399 Holly Worton ~ How to Consciously Give Back to Nature

Transcript

Holly: Hello adventurers! Welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 399. We are almost at 400! I can’t believe I have been podcasting for this long. I know that the podcast has changed and evolved and pivoted over the years but I never would have guessed back in 2013 when I first started this thing that I would be going for so long.

So, this is your Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode, 399.

Today I am going to talk about a topic that was inspired by a listener. I occasionally get listeners or readers of my books emailing me, or getting in touch on social media, giving me ideas for topics and I really welcome this. So if you have been listening to the podcast and you have a question for me or there is something that you would like me to talk about, or a topic, or I don’t know something that you would like me to cover on this podcast please let me know. I actually just got a really great email from one of my emails and listeners and she gave me some compliments on last week’s episode with Cara Wilde and she said that she would really like to hear about a couple of other things. So thanks to her, I have got an animal communicator coming on hopefully soon and I am looking for a crystal communicator and I think I have found someone, but I have got to check her out a little bit more before I reach out. So if you have any topics that I have already talked about but want to learn more about, please get in touch and let me know, I love hearing from listeners – you can email at hollyworton.com and get in touch.

Many, many months ago, perhaps a year ago, one of my listeners wrote in and said: I have some ideas for topics; and one of the things that he suggested was this, here’s what he said:

“We get something, many things, from hiking along trails. What do we give without realizing it, and what can we give consciously?”

And whenever I get topics, suggested topics, I copy and paste them into this Evernote file where I keep all of my ideas for guests and podcast topics and solo episodes and it is all in one Evernote file. So I copied and pasted this in there and I read it from time to time when looking for a new topic and I kept thinking about this one. And this week, when I sat down to record this episode, I realised that this was the week, now is the time to have this conversation!

I think this is a really interesting topic because we get so much from hiking, we get so much from running outdoors, we get so much from our outdoors adventures. If you listen to this podcast you know, I have talked so much about the opportunities for personal growth and personal development that we can get from getting outdoors and being outside.

But, what do we give without realising it?

And it actually took me a while to think about this. Before I do a topic I always kind of google the topic to see what people are saying about the topic and I couldn’t find anything, no one else is talking about this or maybe I didn’t know how to google it, so I had to think.

I think the most obvious thing we give without realising it is carbon dioxide from our breath, every time we are outdoors, whether we are hiking, running, cycling (or whatever) we are breathing (hopefully!) and when we exhale we are exhaling carbon dioxide and that is really good stuff for trees and plants and they take that and they breathe that in. So carbon dioxide is something that we give all the time and we give constantly without realising it and that is actually a really good thing for trees and plants.

What else do we give without realising it? We give our voices for better or for worse. I think when we go out and whether we are talking to the trees as I do; or whether we are talking to a friend that we might be walking with; or whether we are talking to our dogs, or if we bring a dog; our voices kind of lend an extra layer of life to the forest, to the trails. And like I said for better or for worse. Some people speak at a normal, acceptable, volume and some people are really, really, loud and I don’t know I feel really bad when I complain about it and I only complain silently in my head. Some people are really, really, loud and they are either screaming at their dog, or they are screaming at their kids, or screaming at each other. I don’t know, every once in a while when I go out, I will be out in the woods in the middle of nowhere and it is quiet and I haven’t seen people in a long time and all of a sudden I hear this [noise], like someone screaming for their dog to come back because they have let it off the lead and it is chasing after a deer and they are trying to get it back and it is not paying attention because it is running after a deer… and it is so jarring and it disrupts the energy of the calm, quiet forest with the birds singing in the trees with their leaves rustling in the wind, it is really, really, shocking for me sometimes! {laughing}

So I always try to be aware. Most of the time I am alone in the outdoors but when I did take groups on walks I would always try to be aware of my volume/our volume as a group. My group was really quiet, we would have conversations and laugh and stuff – but we weren’t rowdy and screaming. I don’t know maybe that is just me, when I go out into nature I like to hear nature sounds and not people screaming sounds, but I also recognise the fact that it is a place to have fun and a place to play, and that’s absolutely valid too, so I don’t want to sound like a complaining person when I am talking about this. But our voices are something we give without realising it and sometimes that is a good thing and sometimes it can be a bit jarring.

