Continued from Grant
Release: New Nature-Connected Grants and Scholarships
are Offered to Strengthen Self-Help, Counseling, and Education
that Improves Personal and Environmental Sanity.
GRANT
APPLICATION INFORMATION:
If you
are interested in a grant or scholarship, you may first want
to review the grant
application
What they don't teach at
Harvard or Yale:
THE ORGANICS
OF PSYCHOLOGY
How to trust our experiences
with natural systems within and around us and come to our senses.
Practical information for personal,
environmental and global well being; we learn to ignore it because
our society denies that it is addicted to its artifical ways
and conquest of nature.
Michael
J. Cohen, et al
Excerpts from the book The
Web of Life Imperative,
Chapter One, used with permission in support of a Project NatureConnect
grant application
Source: Material that appears on this web page
and its links is drawn from articles that have been professionally
reviewed and published in The Journal of Humanistic Psychology,
Journal of Environmental Education, Interpsych Journal of Mental
Health, Greenwich University Journal of Science and Technology,
Councelling Psychology Quarterly, Proceedings of the North American
Association for Environmental Education, Journal of the Oregon
Counseling Association, The Trumpeter, U.S. Department of Education
Educational Resources Information Center, Outdoor Communicator,
Clearing Magazine, Nature Study, Between the Species, Cooperative
Learning, International Journal of Humanities and Peace and
others. (see MJCohen
personal page)
|
Abstract:
We are born as part of nature,
its grace, well being and perfection. We have been educated,
socialized and adulterated to become and suffer our troubles
and discontents.
This article helps us strengthen and additionally benefit from
good experiences we have had or will have in nature, backyard
or backcountry, or with our pet, or with the wind, sea or stars.
Using numerous quotations it demonstrates that great thinkers
throughout history have long recognized the value and restorative
powers of good experiences in nature.
Although we are each part of
nature and its perfection, authentic nature is non-literate.
Our great troubles arise because our society's cultural rewards
addict us to register our personal life, and all of life, through
abstract language-reason ways of knowing and being that are foreign
to non-literate nature. This addiction disconnects our consciousness
from the beneficial, non-verbal callings and balancing ways of
natural systems around and within us. It disconnects our consciousness
from being sensitive to our 53-sense inner nature (our natural
born "inner child").
Because the rest of nature
does not use our vital survival ability to think in abstractions,
our literate intelligence prejudicially demeans and conquers
nature, thinking it to be "dirty, illiterate, non-intelligent,
bloody tooth and claw savagery." This fear prevents our
thinking from consciously connecting with natural systems within
and around us. Our mind, heart and spirit don't benefit from
nature's peaceful eons of sensitivity, wisdom and regnerative
relationships.
We feel stressed and lackluster.
We are unfulfilled and deficient due to our estrangement from
nature's vitality. It produces depression and low self-worth;
it causes us to excessively crave rewarding sensations and goads
us to use artificial substitutes for nature, be they responsible
or not. With nature's wisdom, beauty and renewing powers missing
from our lives, we want, and when we want there is never enough;
greed, vulnerability, frustrations and discontents result.
A sensory nature-connecting
tool helps us reverse the destructive disconnection of our thinking
from nature and adverse personal and environmental effects that
result. The tool's process genuinely reconnects our senses and
thinking to their balancing and nurturing origins in natural
systems. This lastingly provides our consciousness with the wisdom
of nature's safe and responsible fulfillments. When we add nature's
restorative powers to counseling education and healing techniques,
we reconnect our mind to nature's perfection. This helps us thoughtfully
overcome our nature-disconnection problems and reduce our personal
and environmental dysfunctions.
|
SUGGESTION: read this article
once through for content and then return to explore the links
that attract you.
|
Test yourself:
If your scientific or thinking
ability can select the most accurate multiple choice answer
to this question you will benefit from the article and grant
program that appear on this page:
A CENTRAL QUESTION:
From sub-atomic particles to
weather systems and seasons, what holds our attractive living
planet and its plants animals and minerals together in balance?
