A Type of Homesickness
Hello ~
It was my 53rd birthday this past week and I couldn't have been happier walking with Dave for a few days among the rocks and Sycamores a few hours south of here. We took in wide skies and tiny lichen, both, and marveled at desert water pooling in springs and snaking past in riverbeds. It was all as lovely as could be and a wonderful way to start out another year, but the entire time I was also aware of this new bit of sadness that hangs with me when I'm outdoors these days. It's subtle but it's persistent. Have you felt it? Because I know I'm not the only one who's sad while also thoroughly immersed in places that we love.
I recently learned of a new word to describe this sadness - solastalgia. Environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht combined "solace" and "nostalgia" to describe “a type of homesickness or melancholia that you feel when you’re at home and your home environment is changing around you in ways that you feel are profoundly negative.” That's it, right? That little ache in my heart as I look around and see swaths of trees that are dying or wonder where the birds are. There used to be more birds, didn't there? I remember hearing and seeing more birds, I'm sure. Out my backdoor desert plants and cacti are stunted with thirst - cactus thirsty! I hadn't ever considered the possibility, but the truth is in my lifetime, my 53 years, we've lost 60% of the Earth's wild species. There are plenty of reasons to be feeling solastalgia.
I'm an optimist at heart and I still find so much to wonder at and explore in the great sage plain outback. But I think constantly about what can be done for our world - the one out the back door and the wider one beyond. I know bigger minds than mine are also grappling with this question and strategies have been presented and solutions promoted. But something is holding us back from tackling this climate change situation and I wonder at that.
Many questions from me today, and few answers. But here is one: grow a garden. Or a few planters or an herb patch. It seems little. It is little in the face of things, but it's something. I've been reminded recently by Sue Stuart-Smith's A Well-Gardened Mind (recommended by friend and artist Janet Lever-Wood) of how incredibly lush a garden environment can be. How the combination of dense plantings, available water, a range of habitats and proximity to the protection of humans can nurture such a crazy abundance of life - from birds to insects to rodents to toads. It's a gift to the world out the back door and it's a gift to ourselves. It may offer respite from solastalgia. Maybe even something more.
Love to you,
~ Rosie