Back to Nature
In which strange encounters in a sauna lead to thoughts on wild body, wild mind, wild soul…!
The Commons Group has been invited to visit an ‘art installation’ at a Dundee gallery, just before its official opening to the public. The installation was essentially a sauna, constructed from a polythene greenhouse and a couple of wallpaper strippers that produced steam. The idea of the installation was to see if people would be more sociable when they met with few or no clothes and thus with most of the usual clues to status removed. I suspect that those who put the installation together hadn’t met British people before!
The visit was arranged for just after our regular meeting and noticeably most people made a very sharp exit when the regular meeting concluded! It was only four of us who made our way down the street to the gallery. This was our Commons group leader, his partner, another female friend and me. The sauna had been made ready for us and was certainly warm and steamy.
Us guys were in our underwear. The women had taken everything off, but were wrapped in big white fluffy towels. Given that we all knew each other quite well already, it’s difficult to judge whether conversation was easier in this state of undress. We were relaxed. There was however a bit of an intrusion when a few other members of the Commons Group showed up and bundled into the sauna fully clothed. They had the decency to feel out of place and quickly left.
My female friend gave me a lift home after the sauna visit and we chatted about our experiences of nudity. It turned out we had both visited the seaside resort of Biarritz in France, where attitudes to bare flesh are a good deal more relaxed than in the UK. In Biarritz, sure enough, it is the naked people who are the most friendly.
We sometimes use the phrase, ‘going back to nature’ when we talk about people being nude. It’s a telling phrase. There’s clearly a strong connection in our minds between our bodies and the natural world that surrounds us. And I suspect that if someone loves nature then chances are they’re comfortable with their bodies and likewise someone relaxed in their own skin may well be a nature lover.
It’s a personal thing, but nudity brings to mind both the beauty of the human body and also our frailty and vulnerability. We may not all be equal by any means in our physical appearance, but the pleasures and pains of the flesh are certainly common to us all. I think our humanity is very much about nature and our connection to her through our bodies.
So I love the term ‘wild body’ because it helps to make clear that strong link between our physical selves and the rest of nature. Humans, to me, are wild of body, wild of mind and wild of soul. But of course, in our modern societies especially, we don’t get to see much of this wildness. People keep their bodies covered up – as we’ve been discussing – but also the wild mind gets squashed from a young age by education. Education geared towards particular kinds of learning designed to make passive citizens suitable for the kind of dull and restrictive employment we’re offered once we’re grown! And what of wild soul? What does that even mean to us in a world that often denies such a thing as a soul even exists? So we’re very much on our own and swimming against the tide if we want to care for our souls in a modern society.
The three types of wild – wild body, wild mind, wild soul – are closely linked. We need a certain kind of wild mind in order to seek out wilderness in the world. And it is nature’s wildness that helps to feed our wild souls.
But nature is in trouble. We humans are taking up more and more space – for cities, roads and railways as well as farming, forestry and fishing. Thus, if we want to find ourselves a wild place to go and be with nature then we may well face a longer and longer journey. How far is it for you to the mountains or the beach, the forest or a lake? And of course getting there probably means a car, a train or even a plane – so we add to the problem. Setting aside all questions of pollution or climate change, loss of bio-diversity, over-fishing and acidification of the oceans – it is this loss of natural places that is somehow closest to our hearts.
Wild nature calls out to our wild bodies, wild minds and wild souls. When we hurt, nature is hurt. When nature is hurt we are hurt. If we could heal ourselves we could start healing nature. And healing nature would mean solving all those other problems – climate change and the like – along the way.
Okay, so I know that if you’re ‘on message’ with regard to climate and all those other issues, then you’re probably thinking more along the lines of electric cars and solar panels! But I’d say that such things are, in a way, just more of the same – more development, more natural resources used up, more wilderness destroyed, in order to have a ‘sustainable’ economy. I don’t mean that such effort is not well-intentioned. I just mean that behind all of this is the wild nature that we must rely on. Why not go straight to her and heal her rather than trying to find ways to live without her (which is what a lot of technology is really about).
So what to do? Well, I’m all for activism, to save the rainforests and other natural environments, not just for their beauty, but because we rely on them for everything. (Even if we go to live on Mars, we will have to take some of Earth’s nature with us in order to survive.) But activism isn’t for everyone – and besides, activism or not, we need to be living our message in our own lives.
So if wild body, wild mind and wild soul mean anything at all then we have to somehow live them. Sometimes – in fact, a lot of the time – this means doing stuff that does not seem to directly relate to the problems we’ve been discussing. But I’d counter this by saying, wilderness is infectious!
What of wild body? In our modern Western culture it’s not just the appearance if our bodies that is problematic. The body has a whole life of its own and very often our minds are almost totally unaware of what our bodies are feeling – the way our bodies see the world. Certainly there are, for instance, such things as psychosomatic illnesses – that is, the mind affecting the body. This might suggest the mind is in charge. But in fact it is the body that is largely in charge of our lives, even whilst it struggles to be heard above the clamour of our minds! So we should try listening to our bodies! Such things as tiredness, headaches and tension in our muscles are signs that the body is not entirely happy with the way we’re living our lives. Believe me when I say there is no way around this! The body is in charge! If we don’t listen to our bodies and figure out what needs to change then sooner or later things will get worse. Eventually bodies will shut us down until they get what they need!
When it comes to other people it’s helpful to remember the same scenario is being played out with them – their bodies are in charge but they are in denial! Their bodies will determine how they relate to us (and we’ll respond in kind). So there is no use denying our instant affection or dislike for other people! We might cover this over with polite conversation, but let’s not forget the underlying reality! Things can change, of course. But it is not the mind that will convince the body that we should like someone, or whatever. The body will find her own way, in her own time.
