Whilst 2020 has been a year that many people have been keen to see the back of, for me it has been a watershed year.
A job I love and continued good health are things I have not taken for granted. Sharing our new home with my lovely partner Chrissie, making plans and outdoor changes continues to be an unfolding adventure.
Having wonderful, healthy adult relationships with both my children has also been a complete joy. In turn they are building their lives with partners and I could not be more pleased with their choices. This has meant a period of rest as a parent. These have all been huge positives of 2020 - and I am very very thankful.
Like most of New Zealand, our 25 March – 28 April Level 4 lockdown was a time to slow down and take stock. Many of our friends and family commented they would have liked that pace of life to continue. I could only agree. Suddenly, there seemed to be time for everything that mattered and we discovered again that only a few things really matter.
For me, there was also an added bonus. One that would change my life paradigm – transform my thinking and send me off in a new direction with an altered perspective on life.
It’s only happened to me once before… I read a book and it changed my life!
Just a few days before our New Zealand lockdown, I discovered in earnest the work of U.K. writer Robert MacFarlane. It has been like opening Pandora’s box.
Macfarlane is best known for his books on landscape, nature, place, people and language and I managed to get a hold of ‘The Old Ways’ (2012) from our local library. Was I in for a treat.
Reading over the following weeks, I drooled and savoured every word, every paragraph, every sentiment as my eyes were opened to seeing our world in a whole new way. The back of the Penguin edition describes it best:
‘Following the tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast ancient networks of routes criss-crossing the British Isles and beyond, Robert Macfarlane discovers a lost world – a landscape of the feet and the mind, of pilgrimage and ritual, of stories and ghosts; above all of the places and journeys which inspire and inhabit our imaginations.’
I can honestly say I have never read such beautifully written prose, profound and mesmerising. His work has resonated with me in a way no other author ever has.
What developed inside me was a longing to see the world through similar eyes and in time I started noticing things around me in a new way - even the smallest things.
My whole view of nature and the world we live in has been flipped on its head and I have determined to not only appreciate this beautiful and unique country of New Zealand I live in more, but also do what I can to reduce the harmful effects my being here on this planet is producing. I am pleased to say the work has begun and will be ongoing.
Since then, I have gone on to read all of his books from his first - ‘Mountains Of The Mind’ about mankind’s obsession with climbing mountains through the ages, to his latest offering ‘Underland’ which describes his journeys under the surface of the earth and is aptly subtitled ‘a deep time journey’.
Macfarlane is also generous in his praise of other authors of a similar cloth such as Nan Shepherd - ‘The Living Mountain’ and Barry Lopez – ‘Arctic Dreams’, ‘Horizon’ & ‘About This Life’ to mention a couple of names. Sadly, Lopez died on 25th December 2020 – just a week or so ago, but has left a rich legacy of writing for generations to come. Nan Shepherd died in 1981.
There are many others who are also now on my reading list.
This then led me (almost inevitably) to Sir David Attenborough’s
‘A Life On Our Planet’. Both the book and the documentary on Netflix by the same name. His personal witness statement shows plainly how our earth has changed during his lifetime and how we can fix it. After initially being so astounded by my decades of blindness, I have since realised this planet is not here solely for my benefit, but in fact for all living things. By living sustainably and by helping increasing biodiversity I can do my bit in bringing the planet back to a place of balance.
His witness statement is the urgent message of our time.
Some will read this and think I’ve become a complete ‘greenie’.
So be it! (smiles)
My eyes have been opened during 2020 and I am especially grateful. This planet and all it contains are the most beautiful things I have ever seen and I want my grandchildren and generations to come to experience this also. Yet I’ve only witnessed a tiny, tiny fraction of that beauty.
So, thank you Robert Macfarlane for prompting me to travel down a different path – with my feet, my mind and also my heart. Nan Shepherd for showing me that my local area can truly be full of natural wonders. Barry Lopez for teaching me how to listen to nature and the rhythms of life, and lastly, to Sir David Attenborough, for giving me hope that if we live ‘wisely’, the current Anthropocene epoch may yet have a positive outcome.