What else do we give? We give our gaze, our view, of the surrounding nature, our appreciation of it, our perception of it. We are acknowledging the existence of these trails, all the stuff along the trails, as we experience it. We are also giving our energy. So as we are walking along a trail, or running down a trail, or cycling down a trail, we as living beings have energy and we are adding our energy to this outdoor space.

We also give or leave footprints which sometimes if the trail is muddy and they don’t usually show up as much if the trail is dry. But our footprints can sometimes cause erosion if we are trumping through the mud and widen the trail by trying to get to the other bits on the edges of the mud and that can cause erosion that can cause permanent widening of the trail as more and more people do this. And that is something that we have seen a lot this year with Covid as there are many more people out on the trails and the mud that we have had during the winter has really destroyed a lot of trails and I am really curious to see what things are going to be like once we progress further into spring and then summer and the trails dry out a little bit more. I wonder what that is going to be like? Are we going to have permanent damage to some of these trails or is it going to recover? It will recover eventually probably but certainly our trails have seen more use than they ever have before.

What else do we give without realising it? Well, this is debatable but dog waste. So most people that go walking with the dog will bag up their dog waste and you are supposed to take it out with you and people don’t. Some people flick it off to the side of the trail which is okay, as long as no one is going to step in it and it is not on farmland but it is not technically what you are supposed to do. But, some people bag up their dog poop and leave it at the side of the trail, or worse, flick it up into a tree where it hangs from the tree like a poopy Christmas tree ornament, I don’t know, and that is really awful. So obviously people doing this know they are doing it but I don’t know if they realise just how awful it is. So, that is one thing that we give or leave.

Trash, so I think some people do litter intentionally but I think some people don’t. I think some people just attach rubbish into the little pockets on their backpack and things fall out. I really don’t think that all the trash I see in the woods is intentional littering. So be really careful, if you have bought a disposable bottle of water, or you have eaten a bag of crisps, or you have candy wrapper or whatever. Or gels! I remember one year I was working the North Downs Way and I happened to coincide the same day as a running event and there were all these runners leaving their gels. So when you eat a gel packet you have a little tab at the top that you pull off, and you kind of suck the gel off from the top of the packet, but the little tab is really easy to lose. So you have really got to be careful about tucking it into your vest, or putting it somewhere hopefully that has a zipper so it doesn’t fall out because they are really lightweight. The North Downs Way was just littered not just with those little tabs but with gel packets. And I am sure some people threw some down on purpose but I am sure some people didn’t, so they were just running and they were in a hurry, they tucked it into their vest and it fell out. So be careful that things don’t full out of your pack. If you can secure rubbish in a zipper compartment that is best. So again trash is something that we give or leave without realising it.

And finally (and this is a good thing!), publicity, by sharing our photos of nature on social media. So every time we go out for a walk, every time we got out for a run, every time we do something outdoors and take a picture and share it online, that’s free publicity for nature. And I think that is kind of a funny way of looking at it but it is, every time I see someone else’s picture of a trail it makes me want to get out on the trail. And I know I have so much feedback, especially people who don’t live in the UK, who see my pictures of the beautiful trails that I walk on and run on and they say: I wish I could visit you, I wish I could go walking with you, because the places that I share are so beautiful. So it is free publicity for your local nature and I think that is good because if we can encourage more people to get outdoors it is going to change their lives, it is going to change their relationship with the environment and it is going to ultimately help the environment.

