Hello Gentle Reader,
Pan is the rustic Greek god of wild woods, pastures, shepherds and their flocks, and is often associated with the season of spring. In addition to his role as patron and deity, Pan is associated with vitality, fertility, and of course virility; in addition to being a philanderer and chaser of the Nymphs, who in turn delighted in running away from the unencumbered lustful advances. In the pantheon and hierarchy of Greek mythology, Pan is a lesser god. The twelve Olympians rule supreme. Furthermore, the patron of wild woods, pastures, shepherds and their flocks, in addition to the persona of virile and hedonistic spring, is not depicted as a chiseled specimen of the human figure, in all its perfection, free of blemish or bruise. Instead, Pan is described as satyr or faun in appearance. A chimeric creature. The bottom half composed of hairy goat or Cervidae legs ending in cloven hooves, then topped with a human torso, and a face which flickers between caprine and human, which is crowned with a set of goat or ram horns. This wild god of lust, the untamed wilderness of the natural world, and the shepherds of lambs and goats, never truly fell into relative obscurity. Despite being a minor god, the character of Pan persevered as a character and symbol. Rather in fashion similar to Zeus, the mighty King of the Olympians, God of the heavens and thunder who has since become the stock image of the Christian depiction of God, wizened and bearded sitting on a cloud looking down at the earth below with judgement, ready to smite with a bolt from the blue. Pan regained prominence during the 18th and 19th centuries, becoming a characteristic figure of the Romantic movement with its pastoral allures and rising neopagan movements and other spiritualistic concepts. Consequently, the image of Pan was also appropriated and reconfigured to be the popular and recognizable image of Satan as a goat headed being. Regardless, there is a pastoral and bucolic element to Pan, which inevitably sees his image endure. For the Romantics, Pan represented the Arcadian ideal. The utopian vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature. For those of a more Judaeo-Christian inclination, it’s a return to the garden of Eden. Inevitably those of a romantic sensibility rebelled against the prevailing attitudes caused by the Industrial Revolution, with its coal powered factories and an increased urbanization, which saw the countryside all but abandoned for the promise of the spoils of industry and the gamble of a better future. Oh, how the romantics lamented the abandonment of the pasture, the purity of the air, the simplicity of a good day’s toil in the fields. Of course, they elevated the rural harshness to more romantic and softer image then it was in reality, glossing over the cruelty and harshness of such a life. Still, Pan with pipes in hand frolicked forward and became ingrained into the public consciousness, a symbol of the uncontrolled wilds of the world; harkening back to the over romanticized values of an agrarian society, burrowing and reconnecting with one’s roots.
This is becoming a more entrenched perspective. The idea of simple living is but a new lifestyle fad. During the pandemic, it seems people began to occupy themselves with daydreams and curations of country living. Charming old cottages, wildflower meadow like yards, baking sourdough bread, and participating in needlework and embroidery. There’s nothing wrong with these pursuits. Though there is concern with the heightened idealization of them. While it is pleasant to envision wholesome notions of country living, its not all pies cooling on the windowsill, or effortless beautiful gardens blooming throughout the spring and into the summer, the envy of all one’s neighbours. There’s drudgery and hard work. There is suffering and financial costs and expenses. It is, however, understandable how people begin to idealise this notion of living. Its back to basics with home made, home raised, homespun, home backed, home grown, home canned, the acceptance and endorsement of self-sufficiency. With the threat of economic dispersity and uncertainty, a continual contentious and unstable political environment. Then of course the rising existential threat of Artificial Intelligence. This inevitably does drive the notion and dream for people to tunnel in and hunker down in order to pursue an unencumbered self-sufficient sustainable life. It doesn’t hurt, however, with the likes of Beatrix Potter and the “Tales of Peter Rabbit & Co,” with their beautiful watercolour drawings of anthropomorphic characters does ignite one’s imagination. The same can be said of, “The Wind in the Willows,” another nostalgic read from one’s childhood; where incidentally, a certain god of the wilds, woods, and pastures makes an appearance, and was featured on the original cover of the publication. While country living is harsh and hardscrabble, it is perhaps not without reward; but those flights of fantasy are best conjured to occupy and fill the vacuous moments and times of the day. They are perfect if only because the exist in the ethereal realm of dreaming, devoid of the contusions and bruises and all the other inconveniences of reality. They are beautiful if only because they are a dream.
