How we can come to
our senses: what they don't teach
you at Harvard or Yale
Practical information
for person and planet well being that we ignore because our society
denys it is prejudiced against nature.
Michael
J. Cohen et
al
Introduction
"Ishi, (the last hunter-gather
Native American) was sure he knew the cause of our discontent.
It stemmed from an excessive amount of indoor time. 'It is not
a man's nature to be too much indoors.'"
.....- Theodora Kroeber
"It is quite clear to
me after several years in the environmental movement that all
physical problems of man's impact on the environment - pollution
of the air and waters, the desecration of the land, the contamination
of the food chain - all start within the environment of man's
mind."
.....- Maurice Strong,
.....Founder or the United Nations Environment
....Program,
.....Co-chair of the Commission on Global
....Governance,
"Whole-thinking people
recognize that if you take a section out of the side of a ball,
you make both the section and the ball dysfunctional; neither
ball nor section will roll with the same perfection as when the
ball was whole. We seem unaware that this holds true for our
relationship with Planet Earth."
.....- Michael J. Cohen
We are born as part of nature.
From the beginning of humanity's time on Earth we have embodied
nature's ability produce and enjoy its balance and beauty. However,
our Society is extremely separated from nature. Our socialization
disconnects us from nature and we learn how to produce our troubles
for neither nature nor nature-centered people display them.
To our loss, using money, power
and prestige, our society's prejudice against nature rewards
us for disconnecting from nature's restorative perfection.
To understand how and why we
remain disconnected, consider the following intelligence test
question, a question that helps determine a person's mathematical
aptitude to qualify for a better job or higher salary:
If you count a dog's tail as one of its legs, how many legs does
a dog have?
"Five," of course, is the correct answer on a math
examination. Intelligent people say "five" because
it is valid in mathematical systems and contemporary thinking.
Math is highly regarded and rewarded by our society. It is a
core of scientific thinking and method.
However, we don't solely live
our lives or think in mathematical
systems. Our natural sense of reason
can consider what we know from our actual contact with a real,
normal dog, too. That's when our multitude of 53 other natural
senses come into play: senses of sight, touch, motion, color,
texture, language, sound, smell, consciousness, community, trust,
contrast, and love.
Each of these senses provide
us with further information. Each helps our sense of reason make
more sense and more informed decisions. They enable our thinking
to register that a tail is different than a leg, that a dog has
four legs, not five, no matter what is correct in mathematical
logic.
It is a grave mistake for us
not to take seriously the difference between 4-leg and 5-leg
ways of knowing and our learned prejudice for the latter. As
our book, The Web of Life Imperative,
shows, when these ways are not in balance the schism between
their different means of registering the world often produces
destructive relationships, stress and conflict within and around
us.
Four-leg knowing
is a magnificent psychological and physiological phenomenon with
deep natural system sensitivity roots into the eons, the heart
of Earth and our psyche. It brings our widely diverse multiplicity
of natural senses and sensory ways of regiestering the world
into our awareness. We are built to know and relate to the world
through them, as does the rest of nature.
Five-leg knowing produces important awareness through abstract
imagination, labels and stories. However, like a movie playing
in our mind, it is a shortcut. It is not real, rather it abstracts
reality. When it does not also seek and think with 4-leg knowledge,
it results not only in our desensitization but in the separation
of our thinking from the balanced restorative powers of Earth's
natural systems within and around us. This profound loss produces
the many destructive side effects of our artificial world that
we can not readily solve with disconnected 5-leg thinking.
Nine-leg knowing
produces a whole-life, intelligent and balanced re-connection
between our 4-leg and 5-leg thinking abilities. It also brings
to our consciousness our inherent connections with and love of
the beauty and restorative ways of natural systems. This, to
our benefit, helps us co-create more harmoniously and sustainably
with nature and each other.
Our most challenging personal,
social and environmental problems result from our 5-leg thinking's
destructive disconnection from 4-leg knowledge. The disconnection
makes us try to "make nature wag its leg or scratch its
ear with its tail."
Limited thinking is detrimental.
We might kill or hurtfully stress a dog if we make it run too
fast or far because we think that it has five legs. However,
that is exactly what we are doing to ourselves and the environment.
The destructive results speak
for themselves in the deteriorattion of emotional, psychological
and biological systems within and around us.
To our benefit, nine-leg thinking
enables us to bring nature's balancing and restorative powers
into our mind and heart.
"Upon arrival the play
of fresh wind, waves and colors on the rocky shoreline filled
our senses. A loving feeling of awe and belonging soon unified
us when only minutes before we were angrily competing for status
and to be winners"
- Project
NatureConnect participant
History
In 1959, Dr. Michael J. Cohen founded
a camp and school program based on nine leg thinking and relating.
The National Audubon Society and many others called it the most
revolutionary school in America. They said it was "utopian"
and "on the side of the angels" because it produced
cooperation on every level and it did not display or cause troubles
that normally plague contemporary society.
...........The 9-leg secret to each participant's
success, as well as the success of the school, was to learn how
to thoughtfully learn while incorporating 4-leg natural sensations
and feelings that arose from their newly regrown sensory 
roots
in ecosystems of which they were part. These sensations acted
as nature's guiding voice. They replaced the voice of our "normal"
destructive ways that ordinarily played in their mind even while
in natural areas.
The value and rewards of doing
this freed the participants' senses from their bonds to questionable
5-leg stories. It re-bonded them to their 4-leg sense of reason
in congress with 52 other rejuvenated natural senses while these
senses were connected to their nurturing origins and home in
nature. This resulted in bonding to consensus-based 9-leg thinking,
literacy and relating that included information from, and the
regenerative healing powers of, natural systems. Each participant
held nature in awe and reverence.
To many 5-leg thinkers, this
whole way of thinking sounds ideal or impossible, but year after
year the beneficial results of nine-leg
knowing speak for themselves. They improve relationships and
reduce stress, conflict, dysfunction and a wide range of associated
disorders. It is the addictive 5-leg prejudice against nature
that we each carry that prevents us from enjoying this process
and its rewarding outcomes.
Can we help our thinking
reasonably help us come to our senses?
INSTRUCTIONS:
In this article, three stars
*** signify that you should carefully consider the question in the article before reading the
paragraphs that follow the question.
"I go to nature to be
soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order."
.....- John Burroughs
A responsible society acknowledges its destructive effects and
acts to eliminate them. The destructive effects of industrial
civilization are undeniable with respect to its impact on the
web of life.
The web is nature itself, a
biological, connective, balancing, natural system process that
the natural world and people's inner nature (subconscious "inner
child") hold in common.
Our basic 5-leg relationship with nature has been to conquer
nature and be rewarded in the name of economics, progress and
survival. We have done this so successfully that we are in denial
that the rewards have psychologically conditioned or addicted
us to abusive, unsustainable ways of thinking and relating. For
this reason, our personal, social and environmental problems
have become runaway. We no longer know how to stop assaulting
nature around and within us although we know we should. With
respect to our relationship with the web of life, we must go
back to basics. We must dissolve our addictions and learn how
to be part of the web in a constructive way. For too long, in
spite of great wisdom to the contrary, our prejudice against
nature has lead us down our detrimental path.
"The purpose of life is
to live in agreement with nature."
.....- Zeno,
circa 520 BC
"Wind over the lake: the
image of inner truth."
.....- I Ching circa 1200 B.C.
What is the web of life?
Experts often depict the web
by gathering a group of people in a circle. Each person is asked
to represent some part of nature, such as a bird, soil, water,
etc. A large ball of string then helps members of the group see
the interconnecting relationships between things in nature. For
example the bird eats insects so the string is passed from the
"bird person" to
the "insect person." That is their connection. The
insect lives in a flower, so the string is further unrolled across
the circle to the "flower person." Soon a web of string
is formed interconnecting all members of the group, including
the one or two who represent people.
Dramatically, people pull back slightly and sense how the string
peacefully unites, supports and interconnects them and of all
life. Then one strand of the web is cut signifying the loss of
a species, habitat or relationship. Sadly, the weakening effect
on all is noted. Another and another string is cut. Soon the
web's integrity, support and power disintegrates along with its
spirit. Because this activity reflects the reality of our lives,
this has brought some participants in the activity to feelings
of hurt, despair and sadness.
Earth and its people increasingly suffer from "cut string"
disconnection, yet we continue to cut the strings.
Something
to think about:
To my loss, do I unknowingly cut or injure strands of the web
of life within or around me? Do I know how to stop myself from
doing this?
***
Every part of the global life
community, from sub-atomic particles to weather systems, is part
of the web of life. The intelligent process by which they interact
produces nature's harmonious, supportive ways and prevents our
runaway disorders from occurring in nature. The process nature
uses consists of interacting while in contact with the whole
of the web through its web attraction strings. As part of the
Web, we, along with everything else, are born with this 9-leg
ability. Our troubles begin when we don't recognize or use it,
deny its existence or hurt it. It usually remains alive in us
but it becomes subconscious to protect us from constantly feeling
its frustration or hurt.
Something
to think about:
Am I aware of the strands of the web of life that I was born
with and still contain? Do I enjoyably use them and their ways
to build responsible relationships with people and places? Have
I been taught or forced to make them subconscious?
