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Project NatureConnect |
AN EDUCATIONAL WAY TO HONOR PLANET EARTH;
A WAY THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCEEarth Day Learning for the Therapy, Healing, and Education Community.
Useful all year long as a profound gift for Earth Day, Mothers Day, Valentines Day, Christmas and most other occasions.
Introduction:
It is now 34 years after the first Earth Day, 42 years after "Silent Spring," 55 years after Fairfield Osborne's classic "Our Plundered Planet."
April, 2004: Studies by UN scientiists show levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have jumped abruptly, raising fears that global warming may be accelerating out of control. Global warming may be the biggest long-term threat to life on Earth. Rising temperatures can drive thousands of species to extinction, trigger more frequent floods or droughts, and sink low-lying islands by raising sea levels.A point source that causes global warming is the nature-desensitization of contempory thinking. Global warming is not normal to the natural systems that flow through people and Earth.
April, 2004: Marine "dead zones" are on the increase posing as sinister a development as any in the list of things going wrong with the planet. These oxygen-starved areas of the oceans are devoid of fish and are one of the greatest environmental problems facing the world, warn UN scientists.
A point source that causes marine dead zones is the nature-desensitization of contempory thinking. Marine dead zones are not normal to the natural systems that flow through people and Earth.
U. S. Surgeon General Mental Health Report, 2000: Data developed by the massive Global Burden of Disease study conducted by the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and Harvard University, reveals that mental illness* ranks second in the burden of disease in established market economies such as the United States.
A point source that causes mental illness and emotional disorders is the nature-desensitization of contempory thinking. Mental/emotional dysfunctions are not normal to the natural systems that flow through people and Earth.
The mutually supportive regenerative relationship between nature and our psyche is well known:
"The human need for nature is linked not just to the material exploitation of the environment but also to the influence of the natural world on our emotional, cognitive, aesthetic, and even spiritual development."
- Edward O. Wilson
Harvard University Pulitzer Prize Recipient (To the American Psychological Association National Convention)
"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: the United Nations Environment Program
Co-Chair: U.N. Commission on Global Governance
"Our task must be to free ourselves from (our) prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
...- Albert Einstein
"In order to achieve more effective environmental protection and conservation, internal balance within the human being himself or herself is essential."
...- Dalai Lama
...Nobel Prize recipient
"Until mankind can extend the circle of his compassion to include all living things, he will never, himself, know peace."
...-Albert Schweitzer
...Nobel Prize recipient
"Wilderness is the ultimate encyclopedia, holding answers to more questions than we have yet learned how to ask. That's the magic in you. You've got it; let it out."
...- David Brower"We have repressed far more than our sexuality: our very organic nature is now unconscious to most of us, most of the time, and we have become shrunken into two dimensional social or cultural beings, aware of only five of the hundreds of senses that link us to the rich biological nature that underlies and nourishes these more symbolic and recent aspects of ourselves.".
...- Norman 0. Brown
...Author of Love's Body
"We are dysfunctional socially and environmentally because we are cut off and isolated from the world of nature and the natural."
...-Albert Gore,
...Vice-President, United States
"The "Great Nest of Spirit" includes matter, nature, body, mind, soul, and spirit, yet they're always situated in the context of the four quadrants (or nature, systems, self and culture) and they are all correlated with one another."
...Brad Reynolds explaining the work of Ken Wilbur, the "Einstein of Consciousness"
"Nurture your felt love for nature. Never deny it. That love is nature's voice, our origins in nature, the eons, the purifying intelligence, beauty and diversity of natural systems sustaining us in their perfection and wellness."
...-from The Web of Life Imperative
"He looked upon us as sophisticated children -- smart but not wise. We knew many things, and much that is false. He knew nature, which is always true."
...-Saxton T. Pope (said of Ishi, America's ...last hunter-gather Native American)
"Over the years, I've spent a lot of time fighting. Fighting against logging, pollution, nuclear power...as long as we fight all the time there's going to be a winner and a loser...(we must) build bridges across to the people who are fighting."
...- David Suzuki
"Our religion keeps reminding us that we aren't just will and thoughts. We're also sand and wind and thunder and rain and the seasons. All those things. You learn to respect everything because you are everything. If you respect yourself, you respect all things."
...- Least Heat Moon
Environmentally sound therapeutic methods and materials you may use to apppropriately honor Earth on Earth Day 2004 and the year that follows:
.Project NatureConnect invites counselors, therapists, healers, educators, their clients and the public to use environmentally sound, nature-connected psychology and learning tools. The tools help people enjoy the profound benefits of nature-connected thinking; they help us enhance life on Earth and the life of Earth.
I. OVERVIEW: a complete Press Release reports the contributions to environmental and personal health made by Project NatureConnect's Earth Day activities.
II. An Earth Day Proclamation to the American Psychological Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, The National Education Association and similar organizations. You can send it anywhere.
III. Links to free, sensitizing personal and environmental natural system wellness methods and materials online.
A. Read an important Earth Day article and other special scientific reports. They show how the nature-detached thinking we have used for the past century is not able to do the job we need to do now.
B. Introduction and sample chapters of The Web of Life Imperative a self-guiding organic psychology book containing organic psychology methods, materials and activities.
C. Earth Day Activity a Valentine to Mother Earth. Use it on Mother's Day and Valentine's day, too.
D. Receive and give inspirational nature-connecting quotes by email
E. Enjoy the Secrets of Nature Trail online
F. Learn about or contact a Maverick Genius who helps people make genuine contact with authentic nature and its restorative powers.
IV. Send us your therapeutic nature experiences for publication and to increase your visibility.
V. Sign our Earth Day Petition to urge leaders to incorporate nature-connected learning in their lives and organizations.
VI. Scholarship and Grant opportunities for people who care about our relationship with Earth.
VII. Learn how to connect with Earth from an online introduction to the workings and benefits of Organic Psychology.
VIII. Send a written or online message to a friend inviting them to get involved.
IX. Invitation letters sent to world leaders and their responses.
* Mental Illness: It is important to appreciate that mental disorders leave no aspect of human experience untouched. They include dysfunction and disorders in: Substance relationships, Moods, Anxiety, Sexual and gender identity, Eating, Sleep, Impulse-control, Adjustment, Personality, Alzheimer's, Depression, Anger, Dependency, Attention-deficit and hyperactivity, Bipolar, Cognitive dysfunction and include Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, Somatoforms disorders, Factitious disorders and Dissociative disorders.
Project NatureConnect: online books, training and degree programs
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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
send email
All programs start with the Orientation Course contained in the book
The Web of Life Imperative.
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