Touching things in nature

I was near the Schoorlse Duinen last weekend with a beach moment on Saturday (despite my Anakin feelings about sand). Jellyfish were washed up on the beach and I poked one on the bell (the bells don’t sting - Finding Nemo). I also picked up and inspected a few hermit crabs that were getting pushed around by the waves, then put them back into the waves to be pushed around some more.

One thing I learnt about nature in the past few years is that you can touch most things without harming it or yourself. I’ve been touching and stroking and poking and feeling a bunch more stuff. It’s a good time!

I also finally figured out how pine cones work and found (and ate) a couple pine nuts. I’ve been nibbling on more random things recently. A rose petal here, a dandelion leaf there. We’ve bred a lot of the “adult flavours” out of our crops I think. So far the pine nuts and a mulberry have been my favourite finds. Singular mulberry because I wasn’t tall enough to reach any others.

Closed tabs

I’m a bit of a tab hoarder. Ever so often I go and close a bunch of them. Here is a collection of closed tabs from today.

Organisations and Projects

• https://blog.more4nature.eu/
• Reimagined futures ReImagined Futures is a systems change consultancy dedicated to enabling systemic impact and bioregional transformation through deep collaboration.
• Go Green Routes Its multidisciplinary consortium of 40 organisations is pairing participatory approaches and citizen science with Big Data analyses and digital innovation to co-create “Urban Well-being Labs” in six “Cultivating Cities”: Burgas (Bulgaria), Lahti (Finland), Limerick (Ireland), Tallinn (Estonia), Umeå (Sweden) and Versailles (France).

To Read

• The life of Leaf Book by Steven Vogel. This Steven worked on biomechanics. I found him through googling the function of lobed leaves > heat dissipation and perhaps to allow light to pass through to lower branches.
• Against Nature: The Concept of Nature in Critical Theory Book by a different Steven Vogel. This Steven worked on environmental philosophy.
• Thinking like a Mall; Environmental Philosophy after the End of Nature. Another book by the second Steven. “what environment should we inhabit, and what practices should we engage in to help build it?”
• Stadsbomen a piece out of the vakblad Bomen from Wageningen University
• Scientias Added to my rss feed

To Watch

• Fidel Castro Youtube search results. I don’t know much about him! Didn’t watch any of the videos but did read his Encyclopedia Britannica page.
• Social-Ecological Systems a playlist of videos
• 【循環經濟】玻璃面板回收的華麗變身│太陽能板、電腦、電視面板報廢怎麼處理？
• 哪吒之魔童降世 Movie brother and mum recommended

January 2025

Media I consumed that made me happy

• This CBC video about a man into hummingbirds. I think it is so so important for people to notice the nature in their neighbourhood instead of going somewhere specifically to “be in nature”. Reminds me of this backyard bee documentary.
• De Visdief. The channel of a Dutch bird watcher. Little videos about the nature he (and sometimes his friends) saw that day.
• Ernest and Celestine. This movie has been on my list forever. I love animated movies, but they’re not always easy to find.
• Episode 6.1 of the Future Ecologies podcast on forest ecologies and how to make forests “old growth-ier”. A friend introduced me to this podcast through their episode on the Oostvaardersplassen when we were looking for places to visit for a day trip.

Emoji post and social media home

I made an emoji post on LinkedIn. I don’t know where to post my emoji content anymore. Nowhere feels adequate.

Started reading stuff about the IndieWeb and Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (POSSE). Archiving them here feels like a good idea?

I’ve also been doing these monthly posts of Instagram since 2019 that I think I’ll migrate here too? Still figuring out the details and formatting.

H is for Hawk

Lastly, I’ve been reading H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. It is intense and I cannot read many chapters in one sitting. I’m about a third in, and I’m hoping it’s a hopeful book. I’m in a period of my life where I feel unmoored, and I’m hoping 2025 is a hopeful year. I’m more able to articulate what my media taste is. I like stories that are hopeful, where the world is mostly filled with kindness. Where characters are figuring out how they feel about the world and who they are and where they belong.

This book is part of the Alveus Book Club. Since December I have been consuming content from Alveus Sanctuary and forming some sort of parasocial relationship with their founder Maya 😅 A third inspirational, a third self-doubt, a third cute animals.