1. velcro, 2. Elmer's glue,
3. zippers,
4. buttons, 5. natural attractions
If you selected number five
(5), please continue.
|
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,
"If you slice off part
of a ball, you make both the ball and the slice dysfunctional;
neither will roll with the same perfection as when the ball was
whole. The same holds true for our extremely indoor lives. They
separate our heart and mind from the attractive, life-supportive
Nature of our globe, our living 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
to produce and enjoy the perfection of its organic balance and
beauty.
However, our society is extremely
separated from nature. As our socialization
disconnects our thinking from nature and re-attaches it to our
artificial ways, we produce many troubles that neither nature
nor nature-centered people display or create. Globally this has
placed people and ecosystems at risk.
"You didn't come into
this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean."
.....- Alan Watts
To our loss, by rewarding us
with its money, power and support, our society's prejudice against
nature conditions or addicts us to disconnect our thinking from
nature's balancing and restorative ways. And if you don't believe
the thinking that produces our troubles is a prejudicial addiction,
just try to change it.
To more fully understand how
and why we remain disconnected, consider the following intelligence
test question, a type of question that ordinarily helps society
determine our 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 if you want to pass and get ahead. 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 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.
Does the fact that we have
53 natural senses, instead of just five, surprise you? Aristotle
reasoned in 340 B.C. that we have five senses and we are today
born into 5-leg knowing that story today. But consider this:
"Aristotle thought there
were eight legs on a fly and wrote it down. For centuries scholars
were content to quote his authority. Apparently, not one of them
was curious enough to impale a fly and count its six legs."
.....- Stuart Chase
It is a grave mistake for us
not to take seriously the nature vs. nurture difference between
natural sensory (4-leg) and disconnected
abstract story (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.
Human nature and mentality
consists of:
Natural sensory (Four-leg ) knowing is a magnificent psychological and
physiological phenomenon with deep natural system sensitivity
roots into the eons, the heart of Earth. It registers in the
older lymbic brain that makes up 90 percent of our psyche.
It brings our widely diverse multiplicity
of natural senses and sensory ways of registering the world
into our immediate awareness so that we can think with them.
We are biologically, psychologically and spiritually built to
know and relate to the world through them, as does the rest of
nature's sensitivities.
The Old Brain and the whole
of nature work through natural attractions
Abstract story thinking
(Five-leg) knowing produces important awareness
through theories, imagination, labels and stories. However, like
a movie playing in our mind, it is a shortcut to reality. It,
like a movie, is not real, rather it abstracts reality through
three of our 53 natural senses: language, reason and consciousness.
They connect with each other in the newer frontal neocortex brain
that makes up 10 percent of our psyche.
A sentence that makes us conscious
of something that is reasonable is considered a story that is
"true" or "a fact." However, when we do not
also seek and think with 4-leg natural sensory ability, our abstract
"truth" is disconnected from the whole of nature. This
results not only in personal desensitization but in the separation
of our thinking from the balanced grace and restorative powers
of Earth's natural systems within and around us. This profound
loss produces the many destructive side effects of our artificial
world, dysfunctions that we can not readily solve with nature-disconnected
abstract thinking alone.
The New Brain consists of stories
that are isolated abstractions.
"An actually existing
fly is more important than a possibly existing angel."
.....- Ralph Waldo Emerson
.
"We can't solve problems
by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
.....- Albert Einstein
Whole thinking (Nine-leg) knowing produces a whole-life, integrated,
globally intelligent and balanced re-connection between our connected
natural senses and our abstract thinking abilities. It also brings
to our consciousness our inherent connections with and our inherent
attraction love of our Mother Nature and Mother Earth, the
beauty grace and restorative ways of natural systems. This, to
our benefit, helps us relate and co-create more harmoniously
and sustainably with natural systems in ourselves, each other
and the environment.
