Sombra Natural

Raw umber is, first of all, a colour I use when painting with oils. At times grey and other times warm, it is a muted brown which, on the canvas, seems to contain earth, bark and rain. It’s the same colour as the cows that still graze in the fields around my house, placid animals protected for many years by Alf, the old cattle dog.

This summer I discovered that umber can also be a way of breathing.

The countryside where I live is changing. Farmers are abandoning the land and, in their wake, the forest slowly encroaches. It is not taking over; it is simply returning. First come shrubs and bushes, then sapling trees and after a few years sunlight no longer falls on the paths like it used to. Everything seems fresher, deeper. As though the earth had been waiting for this moment.

The Forest Garden thrives in this penumbra. More than an enclosed darkness, it is filtered light that lets the wind through. Its canopy provides plants with the perfect habitat to grow, while birds, deer, foxes and badgers can live alongside one another in a natural balance.

But all it takes is one excessively dry summer for a branch to break off, the canopy to be opened up, allowing sunlight to suddenly stream in. Then the Farfugium japonicum is left exposed. Used to the overhead shelter, its leaves begin to lose their sheen and droop under a brightness they are unable to bear.

Perhaps this plant world can teach us a simple lesson. Shade is not the absence of light, but a specific form of mutual care. It reminds us that some lives only find their place beneath the shade unknowingly afforded by another plant or tree.