Even on a community and societal scale, the body is key. All politics is actually the politics of the body. Whatever policy a government may have about such things as defence, economics, immigration, education – these are all ultimately about the effects on bodies. It’s bodies that provide the hidden economy of care that undergirds all societies. It’s bodies that provide the labour element of production in our material economy. It’s bodies, ultimately, that create culture. No matter how much we develop robotics and artificial intelligence, no matter how much culture becomes abstract and virtual, these things can never escape the body. Bodies who feel pleasure and pain. Bodies who have emotion. Bodies that are truly alive. Bodies are the only means through which dreams can be fulfilled.
What of wild mind? Well you might be thinking a ‘wild mind’ sounds like a crazy mind, and isn’t there enough craziness in the world without encouraging more! But no, I’d prefer to think of wild mind as meaning ‘free mind’ rather than crazy mind. What does that freedom consist of? Well, it’s about asking questions like: What do I really want my life to be about? Am I really making my own choices or am I just trying to impress people? Will the story of my life be one that I can be proud of when I’m old or am I just drifting along without any clear goals in mind? The wild free mind thinks out of the box on all of these issues.
What of wild soul? To speak of wild soul seems like something amazingly psychedelic! I don’t want to disparage psychedelia – and there may, for instance, be times when we benefit greatly from stepping back from life for a while and gaining a wider perspective. But we cannot escape from the world forever. If soul has any meaning at all then it has to be dealing with our everyday familiar world. Soul – if this does not seem like too outlandish a claim – is about seeing the ordinary world as enchanted. It’s only in this way that the soul can inspire the mind and bring pleasure and contentment to the body.
Well, dear reader, you might not believe in souls and you might find this talk of enchantment bizarre and nonsensical! Okay, well try telling someone they don’t have a soul! Somehow we all believe in an intrinsic self, even although we cannot say exactly what it is. And as for enchantment – I don’t mean some big revelation or some blinding flash that suddenly makes everything seem different. No. Life, for the most part, is made up of millions of tiny events. If we’re to find enchantment we have to look for it in the small stuff. And it starts that way – by looking – really looking and spending some time letting events settle into our minds and hearts. That’s where body, mind and soul really meet up – in that contemplation of the small stuff of life.
So I like to think of wild soul seeing beauty right where it is. The park, the garden, the birds – these are all contacts with wild nature. The crazy fashions, the smiles and the humour – these are all contacts with our fellow humans. The little acts of kindness, just being there as a reliable, honest and consistent presence, the word of advice we can offer when asked – these are all small gifts of grace we can bring to the world. All of that adds up to a lot. That’s wild soul. That’s daring to be ourselves!
To have a soul is to have a bit of wisdom. And to have a bit of wisdom probably means seeing the world as a very crazy place! When we see the craziness of the world there is a tendency to get involved somehow – to try to fix things. This is a difficult one – should we stick with the small stuff, or should we get involved with the big issues around the world? You may be feeling an irresistible compulsion to be an activist on some issue! In which case, it’s difficult for me to suggest you should resist! All I can say is, can we have both? Activism inspired by wild soul? I leave that one with you!
Are we sorted then? Have we managed to capture wild nature by discussing wild body, wild mind and wild soul? Not yet, I suspect! The problem is that we are part of nature but also we stand outside her – such is the position of self-consciousness. And we can never ‘unthink’ it – we can almost never experience the wild directly and so respond straight from body, mind and soul. Instead, we will always place ourselves in hypothetical situations of either the future or the past. What if we did this? What if that hadn’t happened? What if? What if? We cannot help but analyse and therefore we always feel ourselves to be on the outside of circumstances, looking in. We could stubbornly argue that this is okay and we are still nature. But whether we do this or not, we could stop to ask, is there really a problem? Is self-consciousness really a curse, so far as nature is concerned, or could it be a blessing?
If a blessing then I think we’d have to say this is about our relationship with nature. To say we have a relationship with nature is already to acknowledge that we stand apart from her, as we’ve explored above. But what we bring to nature through self-consciousness can still be a positive – in fact, we will not have that enchantment of nature I spoke of earlier without some of this standing apart. Let’s unpack that a little.
The tendency these days is to regard nature as being about co-operation and mutual aid. People who promote this view have presumably never been chased by a lion or a bear! I’d rather say that we see all human emotion – both beautiful and terrible – reflected back to us when we look at nature. All of nature is in turn reflected in our own natures.
Given this, I think the conclusion must be that we’ll always feel at least a little ambiguous when it comes to nature. And ambiguity does not need to be a bad thing! To love nature is not just to see her beauty but also to embrace her ambiguities. To love ourselves is likewise to accept ambiguity. We cannot be perfect – we are all flawed vulnerable humanity – but still we can love. In fact it is often flaws and vulnerability which give us the greatest moments of love and of enchantment. When we spend time with nature we are reminded of all these strange parallels in our own lives.
We are led to believe that one day we could take a human brain and put it into an artificial body or that we could one day upload a conscious mind into a computer. Detached therefore, completely from nature, what kind of life would that be? If it proves to be possible at all then I’d have to say this would not be a human life. It’s easy to think that someone living in a city who spends all their time looking at screens is already half way towards just being a mind inside a computer! Perhaps you think your teenage son is already somewhat more than half way! But we breathe air, there are dozens – maybe hundreds – of other species of creature that live on and inside us, we eat mostly biological foodstuffs, even when highly processed, and we interact with other humans. Our immersion in nature is therefore more or less absolute, even in a city. There is no life without nature – there is no ‘us’ without her. So let’s give up on these fantasies of living without her and instead find ways to be with her more. Let’s embrace her, reflect her within ourselves and see ourselves written in her.
