How More Nature makes it possible for us all to Feel Better

The Koala Eco World

A little while back, I wrote a post about nature’s ability to inspire familiarity and awe in Paul and myself. Right from our childhoods in different continents on different sides of the world, we were immersed in the wild outdoors. For me, it was the forests, mountains and coasts of New England; and for Paul, the vast open spaces of farming country in Western Australia’s southern regions.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82), a founder of the Transcendentalist Movement, which emphasised the spiritual and emotional connection with nature, wrote: ‘I feel that nothing can befall me in life, no disgrace, no calamity…which nature cannot repair.’ This describes exactly how being outdoors affected Paul and me. Though the landscapes of our childhoods couldn’t have been more different, being in nature never failed to bring each of us a sense of peace, restoration and wellbeing. And so it is to this day.

I started thinking about the meaning behind Koala Eco: the purpose beyond the use of plant-derived ingredients and pure, single origin essential oils. Sure, we offer planet-friendly and non-allergenic products for home and personal care, but what about the ‘emotional’ world we hope to inspire in our loyal followers and community?

It’s one, we hope, that’s about simplicity, generosity and calmness. It’s about being grounded in nature however and wherever we find it, and allowing that connection to nourish our bodies and spirits in quiet, genuine ways. The better we feel, the more we can propagate and share that sense of wellbeing. I use a gardening term here more or less deliberately, because the gardeners among us will be familiar with the quiet satisfaction of watching and encouraging things to grow. As Alice Vincent writes: ‘when we garden, we change how a small part of the world works.’ And that’s particularly meaningful when so many of the world’s events seem out of our control.

Whether or not people use our products, our More Nature, Feel Better message is truly for everyone. It’s not claiming anything that hasn’t been known intuitively since the beginning of humankind, and in recent years proven by scientific studies. Being in nature helps people feel better: even when time and biology are against them.

For example, the late, great British filmmaker Derek Jarman spent the last 18 months of his life making an extraordinary garden at his beach cottage on the UK’s south coast. He recorded this process in a diary/memoir, and this is one of the entries from 1989. I think it says it all:

Weeded the back garden, and wired over the fennel the rabbits keep cutting back, planted two new irises and montbretsia. At 5.30 I sat on the old wicker chair facing the setting sun and read the newspapers. A slight chill descended; a choir of gnats floated by, golden sparks catching the last rays of the sun. The wind got up, bringing the smell of the sea; a russet kestrel flew by.

Extraordinary peacefulness.

[1] Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood and Survival (2023) A&U Canongate

[2] Modern Nature (1992) Vintage