The cottier lifestyle is synonymously applied and attributed to the English countryside, which as a broad term, employed as a catchall to ensnare the geographical characteristics of not only the United Kingdom but also Ireland. This is a landscape which has been cultured and cultivated by human activity and society for centuries, to the point it is primed and pruned, whereby its wild elements have all been eradicated to distant memories, leaving behind a pedestrian park. In all, nothing more then an insinuation of the wild. While Pan is the deity and guardian of the untamed wilds, his attribution as the frolicsome spirit of the English countryside is not unsurprising. This landscape with its cotter charm, carved out with the serpentine stonewalls, spiced with ancient trees, and enduring cottages, castles, and towns; in addition to lacking formidable predators be it wolves, lions, or bears. The rolling hills of the Yorkshire dales, for example, bring to mind the pastoral utopia of Arcadia in which Pan heralds from. Inevitably this is what is so appealing about the English countryside, whose green shadow has been a wellspring of inspiration and contributing influence on countless writers through the ages, who have celebrated and venerated this special landscape in turn, turning it into legend and character. The English countryside has occupied the imagination of children across the world, with it being the backdrop of a variety of arts, culture, and literary products. In the case of Jamaica Kincaid, daffodils from Wordsworth’s poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” represent an oppressive colonial visage and education. While Penelope Lively described, how Beatrix Potter’s books were verdant and exotic when compared to her childhood growing up outside of Cairo.
The literary form of nature writing suits the continued propagation and celebration of the English countryside and landscape. A mercurial genre which celebrates the bounty of nature and examines it. The form exists on the spectrum of scientific study, zoological narrative, ecological exploration, to personal memoir and reflection on the natural world. Nature and environment are subject, but also provide the staging ground for more philosophical and personal oriented digressions. This is perhaps what makes nature writing as a genre a pleasurable read. Its akin to watching a nature documentary, whereby one can admire and appreciate a distant landscape via more economic means. The English countryside in turn, has no shortage of legend or folklore or history for writers to unearth or wander down in some tangent; while providing some thoughtful glance or acknowledgement at the natural fauna or flora in bloom. In contrast, the Canadian backwoods remain the polar opposite of the English countryside with its pastoral idyll and parkland elements. Perhaps due to the scale of the geography, the diversity in topography and terrain, and extreme unforgiving climate, Canada remains in many ways an unspoilt, unexplored, final frontier. It’s the untamed wilds in all their primeval glory and danger. If a Canadian were to take up the mantal of nature writing, it is less about cultivation and natural stewardship and instead is a survival guide with wilderness tips. It’s a practical guide to homesteading. A celebration of the indominable spirit of the Canadian character. The tenacity to persevere in the face of impossible odds. An appreciation for a landscape which remains unchanging and stalwart, while giving the impression of being impossible to conquer. An exploration of the wild nature of man, which remains dormant, hibernating within the pits of the human soul, sated to sleep by societal niceties and conveniences. Pan may be the god of untamed wilderness and unspoilt meadows, he is inevitably absent within the harshness of the Canadian landscape, which eschews the harmony of Arcadian values and endorsed the Darwinian natural laws and principles.
