Nothing blooms all year round and yet I find myself fighting against an existence that requires me to be so. 

I am someone who is deeply connected to nature and affected by light. 

Electric lights buzz and crackle in my ears and pull my concentration away from their intended illumination. I often wonder if people who have seasonal effective disorder are actually disordered. Maybe they are right and we should be affected by the seasons. Perhaps the low light levels are a signal that we cannot and should not try to fight against nature. That hibernating, conserving energy and deep rest in winter months are not a disorder.

These sensitive people, if freed from the pressures of society may find healing in these darker days. Maybe we can all learn something from this. Have we moved so far from our connection to the natural world that we think we can overcome it with electric light? It seems rather arrogant. 

There are other signs that point towards the consequences of trying to overpower nature. I have long been a passionate supporter of outdoor education for children and am so heartened to see its expansion here where I live. As a free-range child, I found being indoors for long periods of time intolerable. I was lucky to attend a small village primary school in the 1980s where taking your maths work out to the playground on a sunny day was delightfully commonplace. 

Without this connection I fear my behaviour would have become as troublesome to others as a cribbing horse. Horses can develop behaviours known as stable vices. Cribbing is one of them. They grip hard onto a railing or a stable door with their teeth and breathe in and grunt. It is also known as wind sucking. Its problematic for the horse due to the stress it puts on their teeth and mouth and for their owner who may seek to reduce it through behavioural therapy or medication. Here’s the thing though – its stable behaviour because horses didn’t evolve to be shut in so much. Horses in the wild don’t tend to exhibit this behaviour. 

Learning this made so much sense to me as someone who works with children who think differently and whose behaviour often runs contrary to the societal norm. Maybe we don’t have to take on nature and feel we should win. I certainly don’t think we should be using our children as arrows in the battle. 

Neurodivergent people are often referred to as canaries in the coal mine. Their sensitivities attuned to their environment more than to the changing expectations of the people around them. 

In fact, it reminds me of something I heard recently about Monarch butterflies. Their legendary and spectacular migration is well documented and marvelled over. There are around a tenth of the population of Monarchs however that have evolved to take a completely different route when it’s time to migrate. They are a genetic aberration. This aberration is an essential component for the survival of the species as a whole. Their alternative route a safety mechanism to prevent their extinction should something befall the main group. 

It made me wonder if neurodivergent people are becoming more visible as the remainder of our population begins to embark on a route that appears increasingly precarious. So much is being reported about the growing and unmanageable numbers of our genetic aberrants. (Please do note that I use this word not in any negative way – aberration is just a deviation from an accepted standard).

It could be nature’s way of showing us who is really in charge. As a species we have been trying to harness and conquer the natural world since we began. Maybe it’s time for a truce. 

We are engaged in battles we cannot win and the sooner we understand that and work together the better. 

I’m not suggesting that one neurotype is superior here. We evolved from people whose existence required both hunters and gatherers. But we are all biologically programmed for belonging and deviation from the norm carries the risk of becoming isolated. Isolation from a tribe was deadly and yet in modern society we are lonelier than ever. It can feel so bleak at times, this desolation and desecration. 

And yet…

A tenth of the species is flying a different route. Attuned to their environment and evolving to bravely challenge the accepted standard. Flying in smaller numbers carries more individual risk but they do it anyway. Freed from the enclosures that force behaviours others see as problematic, their existence is fuelled by the innate knowledge that there is a different path. Not all of them will arrive safely at the destination unscathed. 

They appear to be drawn together by some sort of neuromagnetism, an invisible force they see and feel in each other. It is here they find each other, online groups swell in numbers, passions and activities allow for shared connection and belonging. 

This challenge to the accepted norm is a fly in the ointment, a stone in the shoe of the group who take the more travelled path. 

But it is biologically and neurologically undeniable. 

The change makers are getting ready to take flight.