Nothing Gold Can Stay

First, for anyone still reading, my apologies for a lack of updates. This turned into a rather busy year and time has been far more restricted than normal, remarkably so. However, autumn is not only upon us but nearly over. But then, autumn seems to be always so fleeting.  That seemingly boundless pallet of colours, that appears around now, is always abrupt. That brevity is probably best captured in Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay". Of course, its imagery may be extended well beyond my thoughts of Autumn and for that reason, is even truer in these strange and worrying times. 

It was this poem that came to mind as I took my camera to a hidden area of a somewhat rewilded area - a former "lido" so popular in the '50s and '60s in working-class areas - found nestled and hidden at the centre of an industrialised area in Stoke On Trent. Not too far from former, heavily worked coal mines.  Pulling out my camera, I captured the photo below.  As we begin the journey into winter, I thought I might share.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
By Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

IMARA: Resilient. A Documentary

This came up on my Vemo feed and I am so glad it did. IMARA is a Swahili word that means ‘resilient’. Things can appear quite "depressing" in the world at the moment, but I think this suggests that no matter how bad things can get, or how hopeless things can seem, it is possible for the human spirit to surmount anything. If you like it, please share. 

A short documentary about Samuel Mwangi, a young professional Kenyan cyclist, who comes to terms is faced with the challenge of continuing his career after one of his legs is amputated as a result of a tragic crash. 

What is Rewilding?

I don't always agree with everything that George Monbiot says. Neither do I agree with everything about his version of rewilding. For example, his hatred of sheep, and the language he uses is as extreme as those gamekeepers working in Driven grouse shooting, who illegally kill Hen Harriers, Two wrongs do not make a right and all of that. Equivalently, a nature reserve like Chimney Meadows is not some form of "betrayal" of "true" conservation; one sort of ecosystem is as important as another, especially if it has all but disappeared. However, I think this very brief video is as good an introduction to the concept of rewilding as any.

Could the destruction of the natural world be reversed? Could our bare hills once more support a rich and thriving ecosystem, containing wolves, lynx, moose, bison, wolverines and boar? Does our wildlife still bear the marks of the great beasts that once roamed here? George Monbiot narrates an animation on the enchanting subject of rewilding

Iolo's Snowdonia

I live, a lot of the time, not more than 80 miles or so from Snowdonia. It is a place of great diversity and worth repeated, and frequent, visits.

Iolo's Snowdonia is a series of four, thirty-minute documentaries from BBC Wales. Each one is dedicated to one season; Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Not as well advertised by the BBC as it should e in my opinion. If you have never visited, it might provide some inspiration. Well worth camping out for a few days.

Three Things

There are three things that have always made my soul sing:  nature, the undiscovered and cycling.  

Nature:

Since childhood - and as one who spent their early formative years being raised in the country - nature has seduced and delighted me. In my youth, there was no greater delight, upon reaching a field, woodland or river, than to take off my shoes and socks and connect to the land; to feel it intimately and draw up whatever power, real or imagined, it might have. I would spend hours, simply staring at a tree, climbing and investigating it and its inhabitants: birds, insects, animals and the often overlooked, but ever present, lichen. Wildflowers and animals fascinated me, rivers and streams provided endless pleasure. Even inanimate objects, often overlooked, such as rocks, would, on close examination, be found to be "alive" in one way or another. And these things still provide the deepest of pleasure. Why, I could not tell you, although I know, I am far from alone; millions of people seem to share the same love and wonder of nature, at least to some degree.

Poets, artists and philosophers have vouched and prescribed a regular engagement with nature as the most effective of tonics for centuries. An early example is Aristotle who advocated walking outdoors to clear the mind. Or, let us look to Beethoven, who, writing to Therese Malfatti in the summer of 1808 - as he completed the 6th Symphony - revealed: