The Open-Air Life: Discover the Nordic Art of Friluftsliv and Embrace Nature Every Day - Hardcover

Åkeson Mcgurk, Linda

 
9780593420942: The Open-Air Life: Discover the Nordic Art of Friluftsliv and Embrace Nature Every Day
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593420942 ISBN 13: 9780593420942
Verlag: TarcherPerigee, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

A complete guide to Friluftsliv, the Nordic secret to unplugging and connecting more deeply with nature.

In The Open-Air Life, Swedish-American writer Linda McGurk introduces readers to a wide array of Nordic customs and practices that focus on slowing down and spending more and more of ones’ time outdoors. An outdoorsy cousin of hygge, friluftsliv is what Nordic people do outside all day before they cozy up in front of the fireplace with their wool socks on and a cup of hot cocoa.
 
From the pleasures of foraging for wild berries and birding to how to stay warm and cozy outside in the middle of winter, this charmingly illustrated, inspirational guide shows readers how to harness the power-of-nature to improve their physical and mental health, as well as their relationships with both other people and Mother Nature. Readers will learn:
 

  • Why and how they should spend more time outside
  • How to use friluftsliv to combat stress, anxiety disorders, depression, and burnout
  • Practical skills like making fire, cooking outdoors and cleaning water on the go. 
    •  
    For country and city lovers alike, this book will serve as an essential guide to slowing down in this modern, fast paced society and connecting with the natural world.

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    Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

    Linda Åkeson McGurk is a Swedish-American freelance writer and author who believes life is better outside.  Her first book, There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather:  A Scandinavian Mom’s Secret for Raising Healthy, Resilient and Confident Children was published by Touchstone/S&S in October 2017 to critical acclaim. She lives with her family in Sweden.
     

    Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

    Introduction
     
    On any given workday, I spend most of my time sitting at a desk, in front of a screen, while my phone and email notifications are constantly poking me for attention. I have about fifty-six differ­ent website tabs and seventeen Word files open on my laptop while simultaneously fighting Wi-Fi issues and at least a couple of soft­ware installations gone wrong. Subconsciously my brain is also processing an incessant flow of mental clutter, from remembering to schedule dental appointments for my daughters to planning what we are going to have for dinner and wondering if I really emp­tied that load of laundry that I ran two days ago. By the time I wrap up work and the girls come back from school in the afternoon, I often feel like I’m spent, finished, deep-fried.
     
    I know I’m not alone. In fact, this is the reality for many of us. We do our best to balance the demands of family life, work, and other commitments, but many of us do it in an environment that researchers have found is inherently bad for our mental and physical health—indoors, plugged into our various electronic de­vices, and with little daily contact with nature. For lack of a better word, an increasing number of us are what neurophysiologist and educator Carla Hannaford has dubbed “SOSOH”—stressed-out, survival-oriented humans.
     
    Almost 80 percent of the population in the developed world lives in urban areas today, due to a mass migration to the cities that essentially started less than two hundred years ago. That makes our human experience radically different from that of our distant ancestors on the savanna, and even distinctly different from the lives our rural ancestors lived as recently as a few generations ago. But humans have evolved in nature for millennia, and even though we might like to think otherwise, our bodies and brains haven’t changed that much since we lived in caves. We even have internal biological clocks that synchronize with the rhythms of nature, functions that are suppressed by our modern lifestyle. Neither ur­banization nor digitalization is likely to go away, so what’s a fraz­zled modern human being to do?
     
    Enter the Nordic concept of friluftsliv. This garbled collection of syllables with Norwegian roots (roughly pronounced FREE-loofts-leeve) has been translated as “open-air life,” “free-air life,” and “fresh-air life,” but unlike the equally tongue-twisting concept of hygge (“cozy” or “comfortable” in English), few people outside northern Europe seem to know what it means. And actually, not even people from the Nordic countries can agree on an exact defini­tion. The Norwegian government defines friluftsliv as embracing nature and enjoying the outdoors as a way of life, a “possibility of recreation, rejuvenation and restoring balance among living things.”
     
