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Journal Entries
Webstrings and The Natural Systems Thinking Process
Do you, like many other people, think paragraphs 1-8 below are the most important news you have read since Earth Day 1970?
Recently, some people did Natural Systems Thinking Process webstring activities on our courses. The following repeatable, teachable, discoveries resulted with respect to living in balance and peace with people and the environment. If you use and teach the readily available Process, you can enjoy similar results.
Think about what Earth and our personal relationships would be if many people learned to do these short nature reconnecting activities:
1. Materialism/consumerism:
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 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.
2. Peace:
"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."
A reaction:
"The experiences expressed in the above paragraphs may even be some of the most important since Earth Day 4 1/2 billion years ago. They are at least important for anyone in our possession-addicted, often destructive culture to contemplate. It is significant that the nature-connect activities help us make such breakthroughs."
........Dr. Mark Brody, Psychologist
3. 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 last long but it did change my life. Since then I have extended my abilities to just be. Now my "mind chatter" is only a murmur when I ask it to be. This has opened up experiences so far beyond anything I even dreamed of a few years ago."
4. Healing and Wellness
The activity helped me become aware of my attraction to the crescent moon as it hung over two hills near my home. Soon, its mellow glow, framed by peaks and trees, embraced me in a wordless, ancient primordial scene. Timeless power, peace and unity swept me up. I just wanted to stay in that state of awe, I felt in balance with all of reality. I was simply "BEING." No tension, no pressing goal, just truly belonging to the global community. This natural energy captured my stress laden pulse and seduced it to the rhythms of Earth. The sleeping disorder I have battled all my adult life dissolved in this power. For the first time in decades, I gently fell asleep after dark and arose shortly after dawn. I celebrated the breakthrough and I thanked nature. I thanked the activity, too, for it lets me reconnect whenever I choose."
5. Destructive 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 attraction activity, looking around enjoying the day, the breeze, the sun, the beautiful trees and the sounds of birds chirping. 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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6. Chemical Dependency
"I trust that when I go out into nature, gain permission, and experience positive attractions to certain aspects of nature, I can consciously connect those positive attractions as a mirror of myself. This is a challenge! Shifting realities as well as a way of thinking is an interesting feeling. This activity re-educates that part of me that tells me to be afraid of new ways of thinking or doing, all those wranglers and labels that itch to control me. 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."
7. Webstrings
"Through the study I found myself feeling profoundly grateful when I identified my strong attraction to my wife as part of the web of life. It broadened that feeling. I experienced the sun more warmly, the grass under my feet more gently. My respect for nature in general was enhanced. It made my heart open to my surroundings and to care for them. To survive, our environment, and people, too, need and deserve this kind of recognition".
8. Fear
"RWN has certainly helped me overcome my anxiety about being in the ocean. It's easy to sit on the shore and enjoy it's sound and beauty, however being in the waves and being knocked over by them feels stressful. After being submerged a few times and running back to the safety of the sand, it occured to me to ask for consent before entering. I tried, gave thanks, and had a delightful time playing with the waves instead of fearing them. I learned from my husband and stepdaughter how to bounce with them, and to risk going out farther where they formed but didn't break against me. It feels good to be in the water and feel part of something so immense."
9. Relationships
My wife and I were engaged on a mountain in the Sierra Nevada. We spent our honeymoon canoeing the lakes of the Quetico north of Minnesota. We spend a lot of time on vacation sea kayaking some of the beautiful parts of the northwest together. These are the events that bring us together. A mutual love and attraction for nature. We spend most of our time apart from this-and as a result we find fault in each other because we remain disconnected from the unity that brings us together. It is difficult to find community without unity-all that's left is comm. What is comm without unity?
10. Growth
"I think I am learning to trust more without knowing it. Actually, today I woke up and did not want to go sit in the office at the Alzheimer's Association where I am doing my practicum. It seems silly to me to have to remain inside all day, cut off from nature. It occurred to me to bring nature inside to me, and try to feel webstring attractions with other people in the office. The result was one of the best days I have had there! Of course, I would rather be outside or out and about...but if I have to stay in somewhere, at least I can work with my situation to recognize webstring attractions between all of my co-workers and me as well as the world! Thank God this will save my sanity!!!!! :-)"
11. Trust
"I entered the activity after receiving permission trying not to have any preconceived notion about holding my breath again. I inhaled, and was amazed at how long I comfortably held my breath, trusting nature to cue me on when to release it. I did release it, and felt very trusting and whole within nature. It was eerie how long I could hold my breath, because I have never been one to do that for any length of time."
12. Practical
"I would also like to share an encoraging experience. I was meeting with a corporate planning team to set up programs for high level corporate execs. I took a chance and asked each member to find a natural place, gain consent, listen without words and thank the natural object. The activity was a great success. The ones who were most skeptical had some great experiences, even though they joked about things. Just to put this in perspective, I later tried to explain holistic management and got beaned (BIG TIME) by this same group."
13. Self-Organizing
"When genetically altered crops such as BT corn were shown to kill Monarch butterfly caterpillars, it created a world-wide uproar that stopped the exportation of these transgenic seeds to the European Union and other countries. It was an deep rooted archetypical love of butterflies that raised the consciousness of the world to realize the dangers that these multinationals corporations were threatening us with. Even though bioengineered tinkering with the world's food supply had been debated for years as a threat to human health, it was not untill this technology threatened butterflies that the world took action. I have long said we, as human beings, are in denial of threats to our own well being, but will respond with more passion when things such as butterflies, dolphins, whales, and ancient forests are threatened. There is a whole new nature oriented psychology that is at work here. "
Select here to read Page 2 additional journal entries that convey how the Natural Systems Thinking Process helps people achieve balance.
After you obtain information about the Project NatureConnect program from this web site by using the Navigation guide (left column), a free, helpful 15 minute discussion by phone with a faculty member is the most efficient way to customize the program to your goals.
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INSTITUTE OF GLOBAL EDUCATION Special NGO consultant United Nations Economic and Social Council
PROJECT NATURECONNECT
Readily available, online, natural science tools
for the health of person, planet and spiritP.O. Box 1605, Friday Harbor, WA 98250
360-378-6313 <email> www.ecopsych.com
ORGANIC ADVANCED ECOPSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION
The Natural Systems Thinking Process
Dr. Michael J. Cohen, Director
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All programs start with the Orientation Course contained in the book
The Web of Life Imperative.
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