Earlier this year (2024) I ran my second We Are Stardust survey to find our more about your relationship with nature and what’s stopping you spending intentional time getting to know the beyond-human world on your doorstep.
Thank you to all who responded - I want to co-create We Are Stardust with you all and these results will help me shape We Are Stardust's direction and offerings.
Here are the topline results – and some are a bit of a surprise!
A note on the survey: 68 people responded and these people represent the We Are Stardust community and are not representative of the global population.
1. Being immersed in green spaces makes you feel calm, connected, grounded, alive and peaceful
Calm, connected, grounded, alive and peaceful were the words most used to describe how being immersed in green spaces makes you feel.
Other popular words included whole, happy, free, refreshed, home, relaxed, nourished, safe.
In a world where many of us feel anxious* and stressed regulating our nervous systems to feel calm, connected and grounded is vital to living a fulfilling, nourished life.
*A 2013 poll of 6000 UK adults found that 73% of population had felt anxious in the previous two weeks (Mental Health Foundation).
2. Your relationship with nature matters to you because it reminds you that you are part of something greater
The beauty of your responses to this question moved me deeply. We Are Stardust is all about remembering our deep entwining with our messy, beautiful universe and it is this feeling that your relationship with nature gifted you.
This feeling was seen by many of you as essential and necessary because:
- It gifts you perspective and helps reminds you who you are and what’s truly important in life, especially when the world feels full of pain and suffering
- It reminds you that we are also nature and in a reciprocal relationship with all beyond-human beings, land, sky and earth
- It is where you slow down and find stillness, beauty, wonder, creativity and inspiration
- It brings you into the present
- It teaches you about what it means to be alive
- It helps you feel less alone and more connected
Here are a few of the responses:
“My relationship with nature roots my worry for the world in a relationship of love. It is a source of creativity and inspiration. It makes me wonder about what it means to be human, what wisdom we have forgotten from our ancestors, what wisdom we might pass on.”
“I am part of nature, and yet it's so easy to forget that sometimes in our capitalist society. Reconnecting with nature helps me to be well physically and mentally, bringing me into the present and putting things into perspective.”
“My relationship with nature reminds me that I'm connected to something bigger than just myself which allows me to put my life into perspective in a compassionate, kind and helpful way.”
“Nature is spiritual and offers many lessons, and it's also good for my mental health, stress levels, and remembering that I'm just a small part of the overall entwined web of life.”
“I feel myself when in nature. Like I've come home to myself. Whether it is by the sea, amongst trees in woods or a forest or walking through green fields I can get some perspective on problems and worries. I think we all need nature to remember who we are and what's truly important.”
“My relationship with nature is central to my existence! It brings me a feeling like nothing else - joy, calm, excitement, peace all rolled into one. It helps my mind to slow down and properly think.”
“Nature is when I feel most connected and content. I realise that I am a tiny part of this incredibly beautiful, intelligent wonderful world... being out in the middle of it brings me peace and perspective, as well as awakening curiosity. It also reminds me of my duty of care towards it, really seeing it and loving it helps me make the choices I need in order to be a good steward and world citizen."
“I am a part of the story of our planet.”
LESSON FROM 1&2: I am reminded of how important your relationship with nature is to who you are and how you want to live and am honoured to keep creating offers that support you in deepening your wonder and love for our messy, beautiful universe.
3. Most of you feel fairly immersed in and entwined with the more-than-human world
Most of you scored your relationship with nature between 5-8, however only 5 people saw themselves as completely immersed in and entwined with the more-than-human world (score of 9 or 10) and 9 people scored themselves as barely having time to nurture their relationship with nature (scores of 2-4).
On a scale of 1-10 how does your relationship with nature feel right now?
1 = Barely have time to nurture it
10 = Completely immersed and entwined with the more-than-human world
LESSON: I love that I can now create offers for you that help to deepen your already rich relationship with nature.
4. Lack of time, distraction by technology and overwhelm/exhaustion were what you saw as the main reasons stopping you nurturing your relationship with nature
In a society that prizes busy-ness and doing ALL THE THINGS in order to be seen as a worthy human, the results from this question don’t surprise me.
They are also really interlinked – we feel like we don’t have enough time because we are overwhelmed with how much we feel we have to do in order to ‘earn’ the right to spend our time as we wish. Technology, particularly social media, which was meant to free up our time has instead turned into an industry where our attention, our precious attention, is the fuel to create profit.
In Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks: How To Use Time Well where he explore our finititude (i.e. that we will eventually die), writes:
“Existential overwhelm is where the modern world provides an inexhaustible supply of things that seem worth doing, and so there arises an inevitable and unbridgeable gap between what you’d like to do and what you can actually do.”
