The power of being in the natural world at a time of distress
”Have you been to Pit Wood yet?” Annabel asked.
“No, where is it?”
“Up by the ‘old age’ and through the park”
I didn’t recognise where she meant, and, feeling slightly embarrassed about my ignorance, I didn’t ask.
But there was something in that conversation which registered. She had described a beech wood, animatedly telling me how beautiful if was. I squirrelled this away, leaving it dormant in my head for some future forage.
Bedlinog, the small Welsh village in south Wales where I live, is surrounded mainly by oak woods, twisting away through the mist in autumn. These are interspersed with birch, and ash and alder. They are splendid, but the thought of a beech wood lingered. In my last home, on the edge of the Vale of Glamorgan, my daily dog walk took me past an enormous beech, four hugs in diameter, which cast a spell on me, inviting me to hunt for her beech neighbours. I found these with relish, and each of them left their mark as I discovered their particular magic: the vivid greens of spring; the golden oranges of autumn; their sentinel appearance in winter and the breathing of life in summer. There, the thick blanket of leaf mold fed first the delicate wood anenomes beneath them, and then the wild garlic which grew outside the shade of their canopy, injecting a different green into the wood and a scent which made me hungry. .
Four weeks later, on an impulse, I went in search of Pit Wood.
Full of anger and distress my head jangled. The night before I read through a letter from a Psychiatrist about my brother who, just two weeks earlier, had taken his life. The letter, as previous ones, failed in so many ways, fanning my flames of despair. I struggled to shake them off.
Poppy’s bark pulled me out of myself. Tail wagging, stick in mouth, demanding that I throw it for her. I walked past houses where once canaries had been kept in the front window to warn the householders of the dangers of the gas, rising hidden from the vast coal spoil heap which had stood there. The spoil heap was long gone, along with the mines.
Maybe this is where Annabel meant as I approached a complex of flats towards the ‘top park’. Passing through a kissing gate, I picked up a cinder track on the left, instinctively following it. Then another kissing gate; over a stream and on to a ‘living wall’, from which a host of ferns sprouted, taking this old railway siding wall, another reminder of mining history, into their possession. I threaded my way over rough, rocky ground which hinted at stream bed, though late spring had dried it out.
In front of me was a fence. In front of that. a huge beech which had fallen into oblivion, blocking my way. Poppy darted beneath this carcass, through a small, dog sized, hole in the fence, beckoning me with her loud excited bark, while I struggled to work out how I would clamber my way over this dead sentry. Eventually I straddled and breached the trunk and then over the fence which had been denuded of its style by the fallen tree.
I paused long enough for the despair and anger to seep back into my too-full head. It had been such a battle to try to get people to listen to me and my brother. For him, it had become just too much. He could bear the pain no more. I was left behind, trying to respect his choice to let go of life, though I had so desperately wanted him to live.
Poppy’s bark rang out again, calling me up a steep hill, fence to my right, over another, much smaller, fallen beech. The crunch of beech mast crept from beneath my boots, releasing itself into the quiet air, along with my heavy breathing as the gradient exerted my legs and lungs. The ground to my left fell away steeply where, at the bottom, a beech stood by Nant Llwynog. Vivid green roots, like outstretched hands, clung to the ground, eroded by the stream, desperately trying to keep the trunk upright as it threatened to fall into the stream beneath.
My eyes adjusted to the dappled light as it trickled through the bright green leaves. Tiny light pools glinted on the fallen leaves of previous years. My body welcomed the shade, cooling me from the warmth of the day and my physical effort. Tall mature beech trees rose sixty feel or more from the escarpment in search of sunlight, spreading out and contorting their limbs to soak it in, and to feed their hungry young leaves. I exclaimed out loud at this place of magic as I began to take in the splendors of Pit Wood.
The illusion of silence dispersed as I listened closely. Nant Llwynog made her presence felt as she moved gently over the rocks in the stream bed. (I would hear her loud, exultant voice much later when the heavy rains came some months on from this first encounter.) Occasionally the soft breeze would rustle up a barely discernible sound as it blew through the leaves. Sheep called to their young as they grazed on a nearby farm. Then, from the hill above, the ululating call of the curlew, moved through the wood, resonating in the trees, filling my head with wonder, pushing aside despair. I stood, mesmerised, trying to take it all in, exulting in being in this place at this time.
Poppy barked again. Impatient. Desperate to move on. There were more sticks to find, scents to seek. I hesitated, resisting her shout, taking it all in before continuing uphill. And then a pause, arrested by a sudden movement not much above head height. It happened so quickly, and I struggled to recognise what I was seeing. Was this a buzzard flying through the trees? The browns of its plumage certainly suggested this, and I had heard buzzards calling way above the canopy, but this was such a surprise. A good surprise, which prised more space away from my worried head.
As I worked my way to the top of the wood, a short walk, some of the trees changed in character, now stunted by the battering of the winds on exposed ground, forcing me to duck as I made my way beneath their low branches.
And then, as the wood opened out again into open fields and open sky, a red kite jinked on the wind, fine tuning his hover as he eyed up the world beneath for food, mewling as he did so, tempting his pray into the open and pushing aside more worry in my troubled head.
I knew from this first encounter that I would be back to Pit Wood, camera in hand, challenged to capture just a hint of this special place which had cleared my head of troubles, if only for a moment. Those two hours had taught me that I could lose myself in this place, that I could spend the rest of my life getting to know its intimate secrets as it changed with the weather, the seasons and the time of day. I knew too, that this was a place which would bring me solace and refuge when I needed it.
Copyright Roy Carr
For More of my photography, visit Royscapes.com where in particular you will find images made in Pit Wood,