Marjolijn van Heemstra on the overview effect
How We Live Now with Katherine May:
Marjolijn van Heemstra on the overview effect
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Marjolijn van Heemstra believes that we can change the world by gazing into the night sky. Her book, In Light Years There’s No Hurry, explores the ‘overview effect’, a personal transformation reported by astronauts who have seen the earth from space. People who’ve experienced this rare view often report an ethical shift taking place, a new sense of mission in their lives. They come to see themselves as guardians of their planet, rather than its passive citizens.
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Listen to the Episode
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Katherine May:
Marjolijn, welcome to How We Live Now. It's lovely to have you.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Thank you.
Katherine May:
I was reading that you are poet laureate in your country. Is that right? That's like the most prestigious title we've ever had.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Well, it would be if it was a country, but I am a poet laureate of the city I live in. So Amsterdam, yes.
Katherine May:
That's pretty cool though.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
It's very nice to do. It's a great job. Yeah.
Katherine May:
What kind of things do you have to do?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
So you always write whenever there's a memorial day or something big is happening in the city, or someone passes away, that is important to everyone living here. But I try to write a lot about the natural green Amsterdam, so the glow worms, and birds, and the other inhabitants of the city.
Katherine May:
Oh, how lovely.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah. That's sort of my hookup in this.
Katherine May:
Well, that's a wonderful thing to do, and I always feel slightly sorry for the British laureate, because they have to mark royal occasions. I know. It always seems like such dry material, but I don't know. Someone's given birth to their third child and you have to commemorate in poetry.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah, that's hard. Well, sometimes I have hard assignments like that as well, when it's a little bit dry. But it's also really a challenge for your writing to be able to still find poetry in something that you would never think in a poetic way about.
Katherine May:
Yeah, it forces you into that. Oh well, I couldn't resist asking that just to open up, because I think it's such a cool thing. So this season on How We Live Now, we are thinking about a key question, which is: how can we re-enchant this world? And I got sent a proof of your book In Light-Years There's No Hurry quite a few months ago now. And you came to mind immediately because you talk about something called the overview effect, don't you?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah. So it's this experience that many astronauts have when they are in space and they look back on Earth, and they suddenly see what we actually know all the time, that everything is connected, that Earth is just this one organism floating through space, and we are all small parts on it. But just knowing it is something different than experiencing it. And I think that's what most astronauts do when they look at Earth from this very big distance.
And usually, it comes with a feeling of love and responsibility. Sometimes also anger at the way we treat this little organism that we are part of. And what you see is that many astronauts, not all of them actually, but many of them come back as ambassadors for something like certain animals, or sea life, or you see something. It's like a mental shift. Looking at Earth from a very big distance, suddenly you feel much closer to it. So the distance creates this feeling of proximity, which is a funny paradox, I think. And it sort of awakens this consciousness.
Katherine May:
Wow. And I was really struck by that in your book, the image of these astronauts coming back with this real sense of... I mean, I'd say ecological purpose almost. That seemed to be the common thread. They often did different things with that or expressed it in different ways, but something about that experience had really made them understand that the planet was a thing to take care of, I suppose.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yes. To cherish and to love. And also, that you're so fundamentally part of, that you could never see yourself as only an individual anymore.
Katherine May:
Yeah. But is it possible to capture that from standing on the planet itself and looking at a photograph of that? I mean, do you have to travel into space in order to experience that?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
No, I don't think so. And I know that many astronauts who have been there and have experienced it would agree with me. We have our own astronaut here in Holland, and he just did a big interview on this whole new concept of space tourism. And of course, these billionaires say that space tourism is good for giving people this overview effect and making them aware of the precarity of the Earth. But I think that's really a form of space washing actually.
Because as our astronaut also said, it's not necessary to really travel all the way out there. It's just a very quick way to experience it. But you can have the same experience here looking at sunset, taking your time, trying to maybe people find the same interconnected feelings through meditation. In many other experiences, I think echo this experience that astronauts have in space.
Katherine May:
Yeah. Is it something you'd ever be tempted to do, to actually go into space? Because you've written so eloquently about how important space is to you, and I want to ask you about that in a moment. But seeing as we've raised the subject of space tourism, is that something you'd ever do?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
No. Actually at the moment, no. I'm very critical of all the developments in space, and the commercialisation, and all these private companies going up there. I think it's so polluting, and so it's such a way of just consuming an experience that should be, I think, very carefully prepared. So in the way that you can go now, I would not join. No.
Katherine May:
Yeah, I can't imagine doing it either. On one hand I think it's just terrifying, honestly. And I just don't think I've got the-
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yes.
Katherine May:
Yeah, it is. It's still risk. But it seems to me to be pretty environmentally destructive again at this point in time. Maybe that'll change. But also, I don't know. I look at these tech bros who seem to be so keen on dominating space, but I just think, how can we go and repeat that behavior, that very colonial behaviour all over again? We must know by now that it's not the way to do it.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
It's really ridiculous that even the way they talk about it echoes this colonial thought of colonising space, and the final frontier, and things like that. I think it's very worrisome that these people decide what the narrative is in space at the moment, and probably more and more in the future.
Katherine May:
Yeah. And it is going to be decided by very, very rich people, by billionaires, isn't it? We are not doing anything to combat their dominance, and I find that so disturbing.
I read a little about the, I can't remember which of the tech billionaires it was, but who'd suggested that they could found colonies on Mars or wherever based on indentured labor from people who couldn't afford the trip. So if you wanted to join this colony but didn't have the however many million you'd need to do it, that you could then essentially sell yourself into servitude for a generation. And it's like, are you serious?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
That's such a horrific idea. Yeah. But I constantly think that everything they say or tweet, I think this must be a joke. The way Jeff Bezos was thanking all his personnel on Earth for making this possible while we all know how people are treated at Amazon, it's so ridiculous. You cannot possibly think that people take it seriously, and yet they do. And they even applaud it. It's crazy.
Katherine May:
I know, we are deeply enthralled to those people, but that's not what your book is about. Your book is about much more beautiful things. It was just irresistible to talk about that. So let's begin with your personal connection to gazing into space and to thinking about space. Where did that begin for you?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Well, I think my fascination for space really comes from a fascination for things I don't understand. So I don't really remember necessarily looking up all the time when I was young, but I do remember having many, many questions about time, about the beginning of life. Why we are here, where we are going, about God, and creation, and all those things. And I think for me, space, it holds all the answers. So that's what my fascination comes from mostly.
And I studied religious science, so you have a lot of cosmology. You learn about all different forms of cosmology and different religions, and that also interests me a lot. And so it's more from the perspective of the larger story than the real physics, physically interest in stars or black holes, even though they're very interesting.
Katherine May:
Yes, I mean, it's interesting, but it's not necessarily the thing that draws you there.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
No.
Katherine May:
And you begin your book by talking about the brokenness or the broken nature of the current world, this impending doom that we're all beginning to feel. The global warming, the ecocide, the destructions of forests, and this sinking feeling you have. I mean, how hot is your summer at the moment? How are things for you right now and how are you feeling about that?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Well, today was quite a cool day. And it's interesting that since a few years, I think a lot of people also around me were very aware of the weather, much more than five or 10 years ago. So everyone knows exactly how dry it is or what kind of rain we need.
And here, our spring has been quite okay. We've had some really hot days, but then we've also had a lot of rain, which was very important. Because as so many countries, it's become so dry. We have all these fields of grass. I don't remember that from my youth, I'm very sure we didn't have it before, that everything is just yellow. And you see the whole landscape change in just a few years, and that still shocks me.
And also how slow we are to act upon it. So you know that there's much more awareness. And at the same time, the mowing. Is that the right English word?
Katherine May:
Yes, that's right.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yes. So the way the municipality here in Amsterdam, which is quite a green leftist city still. But the way they mow everything away because they have these contracts with certain people, and to change these contracts, it takes about seven years or so. And you think, how is it possible that you see everything change and it's so hard to act accordingly?
So that sort of depresses me. At the same time, I feel so many more people are standing up and there's so much movement at the moment, and there's really much more awareness, which makes it also a very exciting time, because finally something's happening.
Katherine May:
There are possibilities.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
There are, yeah.
Katherine May:
The thing that's often on my mind is this kind of frustration really with, as you expressed, we know exactly what's happening. It's so well established, it's clear with the environment, and yet, nobody is doing anything. And I find the inaction just overwhelmingly frustrating. That's the thing that I just don't understand, how we cannot yet agree to take action.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
No, I feel that all the time. But I also feel is that, I know it's a totally cliche, but that every day you live is this one day you have. So I don't want to be overwhelmed all the time with this very depressing, anxious feeling. Even though I see everything around me changing, and we are in big trouble here as well in Amsterdam. It's so low, and we have a lot of trouble with the water.