So those are some of the things we give, for better, or for worse, without releasing it, or without being conscious of it. So maybe be aware of those things the next time you go out into nature. Be aware of the fact that every time you breathe, which is not something you are doing consciously, but everything you go out in the outdoors you are giving a gift to the trees and plants. Your gaze upon this nature is giving it your own kind of appreciation, your voice is joining the sounds of the woods (or wherever it is that you are walking). Your energy is mingling with the energy of the trees and the plants and the birds and the animals and everything else. Your footprints, be aware of where you step. If you walk a dog be mindful of what you do with the taste. Trash, be mindful of things not falling off your pack. And publicity, be conscious of how you share things on social media and be aware that by sharing these pictures, even if it is just one, you could make someone’s life a little bit better by being outdoors, by inspiring them to be outdoors.

So what can we give consciously?

Some of the things are related to things I just said.

So respect the trails. So in the UK a public right of way, a public footpath, technically is a metre wide. So if there is a muddy trail, it is about a metre wide, and you are trying to avoid the mud, or you widen the trail by stepping alongside the mud, and everyone else does the same, little by little that trial just widens and widens and widens and a lot of these trails go through private property. So you are eroding and degrading a trail, it is a public right of way but technically it is part of someone’s land. So respect the trails not just because the land belongs to someone else, but respect the trails because it is Mother Earth, be mindful of where you step and don’t widen the trails.

That’s something that I ever thought about until I did my lowland leader’s certification (I don’t know three years ago) and that was something that I learned there, that the trails are a metre wide and be aware of how you treat the trails – and ever since then it has really changed my perspective of how I walk on trails.  

Trash, in addition to keeping your own trash safe inside a zipper, you can clear up other people’s junk. I don’t always do this, I would like to do it more but I pretty much always carry a small bin bag in my backpack. And whenever I am walking a trail and I see more rubbish than I normally see, when it becomes kind of conscious: oh god there is a bottle and there is a bag and a wrapper; I just pull out my bag and start picking up stuff. And, often it doesn’t take too long to fill the bag. So if you can get into the habit of keeping a small bag with you, you don’t have to go out and fill a huge bag full of trash but something small you know, on your regular walk, just have a little bag with you, something that is lightweight that you can carry around. Or, every once in a while, you can drive somewhere and bring a big bag and just go and dedicate some time to cleaning up the trails. Yeah, ideally people would do this themselves and pack out the same stuff they pack in but we know this doesn’t happen, so some of us have to make an extra effort. So that is another thing that you can give back to the environment by picking up trash.

Next, you can help keep invasive plants, or non-native plants, in check. And this is something that I never really thought about until last year, I was out on one of my outdoors classes, I think it was wildlife tracking and I forget where we were, we were in this place that I hadn’t been before and I was walking around, and there was this flower, and I don’t even remember what the flower was but I kind of bent down to look at it and said: oh what a pretty flower! And one of the guys on my course has a degree in ecology and works in ecology and he came by, walked up next to me, he had this little pocket knife and he pulled it out and clipped off the flower head and he was like: non-native, invasive! And I was like: oh I was just looking at the flower! And his attitude was: it was a non-native species, it could technically be invasive, it doesn’t belong here. Boom, he clipped off the flower so it couldn’t seed. And I kind of went: oh I never thought about that. So obviously you don’t want to go on private land and start ripping up invasive species but if you do see a flower like that, that you know is not native, you know, clip off its flowers and take the home with you or just leave them, but don’t allow them to go to seed, that is one thing that you could do, it is a very small thing but of course you have to know your plants, you have to be able to ID your plants, but that is something that I had never thought of before that has kind of stuck in my head as a very small thing that you could do.

You could also donate to local charities that care for the land, so wildlife trusts that are in your area, do some research and donate some money or maybe donate to places that plant trees or just care for the land in your area. That is really, really, a good type of organisation to donate to if you can, because you are giving back to the land that you are walking through.

Also you can volunteer, obviously now in times of Covid, that is not really happening but hopefully in the next few months, or the next year, we will be able to go back to doing things like that, you can volunteer to plant trees, you can volunteer to take care of places in the outdoors.

