The beauty of wild water

My connection to nature has been growing stronger and stronger. A series of experiences, longings and feelings have converged to drive my yearning for connection with the natural world. These include moving to a country where I am immersed in nature, where I know the names of the birds and their calls and the way the tūī ducks and dives at dusk and the kākā screeches overhead at sunrise. I can tell the speed of the wind by looking at the sea in the bay, I know the times of year each flower blooms and the birds that swarm around each. Learning about Māori culture and Indigenous American culture has helped me understand worldviews where nature is not separate, a thing to be used, but is something deeply and intrinsically connected to humans; we have forgotten this as we’ve moved more and more to cities with little squares of grass dotted here and there, a manmade sort of nature. Last year, I swam in the Wellington seas for the first time; the cool, clear ocean was like a salve. To be fully immersed in nature, to become one with nature, creates a certain shift in mindset, in consciousness. I feel connected to the world around me, in a spiritual and satisfying way. Of course, the devastation we are seeing with climate change has only made this connection more urgent and upsetting. How could we do this to a living world that gives so much to us?

Yesterday, I went swimming the first time this summer in Wellington. I’d forgotten the beauty of wading into the blue-green sea, the sharp intake of breath as your warm skin is suddenly bathed in the less-than-tropical waters. But it was beautiful and delicious and healing. I am hoping to do more swimming this summer, and maybe even continue into the year (we’ll see!).

I came across a book called The Natural Health Service by Isabel Hardman when I was snooping around Picton library, and she discussed how wild swimming had been key for her own mental wellbeing. I realised that a couple of years before, my dad had bought me Roger Deakin’s classic Waterlog, a memoir written as Deakin swam his way across Britain. It is a beautiful and poetic (and humorous) ode to the miracle of wild water. Both have inspired me even more to get out into the lovely water as much as I can.