The Whole Brain consists of
natural attractions socialized by abstract stories (socialized
attractions) that can be measured as intelligently reasonable
or unreasonable by determining their long term effects in support
of the global life community (personal and global quality
of life).
Our most challenging personal,
social and environmental problems result from us being paid,
or otherwise rewarded, to embrace 5-leg thinking and suffer its
destructive disconnection from the truths and ways of 4-leg knowledge.
Personally and globally, this habitual disconnection underlies
our troubles and discontents. It limits our ability to more fully
enjoy, respect and make sense of our lives and creation.
Our 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 our socialization
is doing to us and the environment. The
destructive results speak for themselves in the deterioration
of emotional, psychological and biological systems within and
around us.
Nine-leg thinking enables us
to bring nature's balancing and restorative powers to our mind
and heart. Therein lies our salvation.
"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 at every level and it did not display or produce
the 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 natural area ecosystems. These sensations acted as nature's
guiding voice. They replaced the voice of our "normal,"
often destructive ways that ordinarily played in their mind even
when they visited natural areas.
The value and rewards of 4-leg
connections freed the participants' senses from their bonds to
questionable 5-leg stories. It helped them re-bond their senses
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 learned to thoughtfully hold nature in awe and
reverence.
.
The path to full sanity
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.
CHALLENGE YOUR MIND
GRANT
INSTRUCTIONS:
In the remainder of this
grant
application article,
carefully consider each question
in the article and respond to it with a number from the
scale that honestly represents your thoughts and feelings. Write
down, numbers from 1-36 and for each blue question, below, save the number of your response as in
this sample:
1. To my loss, do I unknowingly deterioriate
life within or around me?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
Note that
high numbered responses in some questions may indicate you do
not need nine-leg education or financial support for it so be
as accurate in your responses as is possible.
Can we help our thinking
reasonably enable us to
come to our senses?
"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
health of the web of life and natural systems in people.
The web is nature itself, a
biological, connective, balancing, natural system process that
the natural world and people's sensory 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 we have
obtained 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. Addicted,
we no longer know how to stop assaulting nature around and within
us although we know we should and we desperately want to. Again,
if you don't believe this is addictive thinking and behavior,
just try and change it.
With respect to our relationship
with the web of life, we must go back to basics. We must dissolve
our addictions to nature-substitutes and learn how to be part
of the web in a more constructive way. For too long, in spite
of great ancient and modern wisdom to the contrary, our prejudice
against nature has lead us down our detrimental path.
Knowingly destroying our own
life support system is a form of insanity.
.
"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
of life 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:
1. To my loss, do I unknowingly
cut or injure strands of the web of life within or around me?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
2. Do I know how to stop myself
from doing this?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
Every part
of the global life community, from sub-atomic particles to weather
systems, to sensitivities, thoughts and feelings 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 our 5-leg thinking doesn't
recognize or use it, denies its existence or hurts it. It usually
remains
alive in us
but it becomes subconscious to protect us from constantly feeling
its frustration or hurt.
"There is a constant and
intimate contact among the things that coexist and co-evolve
in the universe - a sharing of bonds and messages that makes
reality into a stupendous network of interaction and communication.
It is this 'sharing of messages' in Nature that keeps it in balance."
.....- Ervin Laslo
Something
to think about:
3. Am I aware of the strands
of the web of life that I was born with and still contain?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
4. Do I enjoyably use them
and their ways to build responsible relationships with people
and places?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
5. Have I been taught or forced
to make them subconscious?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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. Dr. Cohen and others have identified
53 webstring natural senses
that people share with nature. For example, a sense of hunger
connects the bird to the insect, a sense of place connects
the insect to live in the flower.
The web's sensitivity
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, sensory
facts as genuine as us. As part of nature, we are born with the
natural ability to register and know them (through 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.