***
Dr. Cohen often asks the web
of life activity participants if they ever went into a natural
area and actually saw strings holding things together there.
They say"no, that would be crazy." He responds, "If
there are no strings in nature, what then are the actual strands
that hold the natural community together in balance?"
It is always very, very quiet.
Pay close attention to this significant silence. It flags the
missing link in our thinking, perception and relationships that
produces many troubles. The web's strings are a vital 4-leg part
of survival, just as real and important as the plants, animal
and minerals that they interconnect, including ourselves. The
strings are as true as 2 + 2 = 4, facts as genuine as us. As
part of nature, we are born with the natural ability to know
them (4-leg thinking and awareness) but we learn to seldom recognize
or exercise this ability. Without 4-leg seeing, sensing or respecting
the strings in nature and our inner nature, we break, injure
and ignore them. Their disappearance in our consciousness produces
a subconscious void, an uncomfortable psychological emptiness
in our thoughts and lives that we constantly try to fill. We
want, emotionally and materially, and when we want, there is
never enough. We become greedy, stressed and reckless as we try
to gain webstring fulfillment. This places the Earth, others,
and ourselves at risk.
Now, the NSTP's nature reconnecting
activities enable us to bring webstrings natural sensory
attraction relationships back into our lives. Their presence
in our thinking helps reinstate balanced 9-leg personal and environmental
relationships.
"Speak to the Earth and it will teach
thee."
...........- The Bible, Job: 12, 7
Something
to think about:
Am I aware of the strands of the web that lie within and around
me? Is it important to me to stop thinking in nature-disconnected
ways that place Earth and its people at risk?
***
Source Of The Strings
The strings are biologically
of, by and from nature. Since you are part of nature, the strings
are in you and you can learn to nurture them and relate harmoniously
to them through a nature-centered self-improvement process that
helps us let the strings consciously teach us their knowledge.
Many people disbelieve this because we are 5-leg taught to conquer,
not respect, nature including the webstrings. We have also learned
that the strings, which manifest as dozens of senses in natural
systems within us (our inner nature, child, self or being), are
taboo, flaky, subjective, spiritual, unscientific, bad, wrong,
etc. Thus, many webstring senses can have hurt attached to them,
hurt that blocks the webstrings from freely entering our consciousness,
where they can be felt and enter our values and thinking. Often,
out of hurt and frustration, the strings disappear rather than
support us when we need them.
Something
to think about:
Is my 5-leg thinking
prejudiced against the strings and nature's ways to the point
that it influences my relationships?
***
To connect with nature our
thinking must include a sensory 4-leg way of knowing. Our senses
connect us with the living Earth around us in every moment. If
we don't understand our interdependence and relationship to nature,
it is because we have 5-leg disconnected our senses from their
source. We have dismissed them as irrelevant. We have forgotten
their significance. Yet, throughout history, many people have
cherished their webstring senses and recognized their importance,
as follows:
"We cannot live for ourselves
alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads,
and along these sympathetic fibers our actions run as causes
and return to us as results."
.....- Herman Melville
.
"There is one common flow,
one common breathing, all things are in sympathy."
.....- Hippocrates circa 450 B.C.
Scientifically, it is clear
that natural systems organize themselves with webstrings. Moment
by moment, systems are 4-leg attracted to create additional strings
and connections that increasingly weave, balance and repair the
web of life. This is not done haphazardly; rather it forms an
attraction intelligence that produces nature's optimum of life,
diversity, cooperation, balance and beauty. It is worth remembering
that the process is inclusive and caring enough to globally produce
and sustain the web of life without creating garbage. At the
macro level, nothing is left out, unattached or unwanted
a way to describe unconditional love.
"And the true order of
going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to
begin from the beauties of earth."
.....- Plato circa 400 B.C.
.
Something to think about:
Can I allow myself to believe that natural relationships contain,
or are, a form of unconditional love?
***
Attraction Energies
From subatomics to solar systems,
common sense and experts, including Albert Einstein, and Jonas
Salk recognize that all intact relationships, physical or otherwise,
must be held together by something. Without this glue, they would
fall apart. That "something" is an essence of nature,
the natural attraction energies Cohen calls webstrings. By definition
alone, this makes sense. What we call repulsion can just as easily
be recognized as attraction to something more immediate and important.
For example, when in a dangerous situation do we run away in
fear (repulsion) or run for (in attraction to) our life? Both
are survival attractions. Was the "big bang"
a profound explosion or a profound attraction to growth?
"From atoms and molecules
to human beings with developed consciousness, all entities feel
attraction for one another. . . . attraction is the law of nature."
