A review – Forest School 2022
Forest School 2022- An Overview
“Learn the names of everything: birds; cheese; tractors; cars; buildings. A writer is all at once everything – an architect, French cook, farmer – and, at the same time, a writer is none of these things.” Natalie Goldberg
In September of 2022 we ran our first Forest School. We wrote in the forest, in a walled garden, in the Dark Sky Park, and on the Threave estate, using the natural world to blend with our characters and existing WIPs. We had an absolutely amazing time.
The course was designed to heighten our awareness – and use of – nature in writing. We wrote in the forest and outdoors, getting close to the trees and well-acquainted with the birds. All writing is strengthened by an understanding of our environment, however urban that might be, and these tight details of nature pull the reader in with the most subtle of skills.
For most people, the absolute highlight of the course was the Dark Sky Ranger, Elizabeth Tindal, taking us out for a dark sky experience. Elizabeth is immensely knowledgeable. The Dark Sky Experience is not just about astronomy: it is also about the stories of the stars, and how cultures around the world tell stories about the constellations. Elizabeth also knows the best ways to cook marshmallows over a Leave Not Trace campfire). The writing possibilities around this experience are as endless as the stars themselves. The following day we wrote about our characters as constellations and asterisms (having not previously even known the words) and the difference this made to people’s characters was amazing. After the Dark Sky Experience, those who wanted to walked home through the forest, using only red-beamed torches to make sure that our pupils stayed fully open and took in every little creature stirring in the undergrowth. One of our attendees, Emma Berry, took an accidental photograph of a shooting star. So much magic.
Our bird walk with Antoine Lemaire of Alouette Nature Tours, a UNESCO Biosphere guide who specialises in birds and how to find the give-away traces of hidden creatures in our natural environment, started out on a bit of a drizzly day. Antoine told us that birds are almost silent in the rain so – while we waited for the clouds to clear – he took us on a mushroom forage. The following morning we had yellow oyster mushrooms for breakfast that had travelled a mere 100 metres to our plates. The writing exercises attached to the bird walk used the sounds and liminal signals of nature to illustrate setting and manipulate atmosphere. We are lucky enough to have full access to Lamb Island, just across the road from the retreat, where we can sit and write under the trees, waiting for otters, osprey and kingfishers to drop by.
Threave Garden put on an amazing cream tea for us, complete with vegan option and then we walked around the estate, looking at the impact of ‘taming nature’ and how gardens rather than wild settings influence fiction.
The peace of our yoga session in the loch-side forest at Barwhillanty Estate (notepads and pens on our mats) enabled us to catch our characters ‘by surprise’.
And then, last but not least, shrinrin-yoku (forest-bathing), where we listened to the Earth and nature, and engaged our senses amongst the trees. We looked at tiny areas of forest in close-up detail and total silence, then wrote stories about the worlds that exist within them. We walked up to Black Loch, where Anstey delivered a lecture on fairy tales and ate flapjacks in the sheep fold where stones have been replaced with carved faces by the artist Matt Baker. This just left enough time for a swim in a waterfall, and our magical week was over.
Forest School will run again in September 2024. Sign up here to find out when.
