Tell me, what is it you plan to do?

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass,

how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

(Extract from Mary Oliver’s ‘The Summer’s Day.’)

This summer I attended Fiona Williams’ brilliant session at the Creative Bridges conference: ‘What Can Writing for Wellbeing Offer in an Environmentally Challenged World?’

This session prompted me to think more deeply about what I might do with this ‘one wild and precious life.’ How can we, as words for wellbeing practitioners, bring our role as ‘poets’ into balance with our role as ‘activists,’ calling for the urgent changes necessary in the context of climate breakdown.

More specifically it has prompted me to think about what my Creative Group Work Practice might look like in the context of my new home - Gran Canaria - where I moved with my family in January this year, in pursuit of a dream of developing a permaculture project on a farm that has been in my husband’s family for four generations.

Burnt heart

I woke up early this morning and did yoga on the roof, looking out over the palm trees and grey mountain. This, along with writing and drawing, is one of the ways that I find helps me to love the volcanic landscape that is now my home.

Forest fires ripped through the heart of the island over the summer, razing 10,000 hectares of land. These fires have foregrounded what, as far as I am concerned, is the key issue of our times. Evidence clearly shows a relationship between climate change and forest fires, with raised temperatures and lack of rain creating ‘tinderbox’ conditions that cause a fire to spread quickly.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) we must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 45 percent within the next ten years to have a reasonable change of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Given the fact that carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018 it seems improbable that this will be achieved. In fact it has been suggested that, within just ‘ten years from now, a social collapse of some form will have occurred in the majority of countries around the world.’ (Bendell, 2019)

Really looking at these facts has triggered in me a number of responses: grief, fear, anxiety and feelings of hopelessness - all of which my personal journalling practice has helped me to work through to some degree.

Connecting with creativity

I recently completed a Diploma at the Institute of Group Analysis (IGA). The gestalt concept of ‘figure’ and ‘ground’ is a key part of group analytic theory. Seen through this lens climate change can be seen as the ‘figure’ on the ‘ground’ of a ‘sick society’ (Shepherd, 1995) which uses our home - the natural world - as capital for the generation of wealth.

Given the rise in the total number of people living with depression over the past decade (World Health Organisation, 2017) we might further suggest that psychological ‘illness’ is another ‘figure’ on the ‘ground’ of this sick society, one in which in radical disconnection from our natural home leads to what Louv has termed ‘nature deficit disorder.’ (Louv, 2009)

Indeed research has shown that people suffering mild to major depressive disorders show significant improvements when exposed to nature. I believe that these effects are multiplied by the practice of writing in nature. Before moving to Gran Canaria we lived in Brussels, where I co-facilitated groups for expatriates suffering from depression and anxiety. When we asked participants to spend time writing in nature in the week between one group and the next we (and they) were always surprised by the increased sense of connection to themselves, others and the world around them that this time fostered.

Reaching beyond ourselves

It is to this sense of connection that I turn now. Whilst exposure to nature offers us well-being related benefits, it also has the potential to transform our relationship to nature - to give us an experience of the reality of interdependence. We are, as Kumar puts it, ‘utterly dependent on other species and we have to take care of them.’ (Kumar, 2013)

My training at the IGA gave me an experience of interdependence with other human beings. The groups I was a part of had a reality of their own, different to the sum of their parts. Well facilitated, a group can become a transformative space for the individuals in it, allowing individuals to reach for their potential and to constantly re think what this might be. By extension, when groups of people write in nature, sharing and reflecting on the process together, a space for constructive, collaborative action on behalf of the planet is created. In this way the ‘poet’ gives birth to the ‘activist.’

This process goes both ways. At the heart of the Transition Network, a movement that supports communities to come together to reimagine and rebuild our world, is Inner Transition - that ‘which outer transition is contingent upon.’ (Milne, 2016) Drawing on ecological/systems thinking, nature connection and Joanna Macy’s the Work that Reconnects, activists are given a space in which to rest and reflect. This process sustains the development of communities of people working together, bringing about a shift from economies that are ‘degenerative, divisive and addicted to growth’ to ones that are ‘regenerative, redistributive and able to survive beyond growth.’ (Raworth, 2019)

The fortunate islands?

Many associate the Greek Myth of the ‘fortunate islands’ with the Canary Islands. They were indeed covered with lush forests before the Spanish conquest 500 years ago, one of the first steps in the expansion of early capitalism and Western supremacy in the Atlantic that continued in the Americas. By the beginning of the XVII century the indigenous culture had been wiped out and by the end of the XIX century all of the forests were gone. Destruction on that scale scars a land and its people.

Currently, despite a booming tourist industry, one third of the population is in social exclusion and a third of the population in working age is unemployed. In the Canary Islands there are 9.06 suicides per 100,000 people - a high suicide rate when compared with other Spanish provinces.

Even at the local level, the impact of an individual can feel insignificant. I do, however, feel that I have my part to play.

Here in Gran Canaria I have become involved with the Telefono de la Esperanza an organisation that specialises in supporting people contemplating suicide, and with the activist movement for the climate emergency. I believe that my personal contribution will be to offer writing in nature retreats in the farm space to both, such that the farm becomes the ‘ground’ where we can not only support people to become connected through creativity, but to vision what a healthy ‘figure’ at the individual and collective level might look like.

Conclusion

As my experience of creative work with groups has shown, writing in nature has a therapeutic effect. The climate emergency has, however, prompted me to look more deeply into the possible benefits of writing in nature in groups. My hope is that the retreats I plan to offer will act not only as therapeutic retreats but as a spur to practical action and activism.

This article first appeared in The Lapidus Journal, Autumn 2019

References

Bendell, J. (2019) Doom and Bloom: Adapting to Collapse. This is not a drill: An extinction rebellion handbook. UK:Penguin.

Kumar, S. (2013) The link between soil, soul and society. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/satish-kumar-soil-soul-society

Louv, R. (2009) Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. London:Atlantic Books.

Milne, C. (2016) From Burnout to Balance: Co-creating cultures of collective and self-care. http://www.transitionnetwork.org.

Raworth, K. (2019) A New Economics. This is not a drill: An extinction rebellion handbook. UK:Penguin.

Shepherd, P. (1995) Nature and Madness. In Rozak, R., Gomes, M. and Kanner, A. (Eds.) Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. New York: Sierra Club Books.

World Health Organisation. (2017) Depression and Other Common Mental Disorders: Global Health Estimates. http://www.who.int