One response that came up a few times nearly made me cry with sadness and anger – that some of you feel guilty spending time with nature where you feel totally yourself. I feel angry that you have been made to feel this way and sad that it is stopping you to spend your incredible life doing what lights you up (and giving thanks to the life-giving nature around us).
LESSON: I want to help you remember how precious your life is and that you can make possible the ways you want to spend your one wild life on earth, even amongst the beautiful mess that is life.
5. You are seeking to deepen your experience of BEing in nature and responding to that experience creatively
In a world where we are taught to constantly be ‘doing’ I love that what you are seeking most when it comes to your relationship with nature is space just to ‘be’ – to experience that sense of awe and wonder.
Research from the University of Derby shows that “noticing the simple things in nature matters more than how much time we spend in it [when it comes to] developing a stronger connection with nature and the benefits to human and nature’s wellbeing”.
LESSON: I’ll be creating more offers that focuses purely on paying loving attention to the beyond-human world – space (and ‘permission’) to just be.
Your desire for creativity responding to time in nature really surprised me and makes me so happy. As structures and systems that have held fast for the last few centuries seem to be starting to collapse, I feel many of us are seeking to create.
Julia Cameron writes “Life is creativity” and we see that all around us in nature – no wonder we are called to create too.
LESSON: I have some exciting ideas on how to reawaken or deepen our sense of playful, child-like creativity in collaboration WITH nature (I’m calling this ‘wild journalling) – watch this space!
6. You seek a reciprocal relationship with nature that feels spacious, easeful and fundamentally part of who you are…and you feel short, wonder-filled, playful activities that boost your confidence in prioritising time outside will support you best
Allowing your relationship with nature to flourish and entwine itself into your daily life, rituals, habits and soul is how many of you wanted to feel in a year’s time.
I firmly believe that a life fully entwined and enriched with the more-than-human world is possible for you exactly where you are right now. And not only that it’s possible, that it is a fundamental human right and need.
LESSON: I can’t wait to be your guide in gifting you wonder-filled, playful activities that deepen your relationship with the nature on your doorstep as well as the wild within – this in itself is an act of reciprocity.
A few thoughts on other responses to the question “if I could wave a magic wand what one thing would help support you in nourishing your relationship with nature?”:
More financial freedom: Given the cost-of-living crises there were folk who wanted the chaos of endless chores and work and need money to live to disappear.
While being able to do this is beyond my ability (alas!), I want you to know how unbelievably precious and beautiful your life is. We are on the earth for such a short time, we must seek out the joy, wonder and devastating beauty even when the world feels like its crumbling around us. And you don’t need to go on a year’s Wim Hoff cold water and breathwork retreat to do that.
Access to nature: Some folk also responded that access to nature is an issue – this is a broader societal (and racist) problem that disproportionately affects those most marginalised (see the Nature is a Human Right campaign) – AND I believe you can also find wonder in the more-than-human world in the most nature-depleted places.
Here are some of your responses to how you’d like your relationship with nature to feel in a year’s time – please take the time to revel in how utterly beautiful they are:
I would be totally immersed, living and breathing joy.
More 'ever-present' and less 'ad-hoc'.
More at ease, to feel more confident.
For it to be part of my daily routine. To have a greater understanding and respect for what is around me.
To cultivate a practice of nurturing bits of nature within myself and within my environment wherever I go.
To feel connected with nature, to really see it and share it with my kids more. [Less] like moments and episodes [and more like] a vein that runs through our everyday. I want it to be something I really see rather than fleetingly glance from the corner of my eye as I run between things.
I dream I will spend more meaningful time in nature and be able to be creative in it.
As well as frequent walks in wilder green spaces I’d like to be having a go at observing and drawing, painting, studying nature close up and getting over my fear of doing this.
I would love to have more documented and created in my journal, so that all my thoughts and insights aren't "lost". So, I would like my weekly (or more) time slot outdoors but with space to create as well.
More time outside and a bursting nature journal.
To be more collaborative, deep and reciprocal in the way I create and respond to the nature around me. But also to give back and be able to tend to/contribute to a green space.
I want to feel more connected to the wonderful outside world around me, and to notice the beauty around me which I think I’ve lost that a bit.
I would love to have a spacious feeling around my time in nature, even if time is short. I know from experience that even a trip to the post office can be filled with wonder and appreciation. I'd like to observe more, create more and learn more. I'd like my noticing eyes, ear, nose, fingertips and mouth to be automatically tuned into all there is to explore.