.....- P.R. Sarkar
Elements of Regeneration
Attraction energies in nature
are the heart of its recycling and purification process. These
unifying forces are the power in natural systems that reconnect
detached natural attractions and thereby eradicate contamination
and pollution. This helps Nature sustain its wellness, balance
and beauty. For example, nature purifies contamination through
attraction energies that beckon air to flow through people and
natural areas. In so doing, air nourishes people and nature with
each other's "waste" products. In the process, air
also recycles its own purity as well as strengthens the diverse
integrity of the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms.
It is most significant that
on atomic as well as global levels nature's recycling of air
is fueled by attraction energies, a fundamental binding force
that some might consider spiritual.
Something
to think about:
Can I believe that nature is a perfection of its own, that it
nurtures person and planet and does not produce any garbage/pollution
because it consists mostly, if not only, of attraction relationships?
***
Whenever we safely make contact
with attractions in nature, they trigger our brain to release
Dopamine, a neurotransmitter that produces the good feelings
that we constantly seek. These good feelings are a vital gratification
reward. They help our thinking become aware that a beneficial
survival connection to natural attraction energies has been made,
a connection that contributes to replenishing, regenerating and
sustaining all of life. Thus, each attraction sensation, feeling
or emotion in nature is a rational, sensory, rewarding way of
knowing and relating that we biologically inherit from and hold
in common with nature.
Neuroscientists identify attractions
as Freud's "drives" that they call "seeking urges."
Each encourages and shapes good citizenship and recycling in
the global life community. Sensing and appreciating the role
these attraction energy webstrings play is 5-leg thinking at
its finest. Reasoning that includes them is 9-leg thinking.
"This world - the shadow
of the soul, or 'other' me - lies wide around. Its attractions
are the keys which unlock my thought and make me acquainted with
myself."
.....- R. W. Emerson, 1860
Something
to think about:
How much do I believe that nature's encouragement of my natural
attractions in natural areas is an origin of my ability to feel
good?
***
Properly designed nature-connecting
activities help us create moments that let genuine contact with
natural attraction energies realign and recycle the misguided
5-leg attachments in us that draw us into destructive relationships
and dependencies.
At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine, breathe
into me.
Close the language door and open the love window.
The moon won't use the door, only the window.
.....-
Jedaluddin Rumi, 1207-1273
A major solution to many problems
is to genuinely enable our thinking to 4-leg return, backyard
or backcountry, to the "Garden of Eden," and use its
natural attraction wisdom to help us recycle our destructive
thinking and to co-create a brighter 9-leg future for the Garden
and ourselves.
"Life is a finely woven
net in which all worlds are joined - ancestors, spirits, humans,
animals and the natural universe - bonded by the timeless eternal
spirit of that which has always been and is."
.....- T. C. McLuhan
Need for connection
We are mentally, more than
physically, isolated from the natural world. The 5-leg disconnected
way we think is polluted and produces behavior that pollutes
natural and social systems. We seldom recognize the need for
our thinking to be genuinely connected with nature and thereby
heal, purify and contribute to life's welfare as part of nature's
restorative processes. This misjudgment produces a hurtful omission
in our reasoning that pollutes and disables our ability to think
through attractions, like nature works.
"Nature is doing her best
each moment to make us well.....Why, Nature is but another name
for health."
.....- Henry David Thoreau
Something
to think about:
If nature is guided to its balanced ways and well being by natural
attraction energies, am I willing to let them influence me?
***
Because we are so disconnected
from nature, our leaders seldom recognize that our sensory appetite
for air (our desire/attraction to breathe) is a webstring sensation
and wisdom we can respect and learn from. Neither do they recognize
that we need webstrings to help purify faulty thought processes,
heal and simultaneously contribute to life's welfare as part
of the natural recycling process. Conflict and suffering result
from this omission.
"The indescribable innocence
and beneficence of Nature-of sun and wind and rain, of summer
and winter-such health, such cheer, they afford forever!"
.....- Henry David Thoreau
Something
to think about:
Do some of my problems stem from a hurtful omission in my reasoning
that has led me to enter destructive relationships?
***
.
The attractiveness of God
Attraction energy reasoning
recognizes that many issues and differences between various beliefs
regarding God are today, as through the ages, a major source
of human conflict, death and suffering as well as joy. Each person
or group is so strongly attracted to his or her God that they
are at times willing to argue, fight, shed their life or take
the lives of others to honor their God relationship. This along
with the passionate forms of worship people practice strongly
suggests that one of God's major qualities is attractiveness.
God is naturally very attractive.
Natural attractions are an observed essence of the materials
and energies in the natural systems of our universe, nature,
Earth and ourselves. This suggests that God created this universe
from His/Her attractiveness. He/She may have made other universes
from His/Her vast knowledge, power or size. If, however, we are
to be true to ourselves and trust our senses, rationality and
experiences, it becomes reasonable to consider that the community
of our universe and nature is constructed of God's attraction
energies. For us to know God while ignoring nature is devisive;
it subconsciously creates conflicts and disorders that we suffer.