We omit how we experience them so knowing the web of life becomes
complex
and mechanical.
The disappearance of the strings 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 lose inherent feelings of natural wholeness,
of self-worth and self esteem. We become greedy, stressed and
reckless as we try to gain webstring fulfillment and self-value.
This places the Earth, others, and ourselves at risk.
"We have these prejudices
and as long as we think that these prejudices are valid we exclude
huge subjects of thinking. And that exclusion is what is really
blinding."
...........- Dr. Amit Goswami
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. They help us
register that our planet is a living organism, Mother Earth,
as Dr. Cohen noted in 1965 and describes in How Nature Works.
"The Earth
is a functionally integrated system -as much an organic being
as you and I- that exists not for man's benefit but for it's
own.
...........- David Laing, The Earth System
"We do
indeed belong here. The earth is more
than just a home, it's a living system and we are part of it."
...........-James Lovelock
"Speak to the Earth
and it will teach thee."
...........- The Bible, Job: 12, 7
Something
to think about:
6. Am I aware of the strands
of the web that lie within and around me?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
7. Is it important to me to
stop thinking in nature-disconnected ways that place Earth and
its people at risk?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
Source Of
The Strings
The strings
are biologically of, by and from nature and at some level of
sensitivity register as attractions in plants, animals and minerals.
Since you
are part of nature, the strings are in you. You can learn to
nurture them back into your awareness and 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, inner 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. This removal of our natural power
leads to apathy.
Something
to think about:
8. Is my 5-leg thinking prejudiced
against the strings and nature's ways to the point that it influences
my relationships?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
9. Am I apathetic when I'd
benefit by being active?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
To connect with nature our
thinking must include a sensory 4-leg way of knowing. Our natural
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 webstring
senses from their source. We have dismissed them as irrelevant.
We have forgotten their significance. Yet, throughout history,
many people have cherished their webstrings 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
.
"All things are connected
like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web
of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the
web, he does to himself."
.....-Chief Seattle/Ted Perry
.....
.
"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:
10. Can I allow myself to believe
that natural relationships contain, or are, a form of unconditional
love?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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 relationships and thereby eradicate contamination
and pollution. This helps Nature sustain its wellness, balance
and beauty. For example, nature purifies the contamination of
air and people 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.
This same restoration process is also true in nature's other
cycles such as water, carbon and life. It is a source of nature's
perfection.
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, a form of love that some might consider highly
intelligent or spiritual.
Something
to think about:
11. 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?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
Whenever we safely make contact
with attractions in nature, they trigger our brain to release
Dopamine, a neurotransmitter that produces good feelings that
we constantly seek. These good feelings
are a vital natural 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, circa 1860
Something
to think about:
12. Do I believe that nature's
Dopamine encouragement of my natural attractions in natural areas
is an origin of my ability to feel good?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
Properly designed nature-connecting
activities help us create moments that let genuine contact with
4-leg natural attraction webstring 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
Our need
for connection
If we slice
off part of a ball, we make the ball and the slice dysfunctional.
Neither one will roll with the same perfection as when the ball
was whole. Similarly, we are born as part of nature and its globe,
Planet Earth, but, on average, 95 percent of our time and 99
percent of our thinking is 5-leg separated/sliced from genuine
sensory contact with the balanced, life-enhancing ways of Nature
and Earth. We exclude something very valuable from our being.
Slicing our
mentality from nature distorts our thinking. For example, we
learn to think that we "tame" the pets we love to fit
into our way of life. But, in actuality, what we really do is
restructure our pets so they become trusting enough for them
to invite us into their lives. When we become part of our pet's
attraction-based, nature-connected way of knowing and being we
enjoy a glimpse of nature's ways that we have lost.
