The Importance of Nature

I get it; we want what we want….we’ve worked hard and we deserve a new house, a new car, a holiday, a new distraction. I get that. I get that we want to live in beautiful places or places we feel connected to. We want to be near our family, friends, culture, the things we like to do.

We want……and we want more.

I also get that the way we are going people are experiencing nature deficit, living removed from the natural world.

“For children and adults alike, daily contact with nature is linked to better health, less stress, better mood, reduced obesity – an amazing list of features no other product can ever match.”

— Friends of the Earth UK

Increasingly there are alternative ways of doing things rather than cosseting our children from nature, making use of Long Day Care and helicopter parenting. Ways to make our children more self reliant and closer to nature such as Daisy Turnbull’s book 52 Risks To Take With Your Kids.. or the Nature Play movement such as The Little Pocket at Beechmont.

So we go about our daily life with its concerns and pressures, and when we can we take a trip or a walk in nature and are reminded of how our best memories and feelings are connected with times in the natural world.

I am so grateful to the natural environment….

And I see it is struggling, under the pressures of population, development, climate change, pandemics and our involved humanity.

It seems we see ourselves seperate from the natural world, as an infinite resource to plunder. We can fly to Mars, we can send nano robotics into the human body in an effort to prolong life, we can create artificial intelligence to work for us but are we more evolved as a species? Have we learnt to co-habit with other humans in harmony, with the other creatures that share the planet and with the planet and nature itself? It seems we are slow to evolve to work for the greater good - must be something to do with the selfish gene ( a theory by Richard Dawkins)

“I ask myself not what nature can do for me, rather what can I do for nature?”

I am reminded of a talk by the author Kate Grenville at the Festival of Big Ideas. She was asked to talk about Climate Change… daunted and wondering what a novelist could contribute to the discussion she came to realise she could imbue her work with her own viewpoints on the matter and that in itself is significant as the arts works to shift perspective at a visceral level. (see my blog Seeing things Differently)

One way I can contribute is through my artwork, events and writing. Currently I am working on an Exhibition called ‘In Consideration of Trees’ which will be held in November at the Centre for Regenerative Arts in partnership with the Making Good Alliance.

It will be a three day event and will feature exhibition launch, panel discussions, walks, talks and much more. If you have any questions or would like to attend the opening contact me here.

In the mean time I must get back to my easel and the work that inspires me daily.

I would love to hear your thoughts too!

Bron

Later living on Tamborine Mountain my children enjoyed life playing outside under the Jacaranda tree

my now 34 year old daughter Leilani started life in a shed in the middle of a rainforest at Tomewin

Crows Ash from the Rainforest Mandala Series

Diamond Head: Summer 2019 from the Bushfire Series

Knoll markers from the Ring Tree series