And so many of my friends are already thinking, "Where are we going to live?" And talking about maybe buying land in Sweden or Norway. And that is very unsettling. And at the same time, what gives me joy really is all these people that are aware and that are able to find each other. And I remember when I was young, I had these exact same feelings, looking at all these cars, looking at the destruction, looking at the way people treat the planet, the animals, and not finding any resonance.
I mean, my parents were quite activist. But still, the hopelessness that I used to feel as a child for the way people treated the world, I didn't see it mirrored anywhere. So I always had the feeling, "Okay, this must be me. Maybe I'm just crazy or too sensitive." And now 30 years later, I suddenly see it mirrored everywhere, and it makes me feel so much less alone. And that really helps. So in a way, I feel better, even though the situation is much worse.
Katherine May:
Do you know what? I totally agree with you. I was the same. I was a very environmentally aware teenager, I think probably more than child. I was a vegetarian from the age 11. I was a member of Friends of the Earth, and I was just very, very concerned about all of these issues. And it felt like such a niche belief then back in the '80s and early '90s. You really did feel like you were some kind of wild eccentric who nobody listened to.
And now, it's pretty commonplace. And I think it's very easy to notice the minority of people who are fighting very hard against that belief, because they do unfortunate... I mean, I don't know about in your country, but unfortunately some of them have very big platforms and loud voices.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
No, it's the same everywhere, I suppose. Totally. Yeah. But the thing that, no, what I always wonder about is what happened in the '90s, because I was a teenager then. And if you look back at it now, it's very clear that that was sort of the exact time that we should have started this huge change and this energy transition. And if we had done it then, we wouldn't have been in such huge trouble now.
And I keep trying to sort of reconstruct that era, and also the zeros we call them, from 2000 to, 2010 when there was hardly any activism. It was all about flying and consuming. And I keep trying to process in my mind whatever happened. Also to the generation of my parents, were so activist. And then it seems like for 20 years, that disappeared, from the mainstream, at least. Of course, there were patches of people fighting very hard, but it was not in my surroundings.
Katherine May:
Yeah, that's actually a really good point because I think I often look back at those times and think about how optimistic we were. We had this real sense that loads of society was getting better and that we were winning. But looking back, we were actually partying, flying everywhere. Yeah, but also in retrospect, we were maybe a little bit too smug too soon about how much of the battle had been won. Because now, so much of that seems to politically be rolling back. All of these things that we took for granted, we thought that gay rights were on the rise, and that was pretty much uncontested and-
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Abortion.
Katherine May:
Abortion, racism. We mistakenly thought we'd won. And yeah, I have some regrets honestly, about how I spent my twenties now.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah, I have the same thing. I feel like we've sort of missed a few boats over there.
Katherine May:
Yeah, and now we are running to catch up. So it's interesting because I think there's a lot of similar components to both of our recent books, and one of them is the importance of awe and how you can come to feel that regularly and kind of tune into it. Tell me how you view awe. What do you see it as, and how do we access it?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Well, I think for me, it's a way to counter the feelings of alienation. So I think we feel so alien in this time because all the connections with the world around us have been cut off for a big part. So you don't even know how your bread is made or where your water comes from exactly. All these things you use, you don't know the source. And if you don't know their source, you don't know what language they speak. And then you cannot actually have a conversation with the world. So everything is silent because you don't understand it.
And this feeling of awe for me is a really this counter to this alienation that suddenly the world speaks to you again, and you feel that you're in conversation. Of course, not in literal language, but in this language of consciousness or soul, that something is speaking to you and you are answering. And there's this flow of conversation going on.
Katherine May:
That sense of disconnection I think is so important for us to understand, the sense that I wouldn't know how to make most of the things in my house. I don't even mean make them myself. I don't know how they were made. I'm looking at my computer screen at the moment and I'm thinking, "I don't know how that's made. I haven't got the first idea."
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yes.
Katherine May:
If I lost access to a shop to buy one, I would never have one again. And that's a sense of a deep alienation and disconnection that is so historically recent. It might have been even, I don't know, 80 years ago, I guess that must have began. Because before then, even if you couldn't make it your yourself, you could see how it could be done and-
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
And a neighbour could make it or someone close by. Yeah. And also I think that the disconnection with, for example, the stars. In my book, I write a lot about light pollution. We have one of the most light polluted countries in the world here in the Netherlands.
