The benefits of spending time outside and connecting with nature are well-known. But in the cold? Everything looks dead when it's cold. In the winter, we are susceptible to fatigue, illness and low moods. If we look closely, we can see that there is a lot of life, beauty and wonder outside our doors.
A common environment across the British Isles is an urban cemetery.
It takes a while to convince my young children to go outside, but we are all a bit flustered, and I know a walk will help.
The cemetery is not busy. It looks like life is suspended. There are beech, yew, maple, larch trees. The bare trees remind her to breathe deeper. I have seen the trees as lungs since then.
Blackbirds are looking for food in the ivy as red kites soar high above. We are looking at the clusters of fruit. There are navy spheres. There are red, orange, yellow berries in the winter.
The wall is festooned with moss. Don't associate spring with green. Moss is a bright color. You will see emerging sporophytes if you are close by. The moss is juicy because of the wet weather. The jade-green cups of Cladonia lichen are near the pincushion moss. The toddler is running away, so I can't look at the structures for a while.
We love circles. According to research, we like rounded shapes because they are the shape of our eyes and nipples. The amygdala, an area of the brain associated with fear and anxiety, is more active when the shapes are sharp. It may be an ancient cellular response to look at circles.
I take a piece of pine and smell it. Studies show that the chemicals emitted by trees can have a measurable effect on our health, but I won't be taking them for a while.
There is a cemetery in the center of town next to a train station and a shopping centre. I have been following a large plasmodium for a long time. The fruiting bodies with iridescent outer layers and gold-thread cords are what makes it different. It's easy to spot this species. There is no shame in lying on the floor with your head in some logs.
The kids are cold and I spy more moulds that are still alive. A colony is being spied on. Is it a ghost busters? Some of the best suggestions from an online forum are of brown fruiting bodies on stalks, which look like a forest of small chocolate lollipops. You won't believe how good the moulds are. Barry Webb has great photography on his site. There are many of them in the world. If you want to have your mind blown daily, you should get a hand lens or jewellery loupe. The University of Toronto found that the emotion of awe is good for our health.
I look at the moss on the brick wall after touching the sticky toffee buds of the horse chestnut tree. There is a red velvet mite. I use a hand lens to see more of the outside world. It shows me how limited my view is and how much I have to learn. This city park is turned into a jungle. For less than a tenner, my hand lens costs about seven dollars.
On the way home, we stroke candlesnuff fungus and watch as it puffs up in the wind. There will be more fungi in the woods, including round, whoopee cushion puff balls to tap, and even more colour: scarlet elf cup, orange witches' butter, yellow Stagshorn, green elf cup, blue roundheads, purple Jellydisc fungus.
I grabbed a rose hip near the back door. Don't eat the seeds that are covered in hairs that can irritate if you choose a red one. It's delicious. The kids have a lot of things in their pockets and we all return to the house calmer.
I walk to make sure my nervous system is balanced. There is a sense outside of a pause and meaning that can't be measured in a lab. Even in the depths of winter, we can see the wonder of the world because we can patch ourselves into the communion of life.
Lucy Jones is a writer.
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