The Complex Magic of Nature

Words from a nature writing retreat

Recently I went on a writing retreat, on a farm in the middle of nowhere in Elstree. It was stunning and sort of brain-changing, in the way that I felt like I had unlocked something inside me that was hidden away. We connected with nature and our thoughts and with words in a way that I really needed and didn’t know was possible. We laughed and cried and wrote without a care for what would come out or how it sounded.

I thought I’d present to you some pieces that I wrote on that workshop, mostly unrefined and straight off the cuff. Sometimes I think our best work and thoughts are just whatever comes out (without edits). Most of these are small, quick brain-dumps, but I wanted to give you an idea of what can be created when you’re writing amongst the trees.

Some of these are poems (unsure how these will format but will hopefully be readable!), some are just general thoughts. I am presenting them in the order that they were written so you can understand the journey I went on.

Prompt 1: The Margins of the World

As I traced along the margin of Home Farm, I realized I was walking the space between two lives. The life that is essential; survival, by force, and the life that we have forgotten beneath the shadow of capitalism and greed.

As I watched the trees that were sprouting, the petals blossoming and the birds frolicking, I became acutely aware of the different rhythms we beat to. That we have been sold a lie – for we are not in harmony with the world that we’re meant to grow, live, and die with.

Prompt 2: Wild Body

I do not feel wild. I feel bound. I float above the rivers and the lakes. I fly around the trees but do not land. My feet are on the soil, but my roots will not grow. Perhaps I need to be bathed in sunlight, or watered and fed. My body is falling, and I would like the Earth to catch me. I wish my breath would connect to the birdsong. The sky looks delicious to me, I could float up into it, right out into space. That is where my wild body lives.

Prompt 3: Lust for the Earth

The Trees sing out to me

oxygen notes that I breathe in.

Arms outreached, I surrender to them.

Colours that burst and live within my heart,

draw me in and envelop me.

I am colour.

A canopy of dark sky filled with diamonds,

that I want to reach out and touch

take me with them

to a place that I belong.

I look for this in you,

and your heart makes space for me

A magnet for my flesh.

Eyes like planets I want to explore,

arms that hold me firmly to the ground

you are the trees and the colours

and the diamonds in the sky.

Prompt 4: Compassion for the Earth and its inhabitants

I am high above.

When I float down,

beady eyes keen, wings flapping,

I feel alien

the landscape here is not for me.

Blinding, sharp blocks reach up

into the space made for my body to move through,

filling a canvas

and stealing my path away,

endless silver blotting the light.

I spot an emerald patch,

dive down towards it

branched cities within my grasp

but I land upon an imposter.

I feel so far away,

lost in the giants that move so loudly,

searching for somewhere

to hold me safely.

I pick at the crumbs that slither sluggishly

through my small and feathered body,

wishing for the worms down below

and the bugs that occupy the mossy land.

I take back to the air

looking for my place

far from the towers

that cut off my peace,

searching for a sea of chestnut and green.

Surely they can’t hurt me there.

I think there’s a story in here somewhere, one of connecting to the planet we inhabit and living to the Earth’s rhythm. “The complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes”, and now that I’ve seen it, I cannot look away.