And if you think about how recent that is, that for hundreds of thousands of years, people have looked up and found their way by looking at the stars and finding this awe. And it's a source of our science and poetry, and all these spiritual traditions. And then in two, three generations, it has disappeared. So that's another connection that we are not able to make anymore.
And I think because it somehow disappeared slowly enough, not to actually be aware of it. It hasn't been on the radar for such a long time. But the loss is so gigantic if you think about what it meant for humanity to look up, what it has given us, and now it's gone. And I cannot wrap my head around it, how big this loss-
Katherine May:
How big the loss is, yeah.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
We talk about it.
Katherine May:
Yeah. And part of the loss is the ability to hold that very lightly, this simple relationship with the stars that our grandparents took for granted. Just being able to see the stars in the night sky, and having a familiarity with that, and naming a few constellations, and understanding how they moved. And now we have to make such effort to really see them. We have okay stars here in Whitstable.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah, I can imagine that in England, you have a bigger country. It's easier.
Katherine May:
Yeah. And I think we're gradually turning off road lights it seems, like we are dialing back from overstreet lighting, but I can't see all the stars. I can see the brightest ones. I certainly can't see the dimmer ones. And I think I've never had that sense in my lifetime of being able to look up to the sky and see that kind of freckling of stars across the sky that you see in very dark places. That feels so remote to me, and I don't even know how to miss that. That's just never been there.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah, exactly. That's the baseline shifting syndrome, I suppose.
Katherine May:
You write a lot about your neighbour in your book.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yes.
Katherine May:
Tell us his role in this.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
So in my book, what I try to do is experience this overview effect that the astronauts have, but then on Earth. So my question was how can I find this huge sense of connection that I miss so much in this difficult time? How can I find it by traveling this planet as if I am a space traveler? Because of course, we are always in space, because Earth is in space. So we are constantly in space.
And I thought if I just realised that enough, I might get close to that astronaut experience. And then in the book, I look up, and I talk about all these people who do research, planetary research, or preparing Mars missions or stuff like that.
But then the more I looked up and the further away I travelled in my story, the more I realised that this feeling of belonging that the astronauts have is also really about the ground that you inhabit and this small patch of Earth that you live on.
So while looking up and writing about the universe, I started to also really look down. And the first thing I see when I look down, because I lived in this apartment, it was the second and the third floor. So I share this really tiny front yard with my neighbour, and he's always in the garden. And I look down from my window, I see him. So I was thinking-
Katherine May:
How old is he before we carry on? Is he a little older than you?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yes. Now he's 80 actually, but he looks much younger. He wants me to say that.
Katherine May:
You have to tell that. Yeah.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
It's very vital. And we share this really, you cannot even call it a garden. It's like 10 square meters, but still, this is what we share. And he represents a total different Amsterdam than me. I was born here, but still I'm a different generation. But also, we have two jobs. We can afford all these things that this neighbour cannot afford. He grew up in extreme poverty in the war. And he is from a total different background than I am.
And in a way, in our neighborhoods, gentrification is a huge problem, as in many big cities. And I am the face of gentrification in my neighbourhood because everything I represent, what I earn, what I buy, what I eat. And he is the face of the people that have been in this neighborhood for such a long time.
And I thought if I write about bridging gaps, if I write about interconnectedness, about countering feelings of alienation, then I should also write about this neighbour that I walk past every day, and we are in two different universes in a way. And so I felt like this thing on Earth had to be part of my story about the universe.
And I tried to lure him into my story, and talked a lot with him about the universe and his memory of the stars, and how he looks up, and what he's feeling when he's looking up. And also try to figure out what he needs to feel good in a neighbourhood that is more and more alien to him, because so many people like me are coming in. So I try to also maybe counter his alienation by trying to feel what he needs.
And then we really developed our front garden together. We made it into this little urban jungle. And it meant a lot to me that he wanted to be part of that story. And we made a theater show out of it. And he came. I think I played it 40 times, and he came 25 out of 40. He always ran onto stage when there was the applause. And so it was really nice to collaborate with him on this.
