In my last post (There’s no such thing as anxiety! https://wp.me/p4FCo6-cs) I wrote about the power that nouns have when they are used to describe actions such as being anxious. The noun anxiety turns the action of being anxious into a thing we ‘have’ or ‘suffer from’; a malevolent force that seems to have the power to affect us in spite of ourselves. This power of nouns applies to all the many diagnostic labels that have proliferated in recent years to describe all manner of our experiences. This has essentially been a process of the colonisation of our ordinary experiences and challenges. The latter arise from our actions and thinking as we struggle with our problems of living.

If we go along with this labelling, the result is that our understanding of ourselves is fundamentally changed; we see ourselves as having little power to understand and overcome our difficult experiences; we come to believe our only solution is what we are constantly being told, namely that we need treatment. We become dependent.

Last Sunday, the National Trust opened many of their properties to the public for free. I had the opportunity to visit Kingston Lacy in Dorset. It was a fine day and I wanted to look around the gardens. One often overlooked part of the extensive estate is the fernery. Ferneries were very popular in the 19^th century. The one at Kingston Lacy was established in about 1890. 

This shady, secret spot with its twisting paths, benches and rustic raised beds behind low stone walls was restored after the Trust took over Kingston Lacy. There are around 40 species of fern, and the fernery offers welcome shade on a hot summer’s day. If you are able to visit in early February as well as the ferns you will find 30 varieties of snowdrops interspersed with spiky-looking black mondo grass (Nigrescens), the dark spears of the shiny leaves contrasting with the delicate beauty of the snowdrops.

Ferns are very ancient plants. Fossil records show that they appeared over 300 million years ago long before the dinosaurs and possibly a main course on their menu. They are one of the earth’s oldest plant groups. They don’t have flowers or seeds but propagate by microscopic spores released from the underside of their foliage. Plants that flower and have seeds came much later in the evolution of plant life.

I knew none of this until I discovered the small brick building in the north-east of Kingston Lacy’s fernery. Originally built probably as an icehouse, it was later repurposed as home for an owl which is why it is now known as the Owl House. Inside there is a small display about ferns and the fernery.

In the Owl House, along with the information about ferns, there is an invitation to take time out to savour the sounds, sights and smells of this quiet corner of the fernery. This fits well with the work of the Silent Space project (www.silentspace.org.uk.). This not-for-profit nationwide organisation offers spaces for quiet observation and contemplation in a world that’s constantly on the move and demanding of our attention. These are both useful prompts to remind us of simple, powerful actions open to all of us; actions that we discover quite naturally as we consciously or unconsciously recognise the way our thoughts affect the quality of our experiences. It is probably true that even when we understand this link consciously, we still frequently forget to quietly observe and contemplate. 

Why am I writing about this on thinkingasaction.com? The aim of this site is to emphasise the connection between how we think and how we feel; to show that when we are thinking we are committing internal actions that fundamentally matter. A secondary aim of this site is to show how various social forces present ideas that make it harder for us to understand, recognise and take responsibility for how we think.

I was glad to see that quiet observation and contemplation was presented in the Owl House as a very natural and common-sense action. In recent years this has not always been the case. This very ordinary, everyday action has become given a noun; mindfulness. The result has been innumerable training courses for the public and therapists. It has become a THING, a technique, a therapy. Is this more colonisation and commercialisation of an ordinary psychological process? Is it another example of the penetration of professional mental health services into our lives? Is it exactly parallel to the proliferation of mental health diagnoses where we are persuaded to give up the variety of our diverse experiences and see ourselves as dysfunctional and in need of treatment? Or is this just a rant? Does it really matter where culture is going? Could we change it even if we wanted to?