John Lewis-Stempel does not endorse the term ‘nature writer,’ as its far to imprecise as a term. Instead, Lewis-Stempel appreciates the term working countryside writer, which carries more qualification, then a misery memoirist enthusing the benefits of nature therapy. Throughout the book “The Wood: The Life & Times of Cockshutt Wood,” John Lewis-Stempel chronicles the handful of years in which he was charged with the stewardship of the three and a half acres of woodland in the south-west of Herefordshire. John Lewis-Stempel is a pragmatic woodman as he curates and tends to the woods needs, which in turn provides for the wildlife and livestock which call the few acres home. Composed in a diary format of the final year under Lewis-Stempel’s care, “The Wood: The Life & Times of Cockshutt Wood,” recounts the various forms the titular wood takes through the seasons. Additionally, John Lewis-Stempel seasons the narrative with history, folklore, literary allusions, poetry, self-reflection, recipes, scientific and encyclopedic facts and narrative. This outpost of woodland becomes a sanctuary unto itself as John Lewis-Stempel confirms:
“Cockshutt was a sanctuary for me too; a place of ceaseless seasonal wonder where I withdrew into tranquility. No one comes looking for you in a wood.”
As a practising steward and landman, John Lewis-Stempel is not some elusive green man haunting the woods, Lewis-Stempel takes an active role in feeding the livestock and managing the woodland; what is known as agroforestry. In the summer Lewis-Stempel harvests ‘tree hay,’ a accumulation of leaf fodder which is later mixed in with the livestock feed, providing added vitamins for the livestock. The wood in turns provides a few meals of its own for the writer, and logs for the fireplace in winter. This custodianship also entails being the swift executioner of invading Canadian Geese and providing a mercy killing for a sheep which has fallen and broken its legs in a gorge. These details are never lingered on, but presented with the swiftness of fact. This, however, is part and parcel with life in the country. In other moments, John Lewis-Stempel rejoices at the subtle and sure signs and changing nature the season which characterizes the wood, such as the arrival of snowdrops in January:
“If snowdrops are appearing, then the earth must be wakening. Of all our wild flowers the white bells are the purest, the most ethereal, the most chaste… Whatever; the snowdrop says that winter is not forever.”
In due time the snowdrops messages, gives way to carpets of bluebells and a chorus of birdsong rings out in May. The bluebell in particular, maintains a point of pride for John Lewis-Stempel who informs readers that the United Kingdom hosts more then half the worlds population of them. Lewis-Stempel’s description of a blue forested carpet reflecting the sky is particularly lyrical and beautiful; while also envious for those of us who have never witnessed it. The same can be said with snowdrops, beautiful delicate little white blossoms, which signal the end of winter. I have yet to see such delicate flowers in the brisk and bracing winters of a Canadian winter.
“The
Wood: The Life & Times of Cockshutt Wood,” is a marvelous seasonal journal
and daybook of a working countryside writer. John Lewis-Stempel provides a
palpable anatomy of a rarity: a natural wood, which is now a bastion against
encroaching development and the facelessness of industrial farming, which has
all but bulldozed the good old family farm, reducing it to marketing campaigns
and packaging. “The Wood: The Life & Times of Cockshutt Wood,” evades
slipping into the didactic and dry academic essay, by combining both narrative
and overview of what agroforestry is, its importance not only in maintaining tradition
and heritage, but also its ecological benefits, all the while providing
personal and lyrical touches throughout, in addition to indulging in literary
allusion and reflection, surveying history, and sharing recipes and facts in
equal turn. “The Wood: The Life & Times of Cockshutt Wood,” becomes its own
literary woodland ecosystem, which is only vaguely described as nature writing.
Of course, the entire book thrives on John Lewis-Stempel’s prose which
maneuvers between sure footed earthen diction and softened impressionism
flights of flourish; though I would not go so far as to describe John
Lewis-Stempel as a writer who follows in the tracks of the Romantics. The
English countryside remains subject, muse, and piece of fascination, and this
in turn is shared by readers, who are looking for a book which can be mediative
and casual in reading. “The Wood: The Life & Times of Cockshutt Wood,” is a
true pleasure to read, further affirming the enduring appeal and legacy of the
English countryside as the pastoral ideal.
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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