No Green Without Blue
17th July, 2024
Green Space Coaching
The last few weeks have been variable in weather and between beach coaching, I’ve been lucky enough to take some clients on a walk I call “the woodland walk” avoiding downpours and enjoying the refreshing quality of mizzle on our faces.
We have embraced the nostalgia brought with the perfume of honeysuckle, elderflower and meadowsweet on the bridle paths and the heavier scent of petrichor in the deep forest. The buddleia attracting the butterflies, and the berries giving a hint of Autumn on the horizon and provoking conversations about lifecycles (and climate).
There is so much variety and wisdom in the trees if we slow down and pay attention, and there is a depth of time felt within this ancient space that echoes that of observing the vast cliff faces at the shore.
The orchestra that accompanies our walks has been uplifting… neither worse nor better… but certainly different to that of the clifftops. At the coast we hear familiar choughs, skylarks, kestrels, guls and oyster catchers amongst others, where-as this more “green” space invites jays, a woodpecker, chifchaffs, goldcrests, jackdaws, a buzzard and more. Blackbirds, wrens and robins follow our path, observing our comings and goings, objective and dispassionate onlookers to our conversations. Light shines down through the canopy of trees, and looking down, trails of foxes, badgers and deer are evident, super-highways that traverse the overgrown footpaths each with their own trajectory.
We are in and with nature… being a part of nature..
And this could be described as green space… But of course it isn’t only green space it is blue space too… as Sylvia Earle says “no green without blue”, the vibrancy of the leaves a reflection of water embodied in these plants. My clients’ attention is taken to a variety of woodland characters, crazy squirrels darting about, mimicking their frantic lives, or young saplings representing new areas for growth (and more).
Personally I am drawn to silver beads glistening on the leaves, the world reflected in spherical droplets, and I know the exact part of the path where the sound of the stream seeps into my conscious awareness leading to the river with fish and vibrant damsel flies.
As a coastal coach it is true that I come alive at the coast, my sense of place is the littoral zone, and the coast partners with me as a coach like no other place. The resonance whilst variable is different at the coast and leads to different questions… but nature connection is something that transcends any preferences, and when we truly feel a part of nature insights flow from all wild-connections. Water is all around us all the time and as a nature-connected coach, I am comfortable to co-coach with all forms of water. So as a blue health coach, here is a shout out to “green space” and water in it’s embodied form.
The next time you are enjoying green space remember a big part of what you are paying attention to is water. Water is life.