And I think it's so important if you talk about climate, if you talk about this eco-anxiety, things that a lot of people who feel this, they are able to feel it, because they have time to feel this. They don't have stress over other things in general. I'm not saying it's like that all, because of course, if you live in a global south and you are confronted, it's a total different story.
But here in our cities, I think the most people that feel this are people that are quite well off. And I think it's very important if you put your time and energy into healing this, then you should also try to heal something else. And that is the people who don't even have time to think about this.
Katherine May:
Yeah, who don't have the opportunity.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Because they're stressed out, and they're trying to survive. So for me, it was very important to join those two stories.
Katherine May:
He made me think of my lovely neighbour who is very similar. A little younger, but she's lived in the houses that... We have two adjoining houses, and she's lived there since she was a child. It was her parents' house first. She knows the house back to front. She grows most of her own vegetables. She brews her own beer. And compared to us, lives on beans. I always feel so excessive compared to the way she lives, but that's her very happy life.
But these people are a repository of knowledge that my generation just don't have about how things are made, how to repair them, how to take good care of them, how to preserve them. It's such a different way of seeing, I think.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah. And that was also the things that interests me so much about Bob, my neighbour, is how good he is-
Katherine May:
He had to be called Bob, it's the perfect name for him.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah, it is. He's 100% Bob if you look at him.
Katherine May:
It's lovely.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
But he's so good at repairing. He would never throw anything away. So that's also something that for me, fitted so much in the story, because the book is so much about how to live with this attitude of repair and try to ask yourself, with everything you do, "Does this create repair or does it do damage?" And I think you're very right that from these people, there's so much to learn about living in a restorative way.
Katherine May:
Yeah. As you've just said, I spend a lot of my time hand wringing about the environment, and worrying about it, and talking about my worry about it. But I definitely live in a more wasteful way than she does, and than Bob probably does, and than my grandparents certainly did.
I often look on the day that the bins are collected. That's the day that I get consumed by guilt because I see how full my bin is compared to how full her bin is. And sometimes my bin is full, so I'm sneaking bin bags into her bins. So the waste collectors will take to-
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Give some of the guilt to your neighbour.
Katherine May:
Yes. Because otherwise, they will take all my bags. And I think I'm ashamed, honestly, when I see it, when I see how lightly she touches the world compared to the way that I do.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah. And I think that's forgotten a lot, that there are so many fingers are pointed all the time at people who maybe not join, the action against the climate crisis. But then, yeah, I have a neighbour here also who is anti- all the action, but he never flew in his life then. So I don't know who's more of a climate activist actually.
Katherine May:
Yeah, that makes loads of sense. One of the things that really struck me as I was reading through In Light-Years There's No Hurry was the poetry of how we've named space. I felt like that was a real glimpse of our desires around it and our imagination that we put onto it, particularly the moon and all the places. I mean, the Sea of Tranquility is a really familiar one, which is just such a beautiful thing to name this, I don't know, fairly desolate spot floating in space. Was that something that inspired your poet's mind?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah, totally. Yeah. I've always been so inspired by all those space names, but also by all this research. I would go to the European Space Agency for readings that were actually meant for all the people working there. And I would not understand anything, because I'm not a very, we call it [inaudible 00:28:19] mind if you study a physics, or chemistry, or all these things I don't know nothing about. But then they would talk about fingerprints of light, for example. And then just these words together, my mind would really start flowing just listening to the combination of words they used.
And it was funny because I was there as a poet and as someone just listening to the words they put together. And then these people were actually understanding what the story was about.
But I also thought while being there, that it's such a shame that the way people talk about the universe is either in a very physicist ways, or technical way, or really explaining the natural phenomenon of it. Or it is in a spiritual way or maybe a poetic way. And these two vocabularies, these two ways of talking, they never really meet. And I think that's really a big loss. Because it took me years to find the courage to write about space being a poet, because I thought, "What do I know of gravity?"
Katherine May:
Everyone could jump in and correct you.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah. I cannot understand. I cannot explain gravity, or I cannot explain a black hole. But I think I can understand it on a different level. And that was what attracted me so much to it. And then I really wrote the book that I wanted to read through a poet's eyes on space. And I found what really was so interesting that many of the scientists who studied space, the ones that interest me most are people who are also either religious or poets. So you have some astronomers who are poets at the same time.