The 5-leg slicing
away of our psyche from the 4-leg rewards and beauty of Mother
Nature's grace, perfection and renewing powers leaves us feeling
empty. Our self-worth declines while our needs for fulfillment
entice or bully us into entering relationships that are unreasonable
and result in destructive activities, greed and disorders. We
are bewildered (wilderness separated) and as such:
We are prejudiced
against nature because we recognize nature is not 5-leg intelligent
as we have become accustomed to define intelligence. As a disconnected
slice of life, we have lost the ability to relate fairly or favorably
to the whole of life because we 5-leg separate our thinking from
its life-supportive wisdom.
Our suppression
of our inherent ability to make conscious contact with the rest
of nature makes us think that we are unable to make this contact.
Good evidence to the contrary, our bigotry disputes sciences
and people that make beneficial connections with nature.
Each time we
build relationships without obtaining consent from nature for
them (because we have never learned how to obtain that consent),
we further denigrate nature and reinforce our our separation
from our planet mother.
We don't believe
that embracing rather than conquering nature increases a wholeness
that improves the well being of person and planet.
We deny that
the rewards we receive for supporting the destructive ways of
our sliced-off world psychologically addict us to destrimental
technologies, stories and relationships. We deny that 4-leg satisfactions
and their restorative powers can help us overcome these addictions.
Without nature's
4-leg knowledge and restorative powers, the 5-leg disconnected
way we think is polluted and produces hurt and behavior that
pollutes natural and social systems. Our society has become an
unseen war that exploits nature within and around us. Its violence
and competition attracts us because it falsely helps us explain
to ourselves why we hurt.
"Most of our populace
and all of our leaders are participating in a mass hallucinatory
fantasy in which:
- the megatons
of waste we dump in our rivers and bays are not poisoning the
water, our body or our spirit,
- the hydrocarbons
we pump into the air are not changing the climate or deteriorating
our health.
- overfishing
is not depleting the oceans,
- living separately
from nature's ways is neither stressing our psyche nor creating
anxiety.
- fossil fuels
will never run out,
- wars that
kill masses of civilians are an appropriate way to keep our hands
on what's left,
- we are not
desperately overdrawn at the environmental or emotional bank
- and really,
the kids are all right."
..........- Barbara Kingsolver.(edited)
We seldom recognize
that we need our thinking to be genuinely connected with webstrings
so our mind can heal, purify and contribute to life's welfare
as part of nature's restorative processes. We fail to recognize
that we don't own our webstring senses and feelings, rather,
as with our material selves, we share them with Nature. The omission
of webstrings in our reasoning disables our ability to think
with attractions, like nature works.
As caring people,
we deserve the use of a powerful recuperation tool that is readily
available, a tool that helps us overcome disorders by reconnecting
our polluted thinking with nature's balancing and renewing ways.
"Nature
is doing her best each moment to make us well.
.....- Henry David Thoreau
"We are
not ourselves when nature, being oppressed, commands the mind
to suffer with the body.
.....-William Shakespeare
Something
to think about:
13. If nature
is guided to its balanced ways and well-being by natural attraction
webstrings, am I, while sliced from nature's wholeness, willing
to make more sense of my life and let webstrings in nature influence
me?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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 us purify faulty thought
processes, heal ourselves, and thereby contribute to life's welfare
as part of the natural recycling process. Conflict and suffering
result from this omission in our leadership.
"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:
14. Do some of my problems
stem from a hurtful sensory survival omission in my reasoning
that has led me to enter destructive relationships?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
.
The attractiveness of God
Reasoning about
attraction energies 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 love-of-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 divides our spirit and creates the conflicts
and disorders that we suffer.
"I believe in God, only
I spell it Nature."
.....- Frank Lloyd Wright
"Although each particular
thing be conditioned by another particular thing to exist in
a given way, yet the force whereby each particular thing perseveres
in existing follows from the eternal necessity of God's nature."
.....- Spinoza (1632-1637)
Something
to think about:
15. 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?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
16. Do I see a difference between
natural attractions and pure love?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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 additively 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 part of their daily lives.)
