Arcadia Scotland

We’re all missing green spaces right now – the beach and forest backdrops of online meetings are no substitute for the real thing.

In the words of nineteenth-century naturalist, John Muir, ‘Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.’

Muir was born on April 21, 1838 in the Scottish seaside town of Dunbar (these days better known for its championship golf course, although Muir's birthplace has been refurbed into a fantastic museum).

At age eleven, he emigrated with his family to Wisconsin. Muir’s childhood, however, had a profound impact on his life choices. In his memoirs, he wrote, ‘When I was a boy in Scotland I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I’ve been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures.’

He studied botany and travelled on his studies – on foot from Indiana to Florida and by sailboat to Cuba, New York, Panama and California. There, his work in the Yosemite Valley and elsewhere gained him, as many an American middle-schooler can tell you, the accolade of ‘Father of the National Park’.

Muir wanted people to seek out and protect natural spaces, but in the century or more that followed him, human numbers and industrial activity continued to boom and there was a corresponding loss of forests, biodiversity and habitats, and decreasing quality of our air, soil and water, particularly in urban areas. Muir envisioned parks as places where people could reconnect with nature.

Even our temporary response to the current pandemic – that is, our staying indoors – has been restorative for the planet. Baby sea turtles are hatching on emptied beaches in Brazil, dolphins are swimming in the canals of Venice, and the fog has lifted across New Delhi. That we are missing green and open spaces so much in ‘lockdown’ will surely make us appreciate them all the more when it ends.

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that […]  wildness is a necessity.” John Muir

I’m stuck at home! – What can I do?

Open a window! Literally and figuratively. Fresh air will do you wonders, and why not open a window to the world? Learn more about its cultures, languages and people – check out Arcadia’s Virtual Europe online summer courses.

Take action! Join in a global digital movement for positive change, like Earth Day (April 22).