Nature, Memory, and the Art of Noticing

Our Hour in Nature Interview with Megan O’Neill

Megan O’Neill is the CEO and designer of NAYLA (@_shopnayla), a sustainable-luxury shoe brand that uses upcycled fish leather to handcraft colorful mules, sandals, and more. A born-and-raised New Yorker and the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Megan has always gravitated toward an exuberant color palette and delighted in the self-expression of getting dressed. She was a beauty editor and writer for over a decade, most recently at GOOP, and she continues to write and offer her beauty expertise. Megan is also the co-host of The Soft Life podcast, and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Can you describe an experience when you’ve been made to feel fully — and perhaps uncomfortably — aware of the power of nature?

Little Corn Island sits in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Nicaragua and allows no cars. This sets the pace. One might spend the day ambling along white-sand beaches, marveling at the exuberant palette of greens in the jungle, going into raptures over a bowl of she-crab soup, or even just staring off contentedly at a grove of gently swaying palms. There’s certainly electricity but not the abundance we know and take for granted. One night my husband and I were walking home from a festival and found ourselves gradually and then all at once swallowed by darkness. It wasn’t that late, maybe something like 9 p.m, but the street lamps were a luxury specific to town. We clutched one another’s hand and were silent as we continued on. There’s something keenly terrifying about that sort of impenetrable blackness. Maybe it’s terrifying—silencing— because it’s in a way familiar. Is this what death is like? Our eyes slowly adjusted, and we saw that we were about to cross a field. We stopped in the middle, gazing up at the sky. Still there was nothing to say. We were so small, the sky so endless, the night so utter. We didn’t matter. We just didn’t. We’d be gone one day. But somehow this train of thought wasn’t dreary. It felt so good to be holding my husband’s hand. To be standing there, astonishingly alive. To encounter this gorgeous absolute darkness. We started to walk again, and I excitedly thought about what cool fruit we’d eat for breakfast in the morning. We found our way home in the dark, still speechless for most of the way.

What is your favourite natural scent, and why?

Ornately perfumed yet somehow so fresh, jasmine is heaven. It feels auspicious to stumble upon it. To glimpse the perfect little white flowers clustered together, often pouring over a fence. I love putting my face right up to them. Once three years ago in Berkeley, California, days after my mother-in-law died, I went on an aimless walk and encountered a sprawl of jasmine—recognizing the scent even before I spotted it. It was the best solace in that moment. 

Is there an animal or plant that you’ve always felt particularly drawn to, and can you explain why?

Hummingbirds are just stunning. How can something look like that! They seem mythical. So tiny and effusively colored in. Sometimes their feathers have a shimmer to them that’s so astounding it softens and expands me, stretching me into the type of person who lives for beauty and strives to see it everywhere. And the way they live off nectar! What luxurious creatures. 

How do you bring nature into your home?

I cook with the best ingredients I can find. Lately, that includes fresh turmeric. I grate it for the soul-warming turmeric tonic I always crave when winter sets in (6 cups water, 2 tablespoons grated turmeric, 2 tablespoons grated ginger, a few grinds of black pepper, juice of one lemon, plus loads of honey to make it taste fun). I love how handling the root turns my fingers bright orange, evidence of turmeric’s bursting-with-nutrients quality. 

Do you believe nature has a consciousness or spirit?

My mom told me this bizarre story when I was little—too little to understand, probably. She’d been a solitary, bookish sort at her college in New England, and the thing she felt the strongest kinship to was… a tree. It was massive, sturdy, probably ancient, and she’d curl up under it to read or just sit near it. She’d feel things, she said. I remember rolling my eyes and sucking my teeth, horrified and incredulous that my mom used to be in love with a tree. But I do get it now. There are exchanges that happen between unlikely parties all the time. And maybe it’s not so unlikely—trees and humans liasoning in an unspoken language.