Chaparral Wisdom

By Sitting, Listening, Reading, and Conversing
Part I: # 1 – 3

1. Listen to Birds

In a new study, four German scientists demonstrated that listening to bird song reduces depression, anxiety, and paranoia (Stobbe et al. 2022). It is yet another confirmation that being in Nature provides positive psychological and physiological health benefits.

Reporting on the benefits of Nature is all the rage these days. The Washington Post discussed the German study plus another one last week. The research topic is exploding.

During a wine and cheese soiree at fellow Chaparralians Gregg and Maril Parker’s place in Julian last month, prior to the Volcan Mountain Symposium, we had a wonderful conversation with Richard Louv, the man who energized the children in Nature movement with his influential book, Last Child in the Woods. Over dishes of snacks and rapidly emptying bottles, we discussed some of the new research. When he first started looking into the subject more than 20 years ago, Louv said there were barely a dozen or so papers about the positive impact of being outdoors in Nature. Now, there’s more than 1,500. Maybe Nature is finally having its Renaissance.

Participating in that Renaissance is easy. Find a relaxing space in Nature, preferably between two different habitats, sit down and listen. If you’re lucky enough to have a yard, create your own space. Let wildness emerge. We’ve done this in our own yard à la Kevin Costner (If you build it, he will come); we ripped out the lawn three years ago and planted chaparral. It’s eight feet tall now in some places. There’s a patch in the middle that’s impenetrable. It could become prime bobcat territory; we’re hoping it will be adopted by one of the three kittens born in our neighborhood this year.

Every morning we have coffee on the bird deck, watching Spotted Towhees scamper about searching for the seed we scatter (a western regional blend of seed plus an extra gourmet fruit and nut mix for the Nuthatches), a pair Western Blue Birds raising their family (our next-door neighbor Dave built the nest box for us), and House Finches tussling with Mourning Doves on the feeder platform (we’ve named the pushiest Dove, Boudicca).

Bring your binoculars and listen. Feel the relaxation course through your body. The facts are in. You’ll live happier and longer.

Build it and they will come. Some of our new friends: a Spotted Towhee (ooooo-weeeeee), a Western Blue Bird on the nest box, and a House Finch dancing atop the feeding platform.

2. Building Your Intergenerational Self: Embrace stories from your people’s past, your history, your foundation

Lots of people roam the streets of Cambridge, England; any town, really. But oh, how much more there is than the snapshot images and must-see sights. Read, listen, and learn before you go. The places will speak to you as they did to us during our excursions to England.

As I placed my feet onto the dark, gray stone steps ascending a small corridor into a building where Isaac Newton went to think, to write, to talk, my mind imagined him there, worrying about the plague, thinking in numbers, and creating the mathematical language for the gravitational constant, allowing him to articulate the force that shapes the universe. I reached down and touched the worn curves in stone, curves Newton’s feet had contributed. I gently repeated his passage, one step at a time, talking with him along the way.