Magic within Walking Distance

by Colden Sapir

Do you believe in Magic? Would you like to? Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of the timeless children’s novel ‘The Secret Garden’ once said “I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us.” In our busy, pragmatic lives as productive students in modern society, I think a lot of us are missing this sense of what Magic is, or where to find it, or what it can do for us.

For me at least, Magic is that intuitively inexplicable goodness that we experience during certain special occasions throughout our lives. For example, there could be something magical in exchanging smiles with a friend; something magical in walking home along a sunset-coloured street on a Friday evening; and for me last year, one of the strongest experiences of magic I discovered was in the Winter Garden, just over the hill and across the street in the Domain. I almost definitely sound like a lunatic right now, I know, so I’ll leave it up to Frances Hodgeson Burnett to help me explain again, with this passage from ‘The Secret Garden’:

“They always called it Magic… If you have never had a garden you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden you will know that it would take a whole book to describe all that came to pass there… Fair fresh leaves, and buds—and buds—tiny at first but swelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air.”

Not everyone possesses the time or dedication to ‘have a garden’ in the traditional sense, but as a school we are fortunately located so that we can still experience a lot of the euphoria that comes from appreciating one; just a few steps over the hill of the Domain. Although the most prominent example of the Winter Garden is regrettably closed at present, the Domain is still home to many smaller outdoor gardens and thickets— such as the Duck Pond— and several forested walking paths. Personally, I encountered what was likely my strongest ever feeling of connection to nature on the small path known as the Lover’s Walk, a path headed about seven minutes from the Titoki campus— easily accessed before and after school, or during frees and breaks for seniors. Among dense trees, the darkened air is misty and fragrant; the smells of the life and death of the forest are pressed up against your face, and if you let it it, it is nothing short of exhilarating.

There has actually been scientific research conducted into the source of this magical feeling— probably quite a lot of research honestly— but I found one particular study titled ‘Ecopsychology: How Immersion in Nature Benefits Your Health’ published by the Yale School of the Environment to sum up a lot of the positive ways spending time in nature can affect you, and, importantly, where this magic comes from. It turns out that, aside from the more obvious way that being around plants in a naturalistic setting stimulates our hunter-gatherer brain, a lot of the ‘nature high’ comes from the inhalation of natural aerosols.

Areas of dense plant growth will correspondingly have a high concentration of essential oils, pollens and other plant chemicals, so, to quote the paper: “aerosols from the forests, inhaled during a walk, are behind elevated levels of Natural Killer or NK cells in the immune system, which fight tumors and infections.” The same satisfied, nourished feeling you get after a hearty meal or a refreshing drink can be achieved through bolstering your immunological health with a stroll around a plant-rich area of the Domain. In particular, I find the indoor section of the Winter Garden very absorbing; the warm, damp air steeped in the scents of plants and flowers and the exhilarating feeling of being literally surrounded with exotic natural entities from all over the world.

The study also raised an interesting figure of 120 minutes. Reportedly, “people who spent two hours a week in green spaces — local parks or other natural environments, either all at once or spaced over several visits — were substantially more likely to report good health and psychological well-being than those who don’t.” Anecdotally, I have found very intense, concentrated experiences such as spending some time in the Winter Garden to elevate my mood over a much shorter period of time, but the two-hour figure is a good goal and actually not infeasible— I’m sure most of us probably spend at least an hour in intimate contact with nature on a weekly basis without even trying to, just through activities like walking or getting some fresh air while we work.

Even before I started research for this project and realised the scientific origins of many of the magical sensations brought about by my time in the Domain, I believed in its consistent power to make me feel better about myself, my life and my place in society. Humour me sometime, and take a moment to go there and bask in the uplifting atmosphere of immuno-fortifying aerosols, remembering the words of the great author Roald Dahl—“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

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