Leave no trace, and that is something that I blogged about a little bit and I talk about it from time to time and that is something to keep in mind. So whenever you go out just leave no trace of your presence, it is not hard but a lot of people don’t do it; so it is something to think about. So there are seven basic principles of leave no trace. One is plan ahead and prepare. Next is travel and camp on durable surfaces. Third is dispose of waste properly. Four, leave what you find. Five, minimise campfire impacts. Six, respect wildlife. And, seven, be considerate of other visitors. So a lot of this stuff is common sense, but do some research if you are afraid that you might not know how to properly leave no trace, just google ‘leave no trace seven principles’, and there is tons of stuff online. I also have a blog post that I will link to in the show notes about applying the concept of leave no trace to rituals and leaving offerings at sacred sites, so I will link to that in the show notes because I have definitely changed the way I leave offerings based on wanting to apply the concept of leave no trace.

Next thing and this is something that I never really thought about until I read this blog post by Dana O’Driscoll, and she has been blogging for years on a blog called The Druid’s Garden, and I will link to the article in the show notes. So this particular article talks about druid tree workings and establishing deep connections with trees and this is a great article, I agree with so much of it. But one of the things that she suggests is giving to the trees in the form of nitrogen. So trees obviously take in our carbon dioxide but they can also take in the nitrogen that we pee, it is a great source of nourishment. So another way to give back consciously is to pee at the base of a tree. I often used to feel bad hiding behind a tree to have a wild pee, but after I read this article I realised, of course it is a great source of nitrogen. Don’t pee directly on the leaves because it will burn them but you can go on the soil at the base of the tree/around the tree. Just a thought. It is also a great way to hide behind the trunk of a tree as you do your thing, so pee.

Another thing you can give is offerings and offerings don’t need to be elaborate, you could sing a little song as you walked down the trail, you could do a little dance. You could touch the trees as they go by, that is one of the things that the trees said to me that they liked, when I was researching my book, If Trees Could Talk. You could also bring little dried plants or herbs from your garden, again you are going to want to avoid seeds, because you don’t want to be seeding non-native things in the wild, but a lot of people will give dried tobacco that they have grown themselves as an offering.

Gratitude, you can simply give gratitude to the trails, to the outdoors, to nature and say thanks to the trees, say thanks to the plants, the birds, as you walk. I often just talk to the trees as I am walking down a trail, so you can say that silently in your mind or say it out loud. And just feel that sense of gratitude for the trails, for nature, for all of these beautiful places. You can also help a tree seed itself elsewhere or pick up some of its acorns or its seeds and carry them down the trail, in a similar environment, you don’t want to take them out to another environment, but perhaps 500 metres down the trail leave the acorns or the seeds or the nuts and help the tree to spread its seeds and nuts.

Finally, remember that each picture that you take, each photo that you share on social media, is free publicity for the outdoors. So when you share your photos, share the with that intention that they help others get outdoors too, that they help other people to connect with nature, that they help other people to enjoy the trails. A lot of us do this anyway but we don’t consciously realise the impact of our actions so I think that is a really great way to give back.

So that is pretty much all I have to say on the topic but I would really like to hear from you, what are your thoughts on this? Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever thought about what we give the trails without realising it? And did you think of anything else that we give as I was talking. It was really, really, hard for me to come up with some of this stuff because some of it is good and some of it is bad and some of it is so subtle, like carbon dioxide. And if you have any other ideas for ways that we can consciously give back to nature and to the trails, please let me know.

Again, you can email at hollyworton.com or find me online and get in touch there. And if you have any ideas like this or something else or if you have further questions about any of the topics I have already covered, please get in touch and let me know because I would love to go deeper on these topics if I see that there is interest. So thank you so much for listening and next week’s episode is number 400 so I am probably going to do that one myself but like I said I have some very interesting guests lined up and I am really excited about that. In the meantime remember to visit hollyworton.com/399 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you so much.