Healing Through Nature's Help, Reconnecting, Ecotherapy...
... whatever you choose to label it, what it means is getting outside and in to natural spaces, remembering that you are a part of it, and doing something about it. The purpose of this website is to offer you some life alternatives to alleviate the crisis situation that we are rapidly moving toward. This does not mean going backwards in time and being without comfort, it means thinking in new ways which work in harmony with nature and not in competition to it.
Could it really be possible that in future years your children and grandchildren will no longer have nature as we know it around them? Could it really be possible that over the coming years the planet earth will lose many of its species and web of biodiversity will come unglued?
Sadly, yes - it could.
Why would this matter to you?
Because as one of the life forms on this planet your survival depends on their survival. Life on this planet is an intricately woven web of relationships, and the participant that destroys that which supports it ie. human beings, will eventually disappear.
Could you be contributing to its demise? Most likely yes, but you are definitely not alone.
There are ways to change the effect you have, and as each of us change our thinking, and thus our habits, together those changes multiply tenfold to help stem the flow of destruction and begin the healing process for our planet as well as yourself.
How?
The first step is to reconnect to nature around you. To remember what nature is all about and how it works. Once you have awakened yourself about how it is all woven together and remembered that you are a part of it, your attitude towards it will change. You will notice a shift within yourself. You will be more aware of the environment around you. Awareness helps nurture understanding and respect which in turn brings about changes in action. Below is a YouTube video on how some people take action.
Do we all need to talk to trees? No. No more than we all need to eat broccoli. For some it is enjoyable, for others, not. What we can do is find what works best for us and follow through with some actions. Learn about the natural processes of the world, pinpoint where you specifically are doing the most harm, and consider alternative ways of achieving your goal with less of an impact. Accept that you too are responsible for your future welfare and begin there. That could mean anything from purchasing carbon offset points to turning off the light as you leave the room. Find the level that you are comfortable starting out with, and continue from that point. Our planet depends on it.
So what do we do to reconnect to nature?
What are some of the steps we can take that are easy?
- get outdoors more frequently and take notice of what is going on around you
- change the light bulbs in your house to energy efficient bulbs
- invest in energy saving appliances when you have to change them
- buy local food whenever possible, it saves on the carbon pollution of shipping
- buy organic local food if at all possible - let's get the chemicals out of our soil and our systems
- make certain that you use best practices for keeping your home heated and cooled
- walk to the corner store instead of driving, or ride your bike (you do have one, right?)
- recycle, recycle, recycle - set up a system that is easy to use so that you will use it
- don't buy things you really don't need
- use organic cleaners
- turn the lights out when you leave the room
These are just a very few examples of where you can start with no trouble, but don't let it stop there. What do they have to do with reconnecting to nature? Well, all of these mindless and 'unimportant' things we do in a day actually affect the nature of the planet. They require energy of one sort or another, drain the precious reserves that we have, and create pollution that despoils the earth.
This understanding is where we need to start - that what we do is part of the cause and effect process that has brought us to where we are today. And yes, we are all responsible. It was done without understanding, it started out innocently enough - but we are no longer innocent and we have to each take responsibility in our own particular way for not continuing the destruction.
Taking a close look at the center of an iris bloom one can see that nature up close and personal is very intricate - and very beautiful. There is a world of activity that takes place in this tiny piece of the earth's landscape. The colors and patterns attract certain types of insects to crawl through and pollinate the flower, and pollination is necessary for the cycle of reproduction to continue.
Connecting with Nature - A Beginning
If you just don't understand the importance of connecting with nature, try picturing the string experiment in your mind. What is this? Each person in a group labels him/her self as a part of nature - a tree, bug, bird, animal, human etc. Using a large roll of string, as it is unrolled it passes through the hands of the people in the group as you determine what relationship each one has to the other. For example, if you start with a woodpecker, that is connected to the bug because the bug is its food - so the string goes from the bird to the bug. The bug needs the leaves of plants to eat, so the string goes to a flower. The flower needs bees to pollenate it, so the string goes to the bee next. The process continues as it is determined what the relationships are between the parts. The idea behind the process is that everything is connected. The mountains crumble into rock which is worn into soil which is added to by rotting vegetation. The nutrients in the soil are necessary for the plants and trees, and the plants and trees are necessary for birds, bugs, and animals as a source of food and shelter. The actual experiment is much more intricately involved than my simple explanation here, but it gives you a start at understanding the connections, and the web of life that evolves from those connections becomes a visible picture in your mind. Nature is no longer a stranger to you. You begin to comprehend the importance of each and every thing that exists on this planet. If you were to do the experiment with a group of people and one or two of the members dropped out and let go of their strings, the web would become less solid. As one part of the web disappears, other parts begin to collapse as well because they do not have the necessary support to survive. The web weakens and slowly becomes less viable as a functioning unit until its total collapse.