"I believe in God, only
I spell it Nature."
.....- Frank Lloyd Wright
Something
to think about:
Is there room in my thinking to know, or accept that some people
know, natural attractions as an expression or essence of the
Divine that we hold in common with the natural world? What difference
do I see between natural attractions and pure love?
***
Natural systems and nature-centered
people don't display the runaway war, abusiveness, pollution
and mental and environmental disorders that plague our lives.
These problems arise because our estrangement from nature prejudiciously
and addictively deprives our thinking from sensory contact with
webstrings, their intelligence, nurturance and energies. (If
you don't believe this is a psychological addiction, just try
to get a group of people to make genuine contact with webstrings.)
We spend, on average, less
than 12 hours per lifetime in conscious sensory contact with
nature. How well could you read, write or think if you only spent
12 hours of your total life learning to do it? Without ongoing
conscious sensory contact with and satisfactions from our sensory
origins, for example, our thinking still foolishly lets us sell
and smoke cigarettes while fully knowledgeable that they contain
poisons. In addition, our "stringless" solutions for
runaway personal and global problems are as ineffective as the
warning labels on cigarette packages.
"There must be the generating
force of love behind every effort that is to be successful."
.....- Henry David Thoreau
An essence of separation:
It is common knowledge that,
with the exception of humanity, no member of the web of life
relates, interacts or thinks through words. The web is a non-verbal
"illiterate" experience consisting of in-the-moment
direct webstring attraction relationships, not words, stories,
videos or images. No plant, animal or mineral string of nature's
ancient web consists of literary communication or attachments
to it.
Language is a great asset to human survival when we use it to
help make and sustain sensory contact with the web and its intelligent
ways. Language, however, is usually a shorcut consisting of abstractions
of real relationship. It becomes a source of our problems when,
through nature-disconnecting stories, it excessively removes
our thinking from our sensory origins in the web and its balanced
wisdom. For example, sensory discontents initiated by our separation
from nature psychologically addict us to the story that we must
conquer nature to fulfill our natural senses: hunger, thirst,
taste, love etc. Since we are nature, we addict to conquering
the webstrings of each other and ourselves thereby producing
mental anguish and war. To find lasting peace, we must heed a
new story: "Learn how to reconnect your ruptured sensory
webstrings with their brilliant, fulfilling origins in the lifeweb."
Something
to think about:
Am I a victim of thinking in 5-leg language and stories that
isolate me from the unifying web process that peacefully holds
the global life community and people in balance? Do I have symptoms
of this, such as undue loneliness, sadness, stress, excessive
wants, depression, lack of attention, insensitivity, abusiveness
or underlying anger?
***
In contemporary society, 99.99%
of our feeling and thinking being separated from nature painfully
dismembers our psyche from its origins. Our psyche silently suffers
a profound loss of contact with its nurturing sensory and sensibility
roots in nature's webstring ways and intelligence. We contain
this bag of hurt. Any word or incident that reminds us of our
psychological dismemberment, of our abandonment, breaks the silence.
It releases the emotional pain of dismemberment into consciousness
and we feel and react to it. How we feel colors how we perceive
our relationships.
As reflected by the state of
the world, indoors or outdoors, our mentality is often guarded,
stressed, ill, wanting and destructive in response to our pain.
We suffer from a deficiency of nature's attractive perfection.
a deficiency of the peace wisdom, and restorative powers inherent
in the natural world. We become "ecozombies;" our thinking
is deadened to the ways and values of natural systems within
and around us.
Something
to think about:
How much of the hurt I experience is due to my environment actually
not supporting me and how much is pain subconsciously triggered
by memories of my dismemberment from nature?
***
Restoration through reconnection
NSTP enables us to reverse
many of our troubles because it effectively addresses their source.
The process starts by having us learn how to consciously make
enjoyable, non-verbal, sensory contacts directly with the authentic
life web and its members, backyard or backcountry, not with substitutes
for them. With respect to the perfection of nature's eons of
experience, there is no substitute for the real thing. These
sensory contacts enable us to consciously and sentiently reattach
the strings within us to their nurturing origins, the strings
in the web. We can feel and enjoy the connection; it is an attractive
experience in nature.
The process then helps us safely translate our sensory attraction
feelings into verbal language and share them. This lets our sensory
connections with the web feelingly validate themselves in nine-leg
words that register in the thinking and reasoning part of our
psyche. It is important to recognize that without this verbalization
and sharing, NSTP is like an engine without gasoline; it can
but doesn't produce action.