    The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency contends that it’s about “spending time outside in natural and cultural landscapes for personal wellness and to experience nature without pressure to achieve or compete.” Swedish American authors and outdoor en­thusiasts Roger and Sarah Isberg define it as “simple life,” whereas others have described it as living in harmony with nature. Person­ally, I think of friluftsliv as a way of returning to our true home.
     
    Friluftsliv, or open-air life, is where humans and nature inter­sect and the values that we create in those meetings. Simply put, it’s a way to nurture a personal relationship with nature through direct experiences. How you do it is up to you. Friluftsliv can be as simple as an evening walk around the neighborhood or as advanced as a multiday backpacking expedition in the remote wilderness, or anything in between. It can be enjoyed solo, with a group of family or friends, or together with others through an outdoor organiza­tion. It’s about knowing nature, yet it has no curriculum or class­room. Learning comes through hands-on practice and the passing of knowledge and useful skills from peer to peer and from one gen­eration to the next. Although it sometimes involves gear, it doesn’t require it.
     
    Friluftsliv is a form of outdoor recreation, but not all types of outdoor recreation are considered friluftsliv, at least not in the tra­ditional sense. While outdoor recreation could be any activity that is done outside for fun, including outdoor sports and motorized activities, friluftsliv is noncompetitive and nonmotorized. By those standards, foraging for wild berries, paddling a kayak, and watch­ing birds are all different forms of friluftsliv, while snowmobiling, waterskiing, and running a 10K are not, even though they all take place outside. By the same token, friluftsliv is not the same thing as the Japanese practice of forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, although both recognize and harness the restorative power of nature. While shinrin-yoku is a form of nature therapy and mindfulness practice centered on the medicinal benefits of spending time among trees, friluftsliv is a broader philosophical lifestyle that spans nature, cul­ture, history, and personal and environmental health.
     
    In essence, traditional friluftsliv is less a set of activities and more of a culturally learned rhythm that revolves around being outside and experiencing oneness with both nature and the cul­tural landscape. Just like there is slow food, slow parenting, and slow entertainment, friluftsliv is a form of slow nature. It’s about embracing simplicity, resisting consumerism, and living in a way that is sustainable to both ourselves and the planet. It’s the kind of life that transcends generations and connects us deeply with the land that sustains us. And it is in every respect a rich life.
     
    When I was growing up in Sweden, friluftsliv was more or less consciously passed down to me from the adults in my life—grandparents, parents, early childhood educators, teachers and other caregivers. When I was little, they made sure I got to play outside every day, rain or shine. They taught me the names of our local plants and wildlife and passed down old stories and legends that made the forests come alive with magic. They gave me the time and space to wade in shallow creeks looking for frog spawn and fill my pockets with rocks and other special treasures. They let me nurture my sense of wonder while observing the frenzied activ­ity of an anthill and trying to grasp the concept of infinity while gazing up at the Milky Way. Thanks to them and the culture I grew up in, the outdoors was the constant backdrop against which my childhood played out.
     
    By the time I became a teenager, my relationship with nature changed. The woods were no longer a place for play, but some­where my friends and I would test the boundaries for our burgeon­ing independence and discover ourselves. At that point, we were not in it so much for the nature experiences as for the opportunity to withdraw from the pressures of school and the prying eyes of our parents. I don’t think I realized it back then, but friluftsliv was the one constant that I was always able to fall back on, a comfort­ing routine for self-care and my antidote to stress and anxiety. And it still is.
     
    When you are raised in a friluftsliv culture, you will forever have a little voice inside your head that cajoles you into going out­side every day. I’m no exception, but interestingly enough, I be­came even more committed to the lifestyle after I moved to Indiana and gave birth to my two daughters, Maya and Nora. It was as if an age-old parental instinct to pass on not just my...

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    Verlag
    TarcherPerigee
    Erscheinungsdatum
    2022
    Sprache
    Englisch
    ISBN 10 
    0593420942
    ISBN 13 
    9780593420942
    Einband
    Gebundene Ausgabe
    Anzahl der Seiten
    272
    Kontakt zum Hersteller
    Nicht verfügbar
    Verantwortliche Person
    Nicht verfügbar

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