The Meadow
A visit in the summertime to a beautiful meadow brings the realisation of our disconnect with the earth, and with ourselves.
This summer I had a deeply profound experience when I returned a field.
Not just any old field. The field I spent my childhood and youth.
After over 20yrs of being ‘back’ in the lakes, where I was lucky enough to grow up, I had decided to call in on the off chance, on the people who’d bought the old house and say hello.
This summer I had a deeply profound experience when I returned a field.
Not just any old field. The field I spent my childhood and youth.
After over 20yrs of being ‘back’ in the lakes, where I was lucky enough to grow up, I had decided to call in on the off chance, on the people who’d bought the old house and say hello.
I had met them once before briefly, a lovely couple who had built an architecturally quite amazing eco house ‘round the back’ of the farmstead overlooking the field, having sold the main house a few years ago (to a most lovely person it turns out).
We chatted for a good while about the house, the barns, the famous midden (it was a riding school before we moved there and a pig farm before that) …..and the field.
And. They. Had. Kept. The. Field….. the glorious, abundant, expansive, flowering, juicy, honeyed, sweaping field… that source of energy, happiness, excitement, stupidness, music, riding, chickens, dens, sledging, sheep and chaos - as a meadow.
I was a little stunned. And then my heart burned. With delight, with sorrow, with belonging.
Because they too saw how special it was. And I was filled with a gratitude so huge that it swelled and filled my body with the heat.
After we’d talked John suggested I go for a walk around the field on my own and I was so pleased to - to be here again, be part of the grasses and the breeze, to take in the smells and subtle shifts in energies as I walked through the grasses and through the elderflowers and hawthorn bushes, past nettles and thorns as they tagged my socks.
As I got to the end, where the chicken pen used to be (why?? At the end of the field??!) and I could look back at the house, I found myself crouching in the grasses like I used to when I was a child.
Back then I’d walk slowly taking in all the things I could see with my hungry eyes - looking intently for bugs and ladybirds, ants or crickets, and picking grass seeds as I walked, chewing them with my fingers and feeling the grains as they separated and flew from my hands back to earth.
I would walk round to the furthest corner of the field - away from the house as far as a could without climbing over the stubborn dry stone walls to the surrounding fields (I’d explore those on ‘exploration days’ sometimes with my brother, always with sheath knife / pen knife / sketchbook and paints, magnifying glasses and binoculars and some sort of snack).
And I’d sit in the corner of the field for hours. Looking, examining, dreaming, drawing, snoozing, cloud watching, breathing the sweet matrix of grass and earth.
And that’s how I’d spend my time. If it was wet I’d make a den, ratching for a tarp or plastic sheet in the barns and constructing some temporary shelter that would create aches from the awkward sitting position or small patch of dry.
And as I crouched here now, in my 50th year, looking back at the house and back at my childhood I felt a deep deep sob emerge. And I sat and sobbed and sobbed - so much!! And I thought ‘What’s the hell js all that about??’ and searched for a meaning.
Perhaps it was because it was such a beautiful place, and also such a beautiful childhood. And perhaps because I was so grateful to be there again and experience the awe of sitting amongst the grasses, lost in a sub world of insects and nutty warm smell of earth.
But somehow somewhere there was a grief and a sorrow. And I realised after a while that it was not from the beauty - it was from the disconnect. The disconnect from that field - from where I grew up and where I belong. But not just about me - also from ‘where WE belong’ on a much deeper and much more profound level - as a human race, submerged in nature, ‘with’ nature, ‘in’ nature, ‘as’ nature. It was a sorrow for the many many years that I’ve been away from this place, but also this ‘being’. From allowing to be with nature in such a way. A way that was mutual, and generous and loving and respectful and wonderous. That was the gap. I felt ‘ home’ again. Back in my field. In the sub world.
I walked back slowly to the house feeling all the jumble of emotions that had been stirred. Grateful and confused and happy.
I walked past the hedge where I helped one of our sheep birth in a storm. I think I was about 10. It was dark and raining and there was no one about (I’d probably gone to feed the chickens - who puts chickens at the bottom of the field?!) and I stayed with her watching and stroking her nose until I knew all was fine. I stepped back in the kitchen soaked to the skin and filthy, with a beam of winder on my face.
I wanted to share this because what I feel is that the disconnect from nature is real.
This experience brought me right back, but it’s not just my incredible and ferrel upbringing that is nature - it’s yours too. You are also nature - we are nature.
We are all nature and I believe we’re experiencing a global grief as we hide and bury our heads from the realisation that we all have become disconnected - from earth, from nature, from ourselves.
We’re embodying a divide, a split, disconnect - a black hole where once there was connection and trust, trust in ourselves and reliability in the seasons.
We’ve become isolated and cold, watching our backs from the next unknown.
We’ve turned against each other and morphed into a strange race of ‘individuals’ traversing our own tiny and lonely paths of existence trying not to bump into others on some kind of shoe string trapeze lines. Don’t fall off into the abyss!
The profound loss I felt was for humanity in this split from nature, this vacation from ourselves, turning away from what we know for some false, fake, quick gratification.
We’ve lost ourselves.
And I wonder:
When will we come back?
_ _ _ _ _
As an anecdote to this you’ll be pleased to know that a fundamental part of my coaching seeks to get curious about who you are in your ‘essence’. Sometimes this can be unsettling and it’s easier to doom scroll than get curious sometimes. But when you do this with a trusted coach in a safe and creative space the magic can really unfold. When we understand our core values, our flow, our inner selves and when we reconnect with our truth, we’re able to create an authentic way forward that feels Good, that flows right and that brings a joy and energy along with it.
A really lovely way to explore this is through outdoor coaching, which I offer 121 and with groups on the edge of the Lake District. If you’d like to access this just get in touch. If you can’t travel to this corner of the world an online call is great, and an online journey of regular sessions is even better.
For updates and anecdotes about all things coaching, creativity, nature and brilliance get on the mail list: www.kateb.co.uk/updates
