Imagining Human/Nature and Magical Thinking - Jane Rawson Is Examining Ideals of Purity

Today’s episode is with Jane Rawson - an author, novelist and essayist whose new book Human/Nature On Life in A Wild World is just out and she’s on the show to chat about it. Jane has a diverse and brilliant background where she’s worked extensively as an independent writer, within governments supporting citizen communication initiatives and was also the Environment and Energy Editor for The Conversation in its early origins. Her work has focussed on bringing stories of climate change and environmental degradation to life, and how to think about both proactive chosen change and reactive forced change.

This chat and her latest book is a fascinating one. I was immediately drawn in by the title and cover of the book - I always like to judge them that way - thinking this would be an autobiographical account of her experience of leaving the big city to connect with a life on Country and connected to nature. How myopic that view was - we get into in this chat but the book is unlike anything I can remember reading before. Part vulnerable memoir, part historical analysis of humanity’s relationship to topics like extinction and species, part compendium of all that has been and is wrong with coloniser mindsets and relationships to ecosystems and the planet, but mostly a contemplation on the question - what is nature? How do we define it, what stories do we tell about it, what about nature is or isn’t valuable, and to who, how do historical perspectives on how nature inform opinions on how nature should be today. I came away realising the bewildering ways by which nature is understood and treated when it is all around us, when we are literally nature. It left me feeling engrossed in an idea that much of what I do when I talk about nature is placing a sentimental value on something I have almost no idea about how it was at some ‘better or more pure’ time.

We go well beyond the boundaries of Human Nature in this conversation though. From the magical thinking of telling more people more information as a theory of change, that the array of societal and environmental problems we face are a symptom of the same core issue - a disconnected, extractive and violent view of the world and others, the struggles of reflecting on a career of work only to see almost all measurable indicators in decline and how reading and working are outstanding ways to avoid difficult feelings like grief, rage and despair.

Human Nature: On Life in a wild world offers insights and poses many questions, I hope listening to this conversation with Jane does the same for you.

Jane is easy to find online at janerawson.com and on instragram at janebryony. I can’t recommend this book more highly, it’s a fantastic read and available at all the bookstores you like to go into as well as the conglomerate digital marketplace too. Go and grab a copy and let Jane know your thoughts. Supporting writers who are putting their wisdom and efforts into writing - especially books - is important to me, and I know many a listener out there who value the same thing.

The April Finding Nature journal hit inboxes last weekend on the theme of unity, and it’s a cracker as always. There are now 12 months worth of these, and something like 30-something different vulnerable and wise offerings from people just like you in the finding nature community. It’s available to read and subscribe to over at findingnature.substack.com

Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram