The restorative power of nature
It’s a weird time we’re living in, and one thing that has become abundantly clear is that nobody knows what the future holds. But spending a lot of time and energy contemplating this unknown future, which we have little control over, can in turn lead to what a wise university professor of mine called “mental theatre”.
Mental theatre is when anxiety and uncertainty cause us to make unfounded assumptions, and we build models in our heads of a world that doesn’t exist. To combat the drama, the wise prof never said don’t plan, but he did caution us not to get stuck in an imagined worst-case scenario world, as this would only drain us of energy and optimism. With that in mind, I try to keep my mind focused on the here and now. It’s not easy, but then I read Toast Coetzer’s story about the forgotten village of Copperton in the Northern Cape (p 38) and what Lettie de Jager had to say about her childhood in the 1930s: “I was born in the Depression. We never bought clothes at a shop, we made everything ourselves. When we slaughtered sheep, we kept the fat and my mother made soap.
She sold the soap in town and the money got Boetie and me through school.”
Mark Twain supposedly said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Little by little, Lettie’s family helped build a better world, even though that world had been ravaged by depression and a world war. This is something we will all have to do again.
Early this morning I lay awake listening to the resident spotted eagle-owl calling its mate from the wild olive tree behind our house.
I’ve set up my workstation in the garden, and malachite sunbirds darting around the purple salvias had me glued to my binoculars when I should have been finishing this magazine. What a glorious distraction!
Toast Coetzer also spent time with tree expert Willem Frost (p 54), a retired banker and owner of Matlabas Game Lodge in Limpopo. Willem speaks of moments of serenity you experience outside: “Being in nature influences your mood and eases your worries about all the things that are wrong in the world.”
This issue is a celebration of the restorative power of nature, whether it’s hiking the Wolfberg Cracks in the Cederberg, travelling across the vastness of Siberia, exploring the Erongo Mountains in Namibia, admiring trees in the Bushveld with someone like Willem, or just sitting and watching birds in your garden.