Katherine May:
Yeah. Well, it's hard to talk about space without reaching for metaphor, or for an image that tries to summarise the intensity of feeling that we have. But also the kind of fears too, the sense of it being this very unknown space. We don't know if anyone else is out there. We don't know if we could ever survive there. We don't really see it as anything but maybe a last resort that we are lining up if we destroy everything here. And it's a very complex kind of idea, I think.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
But if you look at space, does it scare you?
Katherine May:
Well, that's an interesting question because it used to. So when I was a child, we did a school project on space, and someone gave me a book about the mysteries of space or something. I think it was the wrong book. And it terrified me.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Oh really?
Katherine May:
Yeah. So first of all, the idea of infinity totally blew my mind in all the wrong ways. I didn't like it. And it frightened me. And then also, there was a chapter about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. And I then became afraid of looking up into the sky because I was afraid I'd see a UFO.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Oh no.
Katherine May:
Yeah. And it lasted for years, this absolute sense that to look into that zone was to risk seeing something that would change me so profoundly, that I'd never be able to recover from it. And you'll be glad to know that's worn off now. But that was very real for me for quite a while.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
I think, because I underestimated when I wrote the book that quite some people are afraid of space.
Katherine May:
Really. So you've heard that a lot have you?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Of the vastness, yes. And really don't feel comforted by the idea of infinity and the idea of not knowing. But I feel so much comfort when I know that I do not understand something.
Katherine May:
Yeah. Well as I've got older, it's felt more comforting. And actually, it's that kind of sense that you are not the center of the universe, becomes good when you're older. Because it feels like it sometimes in a really bad way, it's suddenly quite nice. Yeah.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah. Yeah, certainly. Yeah. So maybe it's also just a midlife thing to look up.
Katherine May:
Yeah, to start to want to feel small rather than to want to feel big in the world. Yeah, for sure.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah.
Katherine May:
I don't worry about seeing UFOs anymore either.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
That's great. I would love to see a UFO.
Katherine May:
I know. I'd be like, "Woo. What's that?"
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
It's got wings? Yeah.
Katherine May:
I was obviously quite an incurious child. I don't know.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
No, but it is scary, of course. It's very scary, this idea what you say, that you see something that would change you forever. And how would you live with that? How would you tell other people? Yeah.
Katherine May:
Well, I've read a lot since about how for our generation, the idea of aliens was kind of a stand in for our fear of Russia and our fear of nuclear war, essentially. Which was definitely something that was on my mind a lot when I was a child. I've got this very early memory of a dream of being on my school football field and a nuclear warhead kind of flying past.
And I must have been six or seven when I had that dream. And so that fear was really in me even then. And I think that situation's become a lot more complicated all over again, hasn't it? And I wonder if we'll begin to fear things coming from the sky again a little bit more.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Well, you do see that the more people are distressed, the more people see things up in the air. It's interesting that UFOs or UAPs, as they're called now, have become such a new topic. And it's written so much more about it. And people are so much more interested in it.
Katherine May:
What does UAP stand for then? I don't know.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. Yeah, it's exactly the same as a UFO. But they said the UFO is now, how do you say that? Tainted? The term.
Katherine May:
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Sure. It's contaminated? Tainted, yeah.
Katherine May:
Yeah.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Because people, they associate it with being a bit weird or-
Katherine May:
And sort of conspiracy theory and sort of eccentric people rather than the scientific investigation into whether something's there. That makes sense.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Exactly. But now these UAPs are all over the place again. So that's a very interesting development, actually.
Katherine May:
That's fascinating.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
What does it mean that people see this again and that they're interested in it again? So maybe-
Katherine May:
We've come round to these more apocalyptic times again.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
I guess. Yeah.
Katherine May:
I don't want that to happen. Can we be back to the noughties again and flying off for weekends and having a really nice time? I want-
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Thinking everything is going great. But it's a very interesting time, isn't it? Because you have so much questions that you wouldn't have if you would be still in the '90s or the zeros.
Katherine May:
No, that's right.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
How bad is it actually to die out as a species? That's a question that I've been thinking about a lot. I don't know. And that also comforts me in a way that I think, "Well, maybe dinosaurs died out." You have all these tech billionaires saying, "We have to go to another planet to save our species." But how generous would it be to just die and say, "Well, let's see what comes after."
Katherine May:
And I often think actually about Neanderthals who dwindled and died out. And all of us carry Neanderthal DNA. So we are connected to a humanoid species that has died out, that has faced its own demise. And I've always been curious about what that felt like to them. How aware of it were they and how did they make sense of it?
