The Grief of Losing Touch With Nature

On the ache we feel when we forget where we came from

The Encyclopedia of Grief is an archive of the kinds of grief that shape our lives quietly, often without anyone noticing. Take what you need and leave the rest.

When was the last time you logged out of work and headed to the forest?

After a long day in front of screens and under fluorescent lights, you leave it all behind and enter into the hush of the trees. The moment you cross the threshold, something shifts. The light is softer here. The air smells alive, like rain and bark and breath. You start to hear things: a twig snapping, a bird announcing its presence, the wind moving like a lullaby through the leaves.

You feel yourself return to your body. Your shoulders drop, and your breath deepens. Your body, which operates as a machine of performance and posture, becomes a body again.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t realize I’d lost my connection to nature. I was working a corporate job, ticking every box that was supposed to mean I had “made it,” and yet something always felt off.

“I go among trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water. My tasks lie in their places where I left them, asleep like cattle.”
— Mary Oliver, When I Am Among the Trees

I lived in the city, spending most of my waking hours inside of my cubicle or my apartment, staring at a screen. Eventually, it started to take its toll. Not in some dramatic collapse (that would come later). In a way, I felt flat, joyless, and strangely not real.

Once I had this realization, I started to make small shifts. Sneaking away in the afternoon to spend some time in the Boston Public Library’s courtyard, just to see the sky and feel some wind on my face.

I picked up a volunteer shift on a goat farm outside the city. Every Friday, I cleaned stalls, hauled hay, and let goats nibble my sleeves. I’d come home smelling of sweat and soil. It was fantastic.

I didn’t have the language for it yet, but what I was recovering was a lost intimacy with the natural world. It’s easy to think of this kind of grief as sentimental. The world doesn’t exactly encourage us to take our longing for the wild seriously.

My goat friends Linus and Blackie

We’re told nature is something to visit on weekends or preserve in distant national parks. But for most of human history, we were a part of it. We belonged to the forest, to the soil, to the seasons.

Even if we’re forgotten that, our bodies haven’t. That heaviness we carry? It’s homesickness. For the living world we were never meant to leave.

🪟 Pause Point
Open a quiet window into someone else’s world: WindowSwap.
Come back when your heart is ready.

Modern life has made this disconnection seem normal.

Desirable, even. We measure success by how little we need to touch the earth: food delivered to our door, workouts done in carpeted gyms. Meetings held in airless rooms.

We might not notice the damage, but our nervous systems sure do. They are ancient systems that require sun on skin and the sounds of birds in our ears. The longer we go without those things, the more we suffer—not because we’re doing something wrong, but because something essential has gone missing.

We heal this grief slowly.

Most of us don’t want to leave society behind completely. Instead, we seek out small returns. Barefoot on grass Watching the moon without reason. Many have started to befriend the trees in their backyard, telling them their secrets and worries as if nature can take some of the burden off our backs.

These gestures won’t fix everything. But they help us remember. The first step in belonging. If you feel the quiet ache of disconnection, let it speak. A part of you still knows what it’s like to be held by the world, and it wants you to find your way back.

Until next time,

Charlotte

---

Thank you for spending some time with this grief. Each entry in this library is a small act of remembrance for the parts of us that were never given space to feel, question, or break apart. For additional support, the Grief Resource Hub is here for you.

Before commenting, check out our Community Guidelines. If this grief resonated with you and you’d like to contribute to future seasons of the project, you’re invited to take our Share Your Story of Grief Survey. The goal is turning this into a community-led project, and I’d love for you to get involved.