Accredited Nature-Connecting Online Alternative and Natural Holistic  Courses; Degrees and Careers that include life experience and prior training, independent thinking, social networking and ecological mentor scholarships, grants and jobs.  Project NatureConnect Institute of Global Education Special NGO Consultant, United Nations Economic and Social Council Environmental Health and Wellness Spiritual Science and Retreats Outdoor Sensory and Spirit Therapies, Degrees and Careers SYNOPSIS: This nature learning article a describes a funded Mother Earth course and degree program, one that addresses the curious perception filter tragedy that splits the cognitive mind of contemporary society and produces many disorders. The article evaluates an amazing organic psychology tool that helps us improve health, wellness and counseling by enabling our thinking and feeling to safely tap into nature's grace, balance and restorative powers. Participants benefit from and strengthen their inborn love of nature while they master alternative therapist coaching, natural stress management and holistic spiritual psychology. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Educating Counseling and Healing With Nature Supportive Degrees, Career Training Courses and Jobs On Line Project NatureConnect offers flexible, nature-centered, distant learning that enables the perception of its participants to add the benefits of nature-connecting methods and credentials to their degree programs, careers and/or their skills, interests and hobbies. We honor your prior training and life experience by providing grants and equivalent education credit for it. You may take accredited or professional CEU coursework and/or obtain a Nature-Connected Degree or Certificate in most disciplines or personal interests.  Improve your income and satisfaction through independent, interdisciplinary or integrated study and Applied Ecopsychology. Help people connect their misled thoughts and feelings with the self-correcting and renewing ways of nature. Increase personal social and environmental well being. Add the self-correcting sunlight, beauty and spirit of the natural world to your life and community. Visit our Homepage for complete information  ........................................................ ...............................   Becoming more aware of natural senses: the Natural Systems Thinking Process: Orientation Course Evaluation "I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order." - John Burroughs Like Burroughs, I have always gone to the nature world to be soothed and healed from the pressures and pains of living in our culture. After participating in the PNC orientation course I understand my experiences in the natural world have helped me become more aware of my natural senses. There has been much scholarship on Western civilization's disconnection to the natural world. Project Nature Connect's "Old Brain, New Brain" concepts have given me much more insight into the tragedy of our society's separation from the natural world. Prior to engaging in the orientation course I was interested in identifying the moment in our society's history that the split with the natural world occurred. Identifying that singular historical moment, if there is one, is no longer of importance to me. What is important is identifying the cause of our behavior that perpetuates this disconnection. The concept of "Old Brain and New Brain" thinking is an important contribution in helping us understand the cognitive structure of our society, which predisposes its members to live disconnected from the natural world. It is because people are mostly rewarded by other people and society that they tend to habitually know and think about the world through the perceptual filter of our nature conquering society. Human beings are born with the innate capabilities of "Old Brain" ways of thinking. This way of knowing and relating is inherent to the entire natural world. The "Old Brain" way of thinking is described by author David Abrams as, "the concerted activity of all the body's senses as they function and flourish together." In multisensory concert natural sensitivities make the balanced "natural sense" that is nature's beauty, peace and wisdom, the web of life. In the natural environment natural sensitivities provide a non-language, interspecies attraction communion. This communion permits natural systems to act sensibly as a community, "to make common sense," "work by consensus," to organize, preserve and regenerate themselves responsibly, intelligently and diversely without producing garbage, war, or insanity. Our nature conquering society has conditioned us to understand the world through the perceptual filters of reason and language, which disconnects us from the multisensory direct way of knowing. The "New Brain" way of knowing "conditions us to bring the sensory world into our awareness by labeling it with language abstractions -words, symbols and images- and validating the reasonable cultural meanings of these abstractions. The sensory attraction activities of the orientation course are excellent ways to reconnect with "Old Brain" ways of knowing. By becoming aware of our natural sensory attractions we are able to connect and build healthy relationships with the natural world. "The creek that runs through this land calls me...I am drawn to the wild flow of the river after a rain. The fluid strength of the water carves hard-edged boulders into smooth fluid stone. Green moss grows soft on its surfaces and the lichen weave paintings of orange, lime, and deep yellow. Dead oak leaves mulch the earth and tender green grasses are born. I remember that what I see, I am and I began to feel into my own fluid strength, that allows the flow of emotions to carve my heart open and soft. I remember that my creativity and new beginnings come from the continual cycle of death into life. "What is dying now?" I ask my body. "Your belief in separateness," it responds, and pulls me down to the rock. I pour my weight into the body of the earth and surrender my sense of self into everything. I feel the wind with the skin of a boulder and then I become the wind, caressing the boulder's skin with my hands and fingertips. All my limbs began to move like flowing water and I become the river. I hang upside down until I stand where the river flows above the trees, where the trees grow down, down into sky, and where leaves become roots. I press my face to the cool smooth surface of the stone, it's sensation and texture merge into my being, bringing me into the truth of this moment" (Aryeh). The activities I participated in throughout the Orientation course have given me valuable experience in reclaiming my "Old Brain" ways of knowing while connecting them to my "New Brain" way of thinking. Over three decades ago Allan Watts wrote: "It is our ignorance of and, indeed, estrangement from ourselves, which explains our feelings of isolation from nature." The Natural Systems Thinking Process teaches us to become more aware of our natural sensory attractions, which allows us include the balanced, communal thinking of the natural world into our lives and institutions of our society. - Jacob   Additional student reviews of the Orientation Course (also see Testimonials) are available at orienteval2a.html orienteval3g.html orienteval4h.html orienteval5j.html orienteval6k.html orienteval7z.html orienteval8.html INSTITUTE OF GLOBAL EDUCATION Special NGO consultant United Nations Economic and Social Council PROJECT NATURECONNECT SUBSIDIZED EDUCATION, COUNSELING AND HEALING WITH NATURE Accredited CEU Courses, Certification, Grants and Degree Programs online to sustain the well-being of person, planet and spirit. Prior training and life experience incorporated in all programs. P.O. Box 1605, Friday Harbor, WA 98250 360-378-6313 <email> www.ecopsych.com The Natural Systems Thinking Process Dr. Michael J. Cohen, Director send email All programs start with the Orientation Course contained in the books The Web of Life Imperative and Reconnecting With Nature .           _________________________________________________________________

................................... Web Site Navigation Project NatureConnect: online personal balance  training and degree programs Introduction Shortcut Overview What We Do Who We Are Learn in Nature Purpose Program Director Site Map New/Updates Burnout Prevention Application Forms Education Introduction Education Index Degrees/CEU's Certification Orientation Key Courses Scholarships Procedures Financial Free Course Free Activity Information Synopsis Books Careers/Jobs Articles/News Key Organic Psych Natural Systems References Essence Validation Outcomes Testimonials Key Book Homepage2 Contacts Email 360-378-6313 Return to Homepage