Wild in the City Magazine

Beth Collier speaks to four black women about their love of nature

One of life’s simple pleasures, the enjoyment of nature and our natural heritage. When we make time for nature the benefits radiate throughout our lives. I spoke with four women about what they loved about nature and how nature features in their life.

Seated in a luscious green meadow speckled with the yellows and pinks of buttercups, birds foot trefoil and red clover, the women described how time in nature was a source of positive energy that helped them improve their relationship with theirselves and others.

Sittana, xx, Nurse, East London

What do you love about nature?

I think for me it’s just kind of connecting, seeing something bigger than ourselves. I’ve tried to see my life within a bigger context, so I’m looking a lot and being more introspective. It gives me room for reflection in a way that I didn’t realise that I didn’t have that space as I journal a lot, I try and take walks regularly but within the city, so I like to get lost walking along the South Bank, but I didn’t realise that actually it’s a different type of reflection when you get out into these open spaces. So for me know that;s what I’m getting from being out in nature, it’s got me to question a lot of my relationships with people as well connecting on a deeper level. At work as well how to bring more meaning to my work which I always thought I had a lot of meaning from my work, I work as a nurse in different specialities – intensive care, in the community, with really vulnerable people, but it’s different now. I feel that the last few weeks have made me see it all in a different light.

How do you feel when you’re in these spaces?

I feel calm, grounded very reflective. It makes me in awe of nature as well. I feel grateful that’s something I feel very grateful to have the chance to experience the world as it is. Learning to be present and accepting life as it is, that’s one thing I used to struggle with, being able to sit down and meditate. I’m very much always on the go.

As we sit here now, how does nature make you feel. We’re sat in a beautiful meadow, lined by trees. What are the emotions that this evokes?

Calmness, acceptance of myself. I feel that I dont have to feel anyting its such an amazing feeling there is all this stress and anxiety and 100 things that I have to do. And now I’m not even thinking about any of that, right now it’s just about being present and grateful.

What role does nature have in your life now?

I think I see it everywhere now in a way that I didn’t before. I went to Ikea a couple of days ago and there was a tiny canal, I would never have noticed before. It’s a very urban area next to a motor way, I would have just got off the train and gone to straight to Ikea before whereas now I’m trying to look at the wild flowers at the side of the road. I’m just stopping and taking it all in. Yesterday I went to the gym and on the way I go through a park and normally I just go through to the gym but yesterday I sat down under a tree and meditated for 10 minutes and just kind of took it in. Just allowed myself to absorb that and I think for me that’s what I take from it now, wherever I am nature is there and I can stop what I’m doing whether to run errands somewhere and take 5 minutes to enjoy it even within a busy city like London.

Laurel, xx, xxx

What do you love about nature?

I love the grounding effect. that it brings me back to a truer sense of reality and I feel like I’m carrying that away. I think when I feel connected to the earth I feel able to connect to everything in a more rational way, in a more spiritual way, in a more – just more the way that I need to. I feel like that connection with the earth and connection with nature is the base of it. I feel that that is largely due to the fact that we neglect that we are part of nature and when we distance from it we are distancing ourselves from ourselves. So I feel that it is very much a metaphor for being rooted and from their everything else can flourish.

What kind of role does nature play in your life here and now , at the moment in your life what role is nature playing

It’s very supportive and I’m able to learn about life and all it’s multiplicities and nuances, you can see that in nature – what survives where and the strategicness of it – like how you were showing us earlier with the ivy growing with the light and then choosing how to transfer and also that sense of ..I very much feel that the work that I’m doing to deepen my relationship with nature now is going to continue to grow and continue to serve me. It is very nourishing and it’s something that I’m trying to make part of my daily practice and my daily understanding. With food, I’m vegan, so a lot of my relationship with plants also comes home with me. So I guess it’s kind of an inner and outer understanding that I’m trying to develop. I would definitely say that it is something that is opening up more and more for me during this time. I feel more confident.

You mentioned food and I was wondering, what are the things you are doing as a means of engagement – walks, how you’re having that connection

With walks right now, a lot of it is about observation and seeing that there have been these things around me this whole time that I haven’t necessarily recognised, especially in a city – if someone told me that this was in or near London, I’d be like ‘what?’ and now I’m accepting that and processing that so it is definitely waking up to these things that were here all along. The efficiency, the skills that we’re learning in terms of what is poison, what is useful, how to set up a camp, what animals like this – that kind of knowledge, I guess that is really where I’m at now, really what I want to gather. So it’s constantly learning and taking pleasure in that. I also like, like you were saying before, like that sense of oral tradition, I’m a proper bookworm but sharing with other people and people of colour. It’s just something I think I’ve been looking for for a long long time. Maybe to have one person or two, but to have a group of people is like mad, mad’s not he word – it’s unusual. So I feel very grateful, this feels like I’m passing a tipping point for what I’ve been searching for and every time your talk about a course, I’m like ok – there’s foraging, there’s navigation. It’s definitely about pleasure, slowing down.

Lateisha, xx, xx

what do you love about nature?

A lot of stuff really, I love the peace that comes from being in nature. Time to just look around at the natural world and take time to appreciate it and appreciate seeing it and appreciating what it gives me as a fellow creature on this earth and understand the histories at play but also how nature can unify people actually, people who want to be unified. So much of what we need is already in nature, it’s how we remember it.

How do currently engage with nature, is it part of your life and if so how?

so doing this course and …trying to make space for everyday actions, like going for walks. I have a plant based diet – eating – lifestyle, whatever you want to call it. And growing at home. Small things but that has a wider impact definitely psychologically but also in terms of the environment. Even though I say small things there is bigger impact.

Dawn, xx, South Ken

What do you love about nature?

I love the peace that it provides.And it’s the support that I feel, that you can come away from the chaos and the stress and just breathe easily and just take some time.

Has nature always been in your life?

Yes, especially after I turned 60, I went home to Jamaica and where we live in Jamaica is up in the mountains, [where as children] so we’d run wild.

And now in the UK, what kind of role does nature have in your life?

Therapeutic I would say, because I tend to walk along the river. It’s 3000 steps to the river from where I live, and I walk on the river. It’s 6000 steps to Putney Bridge and then I walk across the bridge on the woody side of the river, I walk to Barnes some time, sometimes I walk all the way back around to Chiswick, back to Hammersmith and home.

Walking and Water, what do they do for you?

Soothe. Especially if I’ve have a hard time. I started walking more in earnest after I lost my partner and initially I thought that I was getting a bit of agrophobia and the way to deal with that was to get out and start walking. And I’d encourage people to come out with me, so if someone came to see me I’d say OK let’s go out for a walk.

It sounds that nature is a great facilitator for conversation

…and just for quiet sometimes because you know, you walk you chat, you keep quiet. It’s very grounding.

Well my birth sign is a water sign, I’m a fish. For me the water is very intrinsic