We all have a powerful attraction to an element in our own lives, be it the car we drive or the house we own, each and everyone of us shares an affinity with some other element of this life on earth. In my case my deepest attachment has always been to the wild world of the woodland filled with trees, I have never really understood or been able to explain it, there just feels like something within a woodland that captures my heart and fills me with a sense of who I am.
Throughout my life it has been something others have been curious of, and even thought was a little bit flaky about me, and even though I have been asked a thousand times why I love the wilderness more than the modern world, its not something I have ever been able to adequately explain, and I have thought deeply about it.
Recently I took my children out without my wife, which in itself is not a common occurrence, as we tend to make going out into the woods a family affair. It was for me a very enlightening experience, as I walked slowly along watching my children run and laugh, enjoying the open space. It got me pondering my own times as a small boy doing pretty much the same thing as my own children, who had become filled with curiosity by the wonder and diversity of the wild.
Adults tend to look at woodland in two ways depending on their persona, some see it as a restful place to walk and talk, and share some moments of relaxation and reflection. Then there are those who see it as a resource, something free that they can chop and crop to earn money and enhance their life in the modern world. As a child sharing a large open woodland with my brothers and friends, I realised it became something completely different. Children see the wild through untainted eyes, and in doing so they react more naturally with it than adults do, because they have not yet been indoctrinated with the complex rules of life, which man has spent the last two thousand years weaving into our society, to instruct us as to what is or isn’t acceptable behaviour.
Wild open fields and dense woodland provided a completely different way of life for my brothers and myself back in the seventies, especially if we could climb over the back fence and escape the gaze of our mother or the neighbours. Having looked back on those amazing wonderful and happy times with my brothers in deeper detail, I realised something, which has never really occurred to me. Children are ruled by logic and more importantly instinct, they are not guided by morality or what society deems to be acceptable, they do not hold back as adults have been taught to do, because of fear and reprisal, or carry any deep rooted prejudice, they simply become one with everything and experience everything on a one to one basis.
We are at heart Mammals, and whether we admit it or not, we have a great many deep-rooted instincts from our gatherer/hunter past, and our connection to the earth. Children still have these instincts and they are more finely tuned than us adults realise. A child allowed to run free exhibits a great deal of the wildness we all once held, and very quickly they become one with their environment. I can certainly say that my brothers and myself did, as we explored each and every aspect of the world that lay just over the garden fence.
Being allowed off the leash we instantly lost all of the disciplines of being in the house under the view of a parent. We found a space where we could be our own natural selves, with no need for pretence or modified behaviour, and we did run wild and free and it was a glorious and wonderful experience to feel that connection with the natural world. Growing up out of view of the adults in a leafy green filled world gave us the ability to learn about whom we were, and whom those around us were. All of us had strengths and weaknesses, and we built a strong bond of understanding between us because of it. The wilderness taught to be resourceful, and how to construct by simple den making, or building a dam to create a swimming pond on the small stream. We learned to navigate using the many paths that wove through the trees, and overcame some of our fears climbing trees and making rope swings. We found isolated spots where we could sit alone and become at ease with ourselves, and as we developed as people, it gave us the confidence to be who we are today.
Like all families we have been through the good and the bad times, we have squabbled and argued and spent time apart, and yet somehow we have always found a way of overcoming our disagreements and meeting again as brothers. I know at this point they will once again think I am being flaky, but I do think that the bond we forged in an all natural environment is why we can find a way back from whatever we may have fallen out about. I think those times of being natural around each other allowed us to show the true sense of who we are to each other, and in doing so, we know we can overcome anything in life, as we did when we worked together out in the wilds on a project as brothers.
Today as I look back on what was one of the happiest times of my life, I think I have started to understand a great deal more about why I became the person I am today. Unlike the children of these modern times, I was not cotton balled by a parent who was afraid to let me out of view for fear of being abducted or hurt. There was no computer technology to lock me in the house and spend my day’s endlessly pressing buttons in hope of killing an animated villain. I learned from nature, and more importantly, I learned how to respond to nature, and it has imprinted on me deeper than I realised, for long after my brothers wandered off with their friends and built their own lives, I continued my association with the trees and fields of my home town, and did finally choose the path of Horticulture, such was my love of all things living.
In many ways I think being given the chance to unlock those instincts, which to be honest date back to the early times of mankind, has changed me on a very deep level. I walk a great deal and take a lot of joy from the simplicity of Nature, more than likely because my knowledge is deeper than a lot of others, who have never had the experiences I had as a child. I certainly know that when I meet with my brothers and we talk, I see the happiness on their faces, and I know that for them the memory is just as deep, but I think for me personally, it is not just the memories of that time that have had such a deep affect on me, it is probably more knowing how it made me feel deep down. When you have drank from a stream, or climbed the tallest tree to feel the wind in your hair, or smelt the deep rich scent of the soil and grass as you bask sweating, lay down in the bright sun, something does awaken inside you, and you feel very different as a result of it. I am sure many of those who read this blog will fully understand what I mean, especially if they were raised during or before the seventies. I think since that time more and more of the green wild spaces have disappeared beneath the buildings of modern man, or been fenced off forever, and sadly less and less children have had the freedom and chance to fully experience it. I do think we pander too much and cotton ball our children, as fear has taken over and added to the endless rules from society of what is and is not acceptable, and as a result I think we are depriving children of something very valuable.
To experience the sort of freedom I had when I was a child, I think opens your mind and enriches your life, I learned so much about myself, the world, and those around me and it prepared me for life. It taught me to question when I was told it was wrong to be natural in my thoughts and feelings, and it gave me the confidence to listen to my instincts and allow them to guide me. Feeling that sense of being free and at one with everything is a powerful feeling, and maybe for those who try to guide the rest of society it is not a good thing, as it does erode control, but I honestly think I am blessed because of it and I want my children to experience it as I did, so that they too know and understand that not everything suggested by society is the right thing for them, they will at least have a choice.
Today I have finally left Horticulture after almost 30 years, and become a writer, and yet the influence of my youth and a life of loving all that grows around me, has seeped through on to the pages of my books, and I think I have reached a point where even I can understand why I have such a deep affinity with the green world, and I can finally answer those questions. Put very simply, if I was a character in Heirs to the kingdom, there is no doubt at all I would be a woodsman.
The sense of being free inside and using nature as my guide has driven me forward for the largest part of my life, there can be no going back, which is probably why I walk out of sync with the rest of the world that surrounds me. I think mankind has lost its way, we have become far too occupied with money and possessions, it is nice to have a little of everything as its adds to life. I think we have now begun a process of hiding behind stone walls protecting what is ours, and we have forgotten to look over the wall at what else is out there. We have as a race become prisoners of our own making, writing the rules of society and its conduct, so much so that we failed to see we have given up something so very important that has always defined us as people, our natural instincts, and that is a path that because of my youth I could never walk, and so for as long as live I think my strange affinity with the natural world will continue to be my guide, and thankfully although we are few, I know I am not alone.