"Nothing is more indisputable
than our senses."
.....- Jean Le Rond d'Alembert
By using NSTP as a tool, we
help nature guide our thinking to work like nature works. We
sensuously enjoy nature's harmonious wisdom and support as it
enters our relationships. In this nature-reconnecting process,
the natural world, be it potted plant or wilderness, becomes
our classroom, mentor and library. It helps us peacefully co-create
a sustainable future with the global life community.
Something
to think about:
Does it make sense for me to want to learn through contact with
natural systems? Have I prejudicially learned that doing this
is "flaky" or "fuzzy thinking" and may make
me look foolish like a "hippy" or "Earth Muffin"
so I won't do it?
***
NSTP helps us recognize that
the strings are actually natural attractions. Every atom and
its nucleus consists of, expresses and relates through natural
attractions. All of nature, including us, contains these attractions.
As suggested earlier, webstring
attractions feelingly register in our consciousness as sensations
we call senses. For example: as natural loves for being conscious,
for sight, touch, and sound; as our attractions to water (including
thirst); color and community; as attachments for nurturing, belonging
and trust; as affinities for reason and contact with nature;
for wholeness. Senses of place, gravity, pain, motion, spirit,
temperature, and trust, are each attractions that, when energized,
register and help guide our conscious thoughts.
Something
to think about:
Wouldn't my relationships be more rewarding if I could learn
to increase my sensitivity to natural attraction energies in
people and places around me?
***
People and things think and
love through at least 53 different sensory attraction strings,
not just five as we are usually taught. Each string is an intelligent
way of knowing that inherently attracts to and blends with other
strings to build and be guided by the common good.
"The senses, being the
s of the world, open the way to knowledge."
.....- Maria Montessori
Nature helps create, sustain
and balance life through these powerful 53 sensitivities in concert.
To our loss, our excessive separation from nature addicts us
to think and relate with less than six of them. The loss of this
sensory wisdom unbalances our thinking.
"The moment my inner attraction
string for color touched the color string of this woodland, I
experienced a special joy."
.....- Raymond Sierra
A metaphor concerning seven
blind wise men touching and 5-leg arguing about an elephant conveys
the dilemmas of our blindness to nature and our natural senses.
In the story, each blind man argues his case based upon what
part of the elephant he is touching. While one calls the elephant
a pipe (the tusk), another says the elephant is a snake (trunk)
or like a rope (tail).
Such differences often lead
to demoralization hate and war because we psychologically bond
to, and fight for, stories we know to be "the truth."
We seldom reconcile our 5-leg differences by making further common
contact with the 9-leg integrity of the whole elephant or whole
of the web of life. Satisfying many of their additional natural
attraction senses would have led each wise man to further explore
the elephant and further discover the diverse integrity of the
animal, each other and themselves.
"It is difficult to get
people to understand something when their salary (or other reward)
depends upon them not understanding it."
.....- Upton Sinclair
Something
to think about:
Has my extensive disconnection from nature unknowingly blinded
me to the existence and value of my sensory attraction strings?
***
Our thinking blindly loses
contact with the truths that it needs to recover from the absence
of these truths. That is why, in our nature-estranged society,
it is best to learn NSTP by doing it. The Process helps you let
your 53 natural webstring senses plug directly into their attraction
origins in nature and energize. This 4-leg recharge brings the
web's supportive string signals further into your consciousness,
thinking and being. This helps you let contact with nature increase
your 9-leg sensibility, balance and wellness. In addition, you
give natural attraction energies a chance to recycle and purify
on their own as only they can do. This restorative power in nature
helps you feel better and your outlooks and relationships improve.
Anybody who has had a good experience in nature has enjoyed
this phenomenon, yet they are unaware of its significance. Through
NSTP, these moments and their benefits become available at will.
Too often we forget that we
are addicted to being conscious of the movies that run in our
mind, not the real world around and within us. Even when immersed
in the wild beauty of a natural area, our mind most often is
thinking about our problems, relationships and rewards elsewhere.
As you learn it NSTP enables us to break this 5-leg addiction
and choose to bring webstrings to our thinking no matter where
we are.
Something
to think about:
Have I taken for granted that it is normal for my awareness to
be out of contact with the immediate moments of my life rather
than recognize that this phenomenon is a rewarded addiction to
5-leg stories of past or future?
***
Verbal reconnection
"The beginning of wisdom
is to call things by their right name."
.....- Confucius
Through NSTP, each of our natural
senses is identified by their 9-leg right name, "Webstring:
A seamless sensory attraction energy string of the global web
of life community within and around us." Webstrings feelingly
help us bring nature into our awareness and thinking at will.
No offense intended, but to call the webstrings anything else,
as we are often 5-leg trained to do, (senses, feelings, God,
instincts, needs, drives, spirit, desires, blessings, beliefs,
subjective, bias, angels, attractions, energies) tends to keep
our thinking disconnected from the wholeness of the web of life
and its ability to establish and restore balance.
In our nature-separated society,
we are bonded to think and know through 5-leg words that produce
separation. That disconnection is the psychological heart of
many insurmountable personal and global problems.
"There's nothing either
good or bad...but thinking makes it so!"
.....- William Shakespeare
Something
to think about:
Am I missing contributions that my natural self can make to my
relationships? Was I trained to 5-leg deny my natural self?
***
Guidance from Attractions
The success of NSTP and the
webstring model is its accuracy. It helps us recognize a secret
aspect of how nature works, a secret we too often learn to ignore
or conquer. The secret is that webstrings are attractions; nature
primarily works by attractions. This means that each webstring
we experience as a non-attraction (for example, fear, pain, spiritual
distress, or excessive thirst, hunger, temperature, motion etc)
is actually also an attraction, a natural love for the survival
of our life. It attracts us to find more rewarding natural attractions
when danger lurks, to seek safety. For example: we become
aware of attractions to coolness when a fire becomes too hot,
or to less painful areas when thorns are sharp. These 4-leg warning
messages are attractive. We would not survive without them. It
is when we don't, or can't 9-leg heed them that trouble arises.
"The laws of the universe
are not indifferent, but are forever on the side of the most
sensitive."
.....- Henry David Thoreau
Something
to think about:
Do I negate or demean the contributions that some webstrings
make because they interfere with my immediate plans, wishes or
enjoyment? Have I been trained to see them as negative, or overcome
them and thereby upset a natural balance?
***
Sensible education
Making space in our lives to
do activities that genuinely reconnect us with nature has proven
to produce responsible relationships. Once you learn how to do
a reconnecting activity, you we own it and can teach it to others.
The web of life only exists
today because yesterday, through attraction contacts, every component
of the web consensually "educated" its neighbors about
how its attractions to them supports them and vice versa. This
basic consciousness process occurs moment by moment in nature;
it is an essence of all life relationships and survival. People
are part of nature, it is true in humans, too. To our loss, our
nature-separated lives remove this knowledge from our thinking.
Cultures that exist today only exist because they are successful
in educating their members about how the culture works and its
value; the members, in turn, carry on the culture. Today, globally,
the Internet empowers people to engage in the webstring education
process by enjoying and teaching webstring connected consciousness
through distance learning activities, courses and communication.
In local communities, person-to-person webstring activity education
occurs as well.
"One touch of Nature makes
the whole world kin."
.....- William Shakespeare
Considering the vital natural
and cultural survival value of webstring education, it is no
surprise that, genetically, our mind and bodies, our inner nature,
learns only 15% of what we read but 90% of what we teach. If
you want to personally and globally come into balance, teach
what you have read here: thoughtful, continuing, consensually
shared, sensory reconnecting activity attractions in natural
areas bring into our consciousness the webstring connections
with Earth that help us build balanced relationships within and
around us.
Our sensory webstring of reason
demands that we engage in the webstring activities. We shape
our destiny by choosing, or not choosing, to do what our sense
of reason demands.
Earth and its people are at risk. Isn't it time that we come
to our senses by letting the 4-leg attraction strings bring us
to them through enjoyable nature reconnecting activities? The
strings can do this because they are natural sensory loves, an
essence of life itself. D. H. Lawrence validated this when he
said:
"Oh, what a catastrophe,
what a maiming of love when it was made personal, merely personal
feeling. This is what is the matter with us: we are bleeding
at the roots because we are cut off from the Earth and sun and
stars. Love has become a grinning mockery because, poor blossom,
we plucked it from its stem on the Tree of Life and expected
it to keep on blooming in our civilized vase on the table."
- D. H. Lawrence
By thoughtfully learning how
to become conscious of webstrings and teach this awareness, we
reattach our ability to love to its roots in nature. This restores
love to its fullness and heals our bleeding.
Something
to think about:
Do I want to professionally and personally further my life and
all of life by learning to let contact with Earth itself nurture
my inner nature's isolation, hurt and fear of additional rejection?
Can I really get to know who I am and help people and Mother
Earth if the thinking part of me seldom conscisously registers,
validates or reconnects my inner nature and the web of life?
***
Confucius say: In the web of
life model, if you 9-leg call each of your senses and feelings
a "webstring attraction" you will help your life and
all of life improve because the word webstring signals "a
guiding web of life attraction" rather than "an isolated
sensation." In the web of life model, webstrings are as
real and true as 2 + 2 =4.
