Lately, I’ve been craving a book that could answer a question in the back of my mind: What really happens to our brains and hearts when we slow down and spend time in nature? I get the answer of the science perspective from Your Brain on Art. Then I get the answer about the personal feeling when I picked up Something in the Woods Loves You. I didn’t expect Jared K. Anderson could echo my own thoughts so clearly in this book. From the very first pages, this book felt like it was speaking for me, putting my unspoken feelings into words.
I was judging myself against a hypothetical ideal version of me. The version I should be. The version I must become (and cannot). The distracting, destroying act of endlessly measuring myself, my life, and my world against what it “should be” made progress feel not just impossible, but irrelevant.
Jared K. Anderson, Something in the Woods Loves You
Something in the Woods Loves You is a personal journey through Anderson’s experience with depression in combine with his love for the natural world. He shares how paying attention to small, quiet things, such as herons by the water, squirrels darting between trees, birds in flight, offered him a kind of companionship, a steady rhythm, and even hope. The seasons pass in the background, and with them comes a sense of transformation.
In winter of my pain, I was frozen, depression driving me toward sleep and death, while love pricked me onward to find shelter. Spring arrived, a trickle of water and hint of green, a frightening call toward hope and growth. In summer, long, slow days of bright clarity, big thoughts, and ambition for better futures. These were three seasons of growth. I grew in awareness, health, and knowledge. They felt like steady, if not quiet linear, progress and they seemed to promise more progress to come. Yet autumn followed, and it had something else to say. It said, “Seasons aren’t juts for hickory trees.” It said,”Not all progress involves conspicuous growth.” My depression is never fully defeated. That’s okay. It must be okay. It is beyond my control.
Jared K. Anderson, Something in the Woods Loves You
Anderson talks about the unfriendly world we live in today. He touches on how easily depression creeps into modern life, especially when we’re caught up in pretending, performing, or just pushing through.
When you build a culture dedicated to the worship of impossible things like unassailable strength and inexhaustible wealth, there is no such thing as enough. There is no such thing as the proper time for rest or healing or art or connection. There will only ever be the chase for unchecked growth and acquisition. We cannot worship hunger and then hope for satiation.
Jared K. Anderson, Something in the Woods Loves You
There’s a part where he writes about losing his sense of wonder, and I felt that deeply. That feeling when the world stops being a place of joy and discovery, when everything feels like just another thing to survive. He captures it with such clarity.
This book reflects on how our culture often ignores what we really need: quiet, connection, care. And in that space, where so many of us are hurting, Anderson reminds us that healing doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes, it’s just noticing a bird. Or breathing in the woods. Or remembering we’re not alone.
Something in the Woods Loves You is the kind of book you don’t rush through, but sit with, just like time in the woods itself.
Author: Jared K. Anderson
Publication date: 10 September 2024
Number of pages: 368 pages
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