Hello Spring

Awakening beauty 

By: Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban

Professor of linguistics

Faculty of Arts

Kafrelsheikh University

Hello Spring!

" Bright daisy buttons burst, scattered on the grass," " The apple boughs have just burst into leaf and my herb bed tells me there'll be mint for our potatoes this Sunday," "The plane tree outside the hospital looks like a cathedral soaring into blue heaven,"  "Today the daffodils hold court, elegant swathes drift up the bank, white flowers nodding gently on the slightest of breezes,"  "I also heard the first shrill twee of a wheatear,"  "Today the very first two crimson tulips appeared in their plastic pot, mouths still tightly shut," among many others, are not extracts from the amazing nature poetry of Wordsworth, Shelly, or Keats. They are a sample of nature writing by ordinary citizens eying the advent of spring.

Spring is so special to people around the world as it symbolizes new life, coloured sceneries and waking up from hibernation. Celebrations take various forms: festivals, parades, floral displays, competitions, national days, culinary arts, communal meals, etc. Writing about spring or nature writing has long been confined to poets, novelists, philosophers, nature scientists and anthropologists. New nature writing has honed new writers: they are ordinary people. This week, The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) ask people nationwide for entries to a "national nature diary" describing (in no more than 150 words) what they see and what spring means to them. The project aims at raising awareness among common people of the importance of connecting to nature and documenting seasonal changes. It is a massive shift in nature writing history and a call for bottom up awareness of the necessity for nurturing folk science, literature and culture of nature respect. How can this project help change attitudes towards nature, enhance the beauty of nature and be replicated elsewhere?

Nature as a text

It has been discovered that we share a big part of our DNA with animals and plants. Such bonds make it understandable to keep connecting to nature and our co-creatures.

Nature is seen as text that calls for readers and writers. Observing the coming of spring could be at parks, small gardens, the backyard of your houses, balconies, even looking from windows or while commuting to work. The most important thing is to connect to nature. Just get out of your houses, where you are voluntarily imprisoned. Reading nature would grant your senses a restart. 

Writing heals 

Folk nature writing enables people to unleash their creativity and challenge the deeply rooted assumptions about our relationship with one another and with nature. Through deep listening to the inner voice of all around us, nature writing can teach mindfulness. We can reflect on the universe and the Almighty, Creator of all creatures when we see  sunflowers opening and closing, and bending towards the sun, when we instill the habit of exercising outdoors by the Nile, in the park, desert, hills and valleys, when we watch the sunset while birds go home, when we watch farm animals in the white blooming clover fields, or the gold-colored wheat  farms, when we see bees busy collecting nectar from new blossoms, etc.