We spend, on average, less
than 12 hours per lifetime in 9-leg, 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"
5-leg solutions for runaway personal and global problems are
as ineffective as the warning labels on cigarette packages. Information
alone is not enough to change addiction.
"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 shortcut consisting of
abstractions of real relationships. 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 in order to 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
more lasting peace, we must heed a new story: "Learn how
to reconnect your ruptured sensory webstrings with their brilliant,
fulfilling origins in the lifeweb. Find peace by freeing them
from their fear and imprisonment in your subconscious."
Something
to think about:
17. 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?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
18. Do I have symptoms of this,
such as undue loneliness, sadness, stress, excessive wants, depression,
lack of attention, insensitivity, frustration, abusiveness or
underlying anger?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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
19. Do I experience hurt due
to the natural environment actually not supporting me?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
20. Do I experience pain subconsciously
triggered by memories of my dismemberment from nature?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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. This makes sense because, with respect to the perfection
of nature's eons of experience, there is no known substitute
for the real thing. These sensory contacts enable us to nine-leg
obtain nature's consent and assistance
to consciously and sentiently to 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 the results we seek.
"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:
21. Does it make sense for
me to want to learn through contact with natural systems?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
22. 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?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
NSTP helps us recognize that
the web strings are actually natural attractions. Every space,
every atom and its nucleus, every "nothing" consists
of, expresses and relates through natural attractions. All of
nature, including us, contains these attractions. When we attach
them only to people we may form caring, socially healthy relationships
and communities. However, these relationships are often excessively
exploitive of nature since, without recognizing webstrings, nature
is left out of the equation and our awareness. Nature bats last.
Sooner or later our omission of nature catches up with us.
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, fear and trust,
are each attractions that, when energized, register and help
guide our conscious thoughts. We seldom want to give up our potential
to register them.
Something
to think about:
23. Would my relationships
be more rewarding if I could learn to increase my sensitivity
to natural attraction energies in people and places around me?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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
explorers 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 5-leg think and relate with only three of our many natural
senses, the senses of reason, language and consciousness. They
make up the new-brain and that is about 7 percent of our full
capacity to be aware of the world and how it works. The loss
to our consciousness of our the world's full 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 that they held in common.
"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:
24. Has my salary and other
rewards during my extensive disconnection from nature unknowingly
blinded me to the existence and value of my sensory attraction
strings?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
Once disconnected from nature,
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 often 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 5-leg movies that run
in our mind, not conscious of the real world around and within
us. Even when immersed in the wild beauty of a natural area,
our mind most often is thinking in words about our problems,
relationships and rewards elsewhere. As we learn NSTP it 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:
25. 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 the past
or future?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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. This
leads us to trespass ecosystems and produce environmental deterioration.
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:
26. Am I missing contributions
that my natural self can make to my relationships?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
27. Was I trained to 5-leg
deny my natural self?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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:
28. Do I negate or demean the
contributions that some webstrings make because they interfere
with my immediate plans, wishes or enjoyment?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
29. Have I been trained to
see some webstrings as negative?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
30. Do I overcome negative
webstrings and thereby upset a natural balance?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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 our heart and mind build balanced relationships
within and around us.
Our sensory webstring of reason
demands that we engage in 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 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. It is important
because we do not fight to save what we don't love.
Something
to think about:
31. 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?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
32. Can I really get to know
who I am and help people and Mother Earth if the thinking part
of me seldom consciously registers, validates or reconnects my
inner nature and the web of life?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
"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:
33. Does my 5-leg tendency
to simply 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 connecting my thinking with the Web and its
rewards?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
***
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:
34. Nine-leg thinking has demonstrably
helped people strengthen economically and environmentally sound
personal growth and social justice. Am I tapping into the the
benefits and powers of webstrings to help me bring them into
my community and nation?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
35. Do I want to help our leaders
use and promote nine-leg thinking?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
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, my depression had transformed into
an all-encompassing love. 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 back door, 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
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."