The Web
of Life Imperative book identifies natural attractions
or webstrings or webloves as NIAL strings meaning Nameless, Intelligent,
Attraction, Loves. People who can't make sense of some situations
are often found to be in DeNIAL (of their addictions to destructive
substitutes for webstrings).
Something
to think about:
Does my 5-leg tendency to call my sensuous experiences "senses'
and "feelings" deprive me from consciously knowing
and enjoying the 9-leg wisdom of respecting them as attraction
energy strands of the web of life and thereby rewardingly connecting
my thinking with the Web?
***
As the examples below demonstrate,
readably available sensory activities that produce conscious
connections with Earth make a difference. The sense (webstring)
of reason signals that it is rational for us to engage in these
activities. They help us enjoy and promote nineleg
thinking.
Something
to think about:
Nine-leg thinking has demonstrably helped people strengthen economically
and environmentally sound personal growth and social justice.
Why am I not tapping into the the benefits and powers of webstrings
to help me bring them into my community and nation? How can I
help our leaders use and promote nine-leg thinking?
Connecting
with nature, 9-leg webstring examples:
(1) RE: Stress:
"This
morning I was battling the remnants of some depression I had
been feeling about my family and life "stuff". I was
doing the sensory attraction activity, looking around enjoying
the day, the breeze, the sun, the beautiful trees and the sounds
of singing birds. In a flash of good feeling, I realized that
these feelings are what is so good about living on earth at this
time. It was enough, if for no other reason, to be here, to experience
the beauty of this planet. This was a major breakthrough for
me, because I battle the reason for being here quite a bit in
my recovery work. This happened before noon, and it is now 6
pm, and I still feel great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to share
this because I am so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
RE: Materialism
and environmental deterioration:
Participant
A: "As
I continued this special forest activity, I found myself attracted
to the various songs of the birds and then gradually to the various
stones and nuts and shells in the path. I would stop in the path,
pick up the stone, admire its beauty and then feel clearly called
to return it to its appropriate place. So often other times I
have felt I needed to put it in my pocket and carry it home.
Now, through the activity, I had a real sense of appreciating
each rock, each shell, each leaf in its place for the time I
was there. I felt suddenly freed from the need to possess something.
I had a growing sense of letting things be and to just be still
and glory in the fullness of the moment. As I allowed myself
to connect, appreciate, thank and move on with so much of what
surrounded me, I felt a letting go into being present. In this
transformation, I began to feel I was part of the scene more,
not my other self that needed to possess. I learned that I do
not need to possess something to have the joy of it."
Participant
B: Your
earlier questioning of the work place sounds so familiar but
we have our cultural story that it needs to maintain in our society.
I find daily that I am changing things and getting back to more
basic life choices. I think each little one counts. These changes
feel so good. I find that I want less material things these days.
RE: Peace
and Support
"I was
never taught to ask permission to relate to people or the environment.
I just take that for granted, as we all do. However, this activity
required my senses to learn how to ask an attractive tree covered
area for its consent for me to walk through it. The area continued
to feel attractive, but something changed. It was the first time
in my life that I totally felt safe. It felt like Earth's energies
were in charge of my life, not me. It gave me a wonderful feeling
of having more power to be myself. I felt in balance with nature
and the people here because I could distinctly feel their energies
consenting to support me. I never experienced nature and people
that way before. It was like a powerful law protected not only
my life, but all of life. I felt very secure and nurtured as
I walked under those trees. I learned that when I seek permission
from the environment and people I gain energy and unity, I belong."
RE: Chemical
Dependencies
"I want
to share with the group that I feel different from when I started
this course. I have always struggled with chemical addictions,
and these last few weeks, I find I hardly have cravings at all
anymore. At times I do, but then I can go into nature, right
outside my backdoor, and feel a connection that is real. I have
been through therapy as well as currently working a twelve step
program, and I feel these nature activities have really helped
me, more than I have words for. This is definitely an attraction,
I cannot label it, I do not have words for it, yet I know in
my heart something has changed."
RE: Global
intelligence
"My how
my mind does chatter with words that can mislead me. When I make
contact with nature and think with nature's intelligence, it
guides me with a wisdom that helps me keep in balance. The contact
is non-verbal because nature does not communicate with words.
As I worked through the Introductory Course, I began to use the
RWN book's methodology to quiet my mind. As I went through the
activities I began to sense a subtle, but perceptible, shift
in my ability to attain a non-verbal awareness. Then one day,
as I was doing one of the activities that asks us to "jam"
the verbal mind with a word ("unity" in my case) I
suddenly connected, WHAM, there it was - non-verbal awareness.
No naming, no concepts, just being. What a relief! It didn't
