Summer Nature Notes
Summer Nature Notes
The Healing Power of Nature
This year, back in January I had to have a big spinal operation. I have had more than my fair share of “rebuild” operations but this one was the biggest. I feel like an old Landrover – I keep going back to the garage to be rebuilt and put back on the road. But this operation was major as I was beginning to become paralysed. The outcome was uncertain and the rehab long (up to two years) and the results unknown. Once again I was facing loosing the thing I love most which is to walk with my beautiful deerhound/ lurcher Tuki, up in the hills around my house in Wales. I have been through a number of orthopedic challenges in my time, enough to know how important keeping happy is to your ability to get better – it can be a real struggle sometimes. For me that happiness comes from nature and what it gives. After all nature and what it gives us has been my life’s work. My shop is all about beautiful things made from natural materials, such as wool, wood, leather, slate and stone. For 35 years I have preached that message, working with nature leaves only a shadow of a footprint.
The first three months was spent recuperating at my kind cousin, James’ farm. Everyday I would waddle off on my crutches through the ceaseless rain to spend time with Rascal, an orphaned young thoroughbred racehorse, who like me was having to endure a ghastly dark long Winter, albeit I was inside and he was outside in the never-ending rain.
Eventually I returned home and back to my garden. A place where I had fiddled and faddled for over three decades – where I had watched my son Louis show me his many new diablo tricks – where I had seen my dogs play and chase – where I had idled and watched flowers and shrubs I had planted come back every year. I could do nothing now, I could not bend or lift or pull a weed, my beloved garden was unloved and neglected, until I met Ophelia, who with her horticultural skills and stamina has helped to bring my garden back to life. My soul is once again topped up with a renewed energy and I realise how much beauty and colour affect the senses and can help so much with healing. I treasure the days when Ophelia comes to work in my garden as in turn it helps me heal. Having gone through spinal surgery myself recently, it has opened my eyes to the inspirational work of Horatio’s Garden, whose aim it is to put a garden in the grounds of every spinal injury unit in the country. There are other local organisations also doing wonderful green healing projects locally such as Growing Point, Green Minds and the Fathom Trust.
I can walk again, albeit slightly oddly, up into the hills again with Tuki, in the company of Sally, my neighbour, who makes sure I am up and out by 7.30 at the latest most mornings and we both enjoy the spectacular views over towards Pen-y -Fan in the Brecon Beacons.
I delight in nature, it has been my healer and will continue to be so. Everyday I see something that makes me smile – such as a Robin taking a bath in the bird bath – the fat Wood Pigeon wobbling towards my bird table – the tinkling sound of a cow bell worn by one of the magnificent Long Horn Cattle in the field by my house – Swallows trying to mate, precariously balanced on a telephone wire – and yesterday, the best of all – a kit or baby Otter scampering safely across the road and diving through the hedge and away down to the river ……
Athene English