Heatwaves. Talking to trees - well, communing with nature.

Friends of mine who come from countries where they regularly experience proper heatwaves have been scoffing at our weathermen’s suggestions that we might have a mini-heatwave during the next week. I took it as a rather tongue in cheek comment by the weathermen on the fact that temperatures might go up to 20 or 21 degrees, a temperature perfectly acceptable to me, but clearly not to those who have grown up with summer temperatures in the 30+ range. One of those friends, staying with us one summer in Vigo, Galicia, found 24 degrees too chilly for her and asked for extra blankets for the bed and borrowed a hoody from me in the daytime, having arrived prepared for a “proper” Spanish summer.  

But the forecast 20+ is fine by me; you can walk, run even, comfortably without needing to be bundled up in a million layers. I’m not sure what temperature we reached around here yesterday but it was pleasant enough for me to stroll out in the early evening with a light jacket - no hat and gloves! A fine end to the day! There was still some sunshine and the heron was standing by one of the millponds - I couldn’t decide whether he was fishing or sunbathing. 

I took a picture of the evening sky reflected in one of the millponds. 

By contrast, this morning it was a grey-clouded sky reflected in the same spot. 

 

But I’m not complaining. It no longer feels as though May has got stuck in February mode. 

It’s good for the soul to be able to walk out in the open - fields, woods, bridle paths. The   Japanese practise something they call shinrin-yoku, which translates as forest bathing.  I had it in my head that it was a Scandinavian thing - after all, they have hygge - but when I went looking for the term in the original language I rediscovered that it was Japanese. I really knew it already and should have remembered, especially as it can involve walking barefoot through the woods and I think that might be a recipe for frost-bitten toes in some Scandinavian forests. You don’t really have to go barefoot, unless you absolutely want to do so. Basically it’s immersing yourself in nature, a very zen thing, advising practitioners to:

Listen to the sounds of the forest.  

Count how many different sounds you can hear. 

Can you hear the stillness of the sounds. 

Another bit of advice is:

Stand still in nature.

Find things one can see but not hear.

Find things one can hear but not see. 

Somebody by the name of Peter Wohlleben has written a book, “The Heartbeat of Trees: Embracing Our Ancient Bond with Forests and Nature”, all about communicating with trees and plants. Apparently if you stroke your tomato plants with your finger they grow thicker and sturdier stems. And birch trees sleep, or at least rest, drooping their leaves in the night time and perking up in the daytime. He maintains that trees communicate with each other through their root systems and that they have a heartbeat, but one so slow that even if we hug trees we cannot feel that heartbeat. He too advocates communing with nature:

“Although trees may feel nothing of our attempts to communicate, we, for our part, definitely experience a physical reaction. I encourage you to experience this for yourself. Make a plan to go outside and immerse yourself in nature. If there is a forest near you, make that your destination. If you live in a city, find a park or even just a tree-lined street where you can take a walk. Stand and feel the air on your skin. What can you smell? The gentle, earthy aromas of old leaves gently decomposing on the ground or the tangy, brisk scents of new growth? What can you hear? The scratching of squirrels scuttling up trunks or the rustle of leaves as birds turn them over to find insects underneath? Shut your eyes and feel that this is a place where you belong.”

The writer Tolkien understood about trees and their slowness. His ents were very slow to be roused to anger but very effective once roused. Someone told me recently that Tolkien was rather disappointed that Shakespeare did not truly make Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane in Macbeth but only had soldiers use branches to camouflage their approach. That sounds like a bit of a myth to me but you never know. However, I rather like the idea of Birnam Wood being made up ents. 

Checking spellings of names, I discovered that there is still an ancient oak tree, the Birnam Oak, on the outskirts of the Perthshire village of Birnam. That oak tree and its neighbour the Birnam Sycamore are thought to be the sole surviving trees of the great forest that once straddled the banks and hillsides of the River Tay. 

A few ents waking up and being roused might be useful in fighting environmental problems such as plastics going into fertiliser and thus into plants, including plants we humans consume. See this article for details.

I fear the ents are all firmly asleep nowadays though.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!