Four or five successive heatwaves and months with no meaningful rain has reminded me just how central the weather is to the British identity. The foot of the Cornish peninsula, where I grew up, is particularly known for weather that pays no attention to the forecast: wind and rain that can arrive from nowhere and pass just as quickly leaving visitors bemused.
We think we understand the weather, but do we really? Sure, we can describe it in reductionist terms, but how can anyone fail to be unmoved by a ferocious thunderstorm, a heavy downpour or a howling gale?
Weather is not just an external force. It changes us as it contacts the body. Our skin is a wonderful organ that forms a natural boundary with the outside environment, but zoom in and we would see a continuous exchange of gases and fluids between the two (with countless organisms adapted to this biome). Warm weather opens our pores so that we literally take in more air, through our skin, on a hot day than we do on a cold day. At the same time, we perspire more, our sweat evaporating into the air. Raindrops pelt the skin, wind ruffles the hair. I believe that more than heat is exchanged in these interactions.
Of course, the attribution of emotions to the natural world – so-called pathetic fallacy – has been a favourite literary device for centuries, but this assumes that feelings are a human construct. Yet other creatures and plants react physically to the same weather patterns that we do, often in very subtle and intricate ways. If the definition of a feeling or emotion is simply the ability to translate these sensations into a sophisticated language system, doesn’t the agent of change – the weather itself – play just as big a role in emotion?
A few months ago, I wrote about the impact of experiences on our perception of place. In my life, weather has been central to my most vivid experiences of place. Why did the feel of icy raindrops on my warm arms, the bright colours of a rainbow in an otherwise grey sky and the piercing cry of a gull combine with such overwhelming emotional force?
Richard Tarnas, in his thought-provoking book Cosmos and Psyche, accuses humanity of appropriating meaning from the wider world. Whereas the primal mind shared its contents with the surroundings, populating the natural world with all manner of spirits and deities, the modern mind claims it all. What if we’re wrong!
From Thor with his magic hammer to Vayu, the Hindu wind god, the weather has often been associated with deities. Could a sense of presence emerge from powerful weather systems? A qualitative ‘template’ that is translated into ‘anger’ or ‘sadness’ or ‘playfulness’ when interacting with living systems? I think it’s interesting to consider the possibility that humans have – as Tarnas puts it – disenchanted the world by taking ownership of all feeling and meaning and stashing it inside a fuzzy box called ‘psychology’.
I think there’s another reason behind our fascination with the weather? It is another example of a boundary or liminal state. More than that, weather is a moving threshold. A front – where two masses of air meet – is either heralded in by thundery showers and dramatic towers of billowing clouds or steadily pulled over us like a thick grey duvet. Either way, we are experiencing the transition from one state to another. Our attitude to the weather says a lot about how we handle uncertainty. Do we curse the rain because it stops us doing our tasks or do we relish in the exposure to the elements of non-human life?
I will definitely be looking forward to a few wet and stormy days as we say goodbye to a long, hot summer and welcome in the rich and golden days of autumn.
Image: “Storm in the evening” from Unsplash. Public Domain: CC0