RE: 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."
RE: Truth
and Nature
"I feel better about myself
and my relationships because nine-leg thinking lets nature help
me recognize these common falsehoods that formerly lead me astray:
With the exception of 5-leg
stories and thinking, people and nature are identical in that
both consist of webstring attractions and natural systems. What
we do to nature, we do to ourselves and vice versa.
In nature, survival of the
fittest only occurs because the fittest establish the greatest
number of mutually supportive webstring attraction relationships
with their environment. The fittest are the best cooperators,
not the best competitors.
There is no such thing as nothing
in nature. Places where we think there is nothing are actually
filled with webstring attractions that naturally help hold that
place and the world together in mutually supportive relationships.
There is no such constant as
"one" in nature because what we identify as "one"
is something different in the next moment due to new webstring
attraction relationships it has made. By the time we register
and think "one" in nature, one has changed into something
different.
There are no words in nature
so statements that I think are true may not accurately connect
me with the way the world works in healing balance and beauty.
Facts are not accurate that
are established in laboratories under standard conditions of
temperature and pressure because webstring attractions in nature
are constantly changing; there are few if any standard conditions
in natural systems.
I encourage 5-leg stories to
hurtfully conquer and exploit natural systems in myself, others
and the environment if I don't obtain consent to make time and
space in nature to enjoy 4-leg webstring experiences. These experiences
with people and places help me think in naturally accurate 9-leg
ways.
Everything in nature, including
natural systems in me, obtains attraction consent to exist and
enjoy relationships so there is no garbage produced in nature,
nothing is left out, including me.
As I have enjoyed being rewarded
for exploiting nature, I have learned to enjoy exploiting parts
of myself. This hurts or injures me over time."
Something
to think about:
36. Would my health and happiness
improve if my resilience, psyche and relationships felt like
I feel when I'm having a good experience in nature?
1...2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9...10
no.................sometimes..........yes
SUGGESTION: If you want to
reach this goal, you may start by remembering good experiences
you have had in nature. Then thoughtfully apply the information
in this essay to each of those experiences. Please remember this:
you are reading on this page a 5-leg essay that needs to be combined
with 4-leg webstring attraction connections in authentic nature
and shared with other people in order for you to benefit from
9-leg thinking and relating.
If you are not sure the webstring
model has value for you, try this nine-leg
activity from our Orientation Course
The most practical and powerful
way to strengthen your ability to apply and benefit from nine-leg
thinking is to call Dr. Cohen and
take the online Orientation Course
using the books the Web of Life Imperative
and Reconnecting With Nature It leads
to the many opportunities noted in the side
panel
"The Web of Life
Imperative. offers more tools, knowledge and personal
power for good than most therapies and spiritualities. It enables
us to reverse our destructive relationships by empowering us
to make thoughtful sensory connections with genuine nature. This
connection responsibly satisfies the aching, ever-wanting hole
in our psyche that has been produced by our excessive separation
from nature, a hole that leads us astray"
- Susan Chernak McElroy,
Award winning, N. Y. Times best selling author of Animals
as Teachers and Healers and Heart in the Wild.
"We dramatically
increased our program's effectiveness by adding the Natural Systems
Thinking Process to it. It enables our participants to connect
with their sensory origins in nature and use that peaceful power
to improve their disorders and their relationships with self,
society and the environment."
- James
Rowe,
Ph.D.
Director of the Outward Bound School in Costa Rica
"Dr. Cohen's
compelling application of ecopsychology connects us with the
often ignored source of spirit and wellness found in nature.
His deeply felt chapters catalyze conscious sensory contacts
with the natural world and bind us to energies that heal our
deeper being."
Dr. Larry Dossey, M.D.
Researcher and bestselling author of Recovering The Soul:
A Scientific and Spiritual Search Visit the Project NatureConnect.
For further information vist
the Project NatureConnect Homepage
