Miles Richardson’s ‘The Blackbird’s Song’ is a joyous celebration of nature, through the lens and timeframe of a natural year. Although this text chronicles and charts a personal journey of nature connectedness, Richardson urges that a nature connected society is one which is needed now. ‘The twin crises of biodiversity loss and warming climate require a new relationship with nature on a far larger scale.’
Richardson structures his text around the months of the year, offering opportunities for nature related activities in each month, as well as highlighting an ‘Angel per month’- a bird species to particularly notice in the specific month. He argues that there exists, ‘a universal story about our connection with nature.’ A story which has become hidden and obscured by our busy, technologically driven lifestyles.Through forest bathing and breathing in the ‘natural organic compounds or phytoncides given off by the trees’ we can help ourselves regulate our own internal ecosystems.
Richardson draws our focus to a new phenomenon of human existence- ‘Attention Restoration Theory’- which explains how nature can restore us when we are suffering from the cognitive overload that comes with the constant stimulation of modern living.’
He argues that repeated exposure to, and connection with nature can lead to ‘ego dissolution’, where allowing creative opportunities with nature, such as nature photography, nature journaling, creating a pond, or selecting a ‘favourite tree’ and observing its changes throughout the year, can create a nature relationship which is based on love and respect, rather than human dominance.
Richardson highlights the scientific research which identifies that, ‘Our relationship with nature in the UK is particularly poor. With most people not really engaging with or noticing it at all. Inevitably, this is affecting our well-being.’ However, this text- ‘The Blackbird’s Song’- becomes a possible pathway of how this relationship with nature can be restored. But, it is a pathway which we have to choose to journey on.
‘Research has found that some 80% of people rarely- or never – engage with nature by watching wildlife or pausing to smell a wild flower.’
Humans are part of nature
Richardson repeatedly makes the argument that pausing to listen to the messages from nature will help to create a deeper and more meaningful relationship. ‘Nature always has a story to tell, and developing a connection with it is in many ways learning to read those stories.’
He acknowledges that there has been a loss of language and knowledge about nature, arguably coming from our dominant ideology of treating nature solely as an expendable resource and warns that this nadir may not yet have been reached. ‘The decline in the use of words related to nature reflects its diminishing importance in people’s lives, and this is likely to reduce further still. It shows that nature holds less significance for society.’
Richardson also warns about artificial substitutions for nature that are worryingly growing in popularity. ‘It’s early days for research into the impact of immersive virtual reality on nature connection. Might simulation raise expectations such that real nature disappoints and thereby loses its value? Could our search for simplicity and perfection lead to surrounding ourselves with simulated nature?’
Allow nature to speak to you
Richardson powerfully argues that it is the moments in nature and not the minutes in nature which are meaningful. He encourages us to have a ‘sense of shared belonging and embeddedness in the natural world.’ That this sense of belonging and connection will help to enable us to survive and thrive. The concept of nature as a powerful marker of cultural memory is one which is outlined clearly in the text. We know already that both birds and trees carry a deep cultural symbolism and have been used as images of hope and togetherness for many generations. Richardson takes it a step further and argues that trees ‘can carry a nation’s values.’ He also suggests a quasi- religious connection with nature when he comments, ‘…trees play an important part in people’s memories, their nostalgia for them implying a connection to something bigger than themselves.’ The sense that an unidentified ‘something’ is missing when we neglect nature and our relationship with it comes through strongly in the text.
There exists both an intricacy and a dynamism within nature, even in the darker months of winter, when on the surface, life seems paused and stilled.
The power of awe and wonder
Richardson’s book is one of celebration and inspiration. He offers the opportunity for readers to celebrate the large moments in nature such as the winter and summer solstices, but also to celebrate the first bud of spring. He also encourages his readers to feel both a wonder at nature, but that also, we should experience a more ‘old-fashioned’ sense of awe. Richardson signposts a fascinating area of future research and evaluation, when he teases the reader with the power of the unseen and suggests that humans may have an evolutionary link with nature- a discovery which would be a wonderful acknowledgement of our shared relationship. ‘The science is complex, but there’s a serious suggestion that the gut-brain axis in humans has an evolutionary link to the root-leaf axis in plants.’
Although some humans have forgotten the connection with nature, there is more than a suggestion that nature has not forgotten the connection with humans and is patiently waiting for us to once again, recognise and live this shared beneficial life.
Richardson argues that relationships need work, time and space sometimes and that our relationship with nature has become disconnected and broken. Humans are a part of nature and the author stresses that we can be surprised by the everyday joy of rebuilding and restoring the relationship with nature, and that in doing so, we can grow and breathe.
He draws on the one-of-a-kind text ‘The Living Mountain’ by Nan Shepherd and quotes the crucial lines:
‘Knowing another is endless…The thing to be known grows with the knowing.’
Climate Thoughts with Brian 