to hear the booming of the Bittern ... that all things be mysterious and unexplorable and infinitely wild, unseeded and unfed by us, because unfathomable, we can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigour, vast, and titanic features. (the words of Thoreau from Walden Pond used in the BBC Rare Earth program that asked the question, is nature better off with us nature needs us)