Singing With Nightingales - a guest blog by Monsay Whitney

In this guest blog, join writer and playwright Monsay Whitney on an unforgettable journey to “Singing With Nightingales” - an immersive experience, curated by Becky Burchell and Sam Lee, which transcends a typical nature walk or concert, and invites attendees to forge deep connections with nature. Monsay’s words vividly capture the transformative power of her encounter with the elusive nightingale - one of Earth’s most endangered songbirds.

I hadn’t left London for a break in two years. No, really. Aside from the cost of living, the crowds, the bad air quality, the asbo neighbour, the dodgy housing management company and the dreaded teenager – that’s a shit tonne of concrete-grey for the human psyche to endure. It is enough to suppress any revolutionary potential. I am pretty much spent. So, when I was asked if I would be interested in ‘this’? I can’t say I investigated too thoroughly into what ‘this’ was before replying to say ‘yes’. Yes, I was. Yes, please. I saw the words ‘camp’, ‘Surrey’ and ‘nature’ and I was involved. Realising that Sam Lee heads this event, being familiar with his music, was a happy bonus. I was also asked if my daughter would like to go, too. As I typed out a response on my phone, thanking her, but explaining that, actually, I could probably do with a break from parenting as well, a text notification appeared, exclaiming ‘Mum! Check your emails. We have been invited me to Singing With The Nightingales.’  …So off we two set. Travelling in the only style our ADHD-addled brains know: Light. Which still manages to be heavy, somehow. Two Winter coats, two sleeping bags, two sets of wellies and one electric toothbrush with two heads.

I’ve almost always lived in North-East London. I’ve traversed the boroughs and the zones, but I’ve never really left. So, it catches people by surprise when I tell them I grew up wading through dirty brooks with buckets, catching ‘Tiddly Winks’. Camping down the River Lea. Riding my BMX through the reservoir that connects North and East London, to build dens in Epping Forest. Galloping on ponies. But I did. There was a time when I knew the names of each type of cloud. I could tell you the name of each bird in the sky. Up until the age of about 12. And then it all stopped. And I’ll never really know if it stopped because my head got noisy, or whether my head got noisy because it stopped: But my head got noisy. And my world became smaller. My teenage Self began suffering from material ‘lack’. By the time I reached my twenties, I was really sick of my own shit. I was in need of an entire psychic change. I reluctantly began a very personal spiritual journey. There was no lightning bolt. God didn’t speak to me through the clouds. My journey to spirituality happened to be a very non-dramatic, un-ceremonial journey: It turns out you don’t have to climb Mount Everest. Or translate the Big Book into Hindi. Or carry a Yoga mat around under your armpit to be spiritual. I came to realise that spirituality is no more than finding relief and acceptance in yourself and making an active choice not to harm any sentient beings. Spirituality can come and go. But connecting with nature is an effective route to unblocking spiritual channels.

My shoulders dropped for the first time in too long, when we landed in Knowland’s Woods, ahead of Singing With The Nightingales. I smelt the fresh air and I started to feel sleepy – my Grandfather would always remark that breathing clean air into your lungs makes you tired, whenever we dosed off after travelling to visit him in the countryside. We joined in with a foraging workshop. We drank Nettle Tea out of a kettle above the fire. We chatted with other audience members about how sleeping beneath the stars reminds you that you don’t need anything much material to live, that there is no such thing as lack, and how ridiculous we are to kill ourselves in the process of trying to obtain material wealth. And then we tried to tally up how much money we would first need to obtain, before we could go back to basics and live in the wild ‘respectfully’, as opposed to going homeless. Night crept in, we sat among the stars, whilst we listened to the most beautifully moving music by candle light, and listened to touching tales from Sam Lee, about the land, about human existence - about the plight of the nightingale. By the time we were lined up in single file, in the pitch black, effectively blind, navigating our way through forestry and farmland only by reaching an arm out to follow the person in front – there was a sense that we already knew the tiny winged strangers we were trekking all this way to meet, personally. We flung ourselves down on our backs on craggy ground. The only experience I can remotely compare to this one, is that of a sound bath. We could have laid out there all night. There was one single nightingale left, sat up on his perch, singing his little heart out – having failed to find a lady-friend across the mating season, which was now coming to a close. Did he know loneliness? Despair? If we could have tucked him in our pocket and bought him home, we would have. It was all the more powerfully emotive, knowing that numbers of nightingale have dwindled so rapidly over the past 40 years, that we may well be the last generations to know them. To hear them.

We are the last generations on Earth that can end climate change. You don’t have to be smarter than the average bear to understand that. But understanding is not enough. Singing With The Nightingales makes that notion felt. I signed up for a much needed get-away. But I unexpectedly showed up to one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

Climate Spring is partnering with Monsay Whitney on developing a new London-based TV project centred on climate justice.