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Part of us is still that died out species. Yeah.
Katherine May:
Well, let's end on a slightly more positive note, because we've journeyed to a fairly desolate place. But I'd love to ask you just to close about your night watch group and the idea of night activism. It seems like it's become a real rallying cry in your neighborhood.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yes. Well actually, yeah, all over the city now. Yeah. That's really a project that gives me so much energy, and hope also, actually. So we do night walks more and more. We now have five locations, and I have five night watchers we call them, who take people out into the dark, which is relative dark. In the Netherlands, in Amsterdam especially. But we found the most darkest places in the city, and we do night walks. And in these walks we talk about the things that we lose, but also about our power to restore stuff, and how close by the world feels at night. Because I think in the dark, the world feels so much more intimate.
And it's lovely because it resonates so much. And every time, I'm so surprised that the walks are sold out immediately. And there's all these people from teenagers into their seventies. They join us just walking in silence through these tiny excuse for forests we have here in Netherlands, and trying to see nocturnal animals, and being very quiet, and going through space as an animal ourselves. Because you walk very careful, you don't see anything. You really have to surrender to your surroundings.
And I think that quite some people need that in this time, this feeling of surrendering to the world, not being on top of things, disappearing, trying to hear something that would otherwise be unheard, because the city makes so much noise. But these places are sort of quiet patches in the city.
And for me, these walks are very restorative. And also, because you come so close to everything you meet from the trees to the other people. You don't see their faces, but they're there. Well, there's just all this energy going around.
Katherine May:
Beautiful.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yeah, it's very nice. And we've been searching glowworms with a lot of people here now in Amsterdam, which is also a very hopeful way of moving through the night, finding these little lights. And they're still there.
Katherine May:
Still there, we don't see them. We've lost our faith in darkness. We've lost our trust in darkness. We need to make friends with that again, I think.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Yes. And then especially what I noticed, I think I made more than 200 night walks now. And I noticed that when you start doing it, you walk through the night looking for light, because that's what you do. If you're in the dark, you think, "Okay, where's the light? Where do I have to go?" But if you stop looking for the light, then you can actually see the dark, and then you can learn how unbelievably rich the darkness is.
And that's also when we found the glow worms very unexpectedly, because they're very rare here in the Netherlands. I think they have a tough time all over the world. But here in the Netherlands, there are hardly any left, especially not in our surroundings. And then I walk into the city forest just around the corner, and the first thing I see is this rare species in a time of mass extinction, just because I wasn't looking for the light. I was just trying to stumble through the dark. And that was, for me, such a big lesson, that I'm still learning it every time I go into the dark. And it's so great to share that with so many people now.
Katherine May:
Well, I love it. I think it's a really inspiring idea, and it's been amazing to talk to you. Thank you so much for sharing your deep knowledge and enthusiasm today. It's been wonderful.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Thank you. I hope I wasn't too grim about-
Katherine May:
No-
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Dying out.
Katherine May:
Not in any way. Not in any way.
Marjolijn van Heemstra:
Okay. Well that's great.
Show Notes
Marjolijn van Heemstra believes that we can change the world by gazing into the night sky. Her book, In Light Years There’s No Hurry, explores the ‘overview effect’, a personal transformation reported by astronauts who have seen the earth from space. People who’ve experienced this rare view often report an ethical shift taking place, a new sense of mission in their lives. They come to see themselves as guardians of their planet, rather than its passive citizens.
Clearly not all of us can - or want to - leave the atmosphere to gaze over the earth from space. But in this thought-provoking conversation, Marjolijn makes a case for us learning to draw on the overview effect from where we stand, suggesting that this could lead us to become better stewards of our environment, and form closer bonds with the communities around us.
Marjolijn is a Dutch theatre-maker, journalist and poet who has recently been named Amsterdam’s Poet Laureate. Her most recent work has focused on reacquainting ourselves with darkness, and this includes her creative project The Night Watch, and the Amsterdam Dark Festival, of which she is the founder.
Links from the episode:
Marjolijn’s Instagram
Marjolijn’s book, In Light Years There’s No Hurry
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“Katherine May gave so many of us language and vision for the long communal ‘wintering’ of the last years. Welcome this beautiful meditation for the time we’ve now entered. I cannot imagine a more gracious companion. This book is a gift.”
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