So while you are out enjoying the day, sitting on your favorite park bench, watch what is occurring around you. Do you see the birds picking bugs from the grass until they have their fill and then flying off? If it is early summer they are probably feeding young ones. If it is later in the year they may be filling up for the long migration, or preparing for the winter when food is perhaps not so plentiful. And where do they fly off to? The bushes and trees of course. As human beings, we rely on those trees as well. We rely on them for shade in the heat, protection from the winds, for cleaning the air and sometimes even for food and shelter, just as the birds and bugs do.
A Great Book "Healing With Nature"
The book "Healing With Nature" by Susan Scott is a great place to start. We journey with her as she leads her patients down the healing pathway. She was a Psychologist in need of physical healing herself, and this is the story of her own road to recovery as she worked with her clients. It is well written and enjoyable to read, with many insights.
Everyone Has a Way to Reconnect
Each and every one of us has the ability to reconnect to nature, and we each do it in our own particular way. It can be on the individual level or the global level. Dickson Despommier, a Columbia University public health professor has been working for some time on the 'vertical farm' theory. The idea of an indoor, vertical farm that could produce food for the inhabitants of large cities has caught the attention of a number of cities around the world. It would solve the problem of space to grow food, and cut down immensely on the problems created by shipping food from country to country. Time Magazine has an article in August's U.S. issue on the urban farms literally sprouting up across the country in vacant lots and on rooftops. And on the other side of the planet, Dorah Lebelo is the Executive Director of the GreenHouse Project in Johannesburg, South Africa. This project has been put together as an Environmental NGO to show that living in a way that sustains nature is possible. They are reviewing alternative sources of energy; building homes in a way that sustains the earth; using recycled products in new ways that are supportive to the community and producing food for the inhabitants.
Whether you are able to contribute on a global level or merely an individual one, the first step is the most important. You must take that step, that change in direction, before things will begin to be different.
Once one gets interested in and looking for things to help us reconnect with nature and accomplish something that helps not only ourselves, but the rest of the planet as well - we begin to find others already well entrenched in the process. We are not as alone as we sometimes feel in this regard, and it starts with one person in one area making a decision to change something they do. That person could be you. One small change starts the ball rolling.
The following links will lead you to other websites where you can see how other people are approaching the problem in whatever way they feel is right for them. Yes, most of them are trying to sell things to you - but take a close look at what they are selling and how they are doing it. They have come up with products that have less impact on the earth's resources, and many can be given back to the earth in a non-polluting way.
Pangea Organics
They not only use plant-based ingredients, but the boxes they package in are 100% recyclable and include seeds that, when soaked and planted back in to the earth will grow.
Haworth is an office furniture design and manufacture firm with a sustainability committment. Take a look at one of their latest products the Zody chair.Yes, it's just an office chair - but the process is what is important. They have taken a design by ITO design of Germany and used 50% recycled waste material to build it. To offset the other 50% they purchase wind energy certificates. They include sustainability in every design decision they make, and they still make money and design award winning products. It CAN be done if we take the time to figure it out.
Patagonia is a well known clothing and sport gear manufacturing firm that uses only organic cotton and are gradually going through the rest of their product line to make changes that are environmentally responsible. They call it 'Leading the Examined Life'. They acknowledge that they may not be perfect but are willing and interested to make educated changes to benefit the planet.
These are just a few instances where large manufacturers are changing their processes to help stop the destruction of the earth.
Check out these earth sheltered houses by Architect Peter Vetsch in Switzerland and Germany. The philosophy that the Architerctural firm creates by is that "Architecture should not dictate nature, it should cooperate with it." It is an interesting site that has two Quick Time videos showing the basic concepts and a tour through the interior of the house. To me, it seems a viable solution to many of our housing problems and certainly cuts down on the amount of energy required to operate the heating and cooling.
There are a multitude of ways that each of us can connect with nature once again - from the small endeavours to the large ones.
Reconnecting To Nature
On this page are some specific things you can do to help reconnect. Learning about nature to understand it better is the first step. Once you begin to see the connections between various life forms you begin to see how they are connected to your own well being in the long run.
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