Thinking and Feeling With Nature and Earth

Natural Pain and Love Attraction

For this activity I went to my postage-stamp-sized front yard. I’ve planted many of the plants in this landscape (some were already here when I moved in...the builders requisite 2 junipers and a Bradford pear tree). So, this is an area with my "babies" to whom I was first attracted when I bought them at the nursery. It is peaceful, friendly, and charming.

The weather this evening was perfect, not too hot, not too cold. I pulled a few weeds and put them in brown paper bags for recycling. I don’t know how pulling weeds fits in with nature’s attractive essence, but I did not feel any resistance from the "weeds," which yielded easily to my tugging.  We were in balance.

My neighbors showed up to say hello; I guess they count as a vibrant part of my environment. Cool evenings encourage positive relationships among neighbors. We’re all focused on spring, the flowers and flowering trees. From my backyard, I can see where a cherry tree has shed her blossoms and produced a blanket of pink "snow" all around. It is stunningly beautiful; my own fantasy land.

I recognize that I am a person who enjoys my special relationship with the plants and trees in my yard.
"Every natural attraction is a form of love." I love this truth and I accept it as a truth. Maybe our culture’s supposed inability to truly define love is caused by our disconnection from nature’s grace. Love is a blanket of pink blossoms!!!! 

In a nature connected state of being, the sense of pain does not punish us, it too is love..It makes us more sensitive to living in the natural fulfillments available in any given moment.  This is a hard concept to move into because of all those spankings from authorities that I got as a child.  The source of each of these forms of pain [physical, mental, emotional] is disconnection from nature’s intelligent attractions in people and places...In nature, pain is nature’s love trying to support us by motivating us to find new attractions. Thanks for directing me to my yard, Mom. It is a welcoming spot full of peace and beauty, which lifts me up when I spend time there.

I now see how pain is a guide; pain encourages growth in a better direction. If I seek attractions, I find attractions and feel welcomed and at home.  I loved the time I gave myself to say hello to my plants, to which I feel a special relationship. I hadn’t had a chance to check them out now that spring has enticed them to bloom and grow.  If I couldn’t have a special place for planting my attractive plants and trees, I would feel handicapped, green-impaired, in pain.

A REACTION: I have felt the joy to being witness to Nature's awesome healing energy.  My most memorable experience was during a workshop where a lady who had cancer suddenly welled up in tears and ripped her wig off her head.  She found freedom that day from all the shame and secrecy surrounding her disease and loss of hair.  It was the most amazing thing to see and the others there were crying as well with tears of celebration for her.  Nature gives, and gives back life.  It's a joy to help Her facilitate.

Hope and Gratitude Now.

Since we have formed this group, I have been thinking quite a bit about just what "webloveliving" or an at-one-with-nature life means to me. At first glance it seems to be a simple process. First I recognized that I could follow my natural attractions. Boy, has that changed my life!!! I think the most important way it has changed is by giving me permission to feel nature-connected independent of how things in life line up, or not, with what is expected.  I cannot always do this yet, but when I get stuck in negative mental thinking, to be able to say "Does this line of thinking feel nature-connected?" and then let it go, if the answer is no, is really an amazing freedom.

Likewise with aspects of my life; if something isn't nature-connected, giving my self  permission to move toward what would be attractive is so freeing. One by one  I am giving up things that aren't in unity with nature. I realize that I am not really attracted to many things I thought I was.

Many Nature Activities have been and continue to be helpful to me in staying  with nature-connection - the change of perspective one is the most useful right now.

Then came consent. That was a really difficult one for me. It sent me into long periods of depression, which I had to learn to escape using the attraction activities above. In my life I had learned that if one has to wait for consent one is in serious trouble. "No," was the mantra in my household growing up. And I had applied it to life in general - that life would say "no" and I would have to outfox it so how through a great deal of individual effort. Gradually I am understanding on an emotional level that the natural world is not withholding. Not wanting what doesn't want me has been a significant shift. I rarely push to "make things happen" now. I can only remember one time I've done that recently and it became sufficiently  G/O to remind me that's now how things really work.

The challenge for me with consent has been more one of how do to things since I don't really know how I even want things to go in the future because  it's not here yet. But that is easing now too.

I think trust is the growing edge now. Really trusting the attraction/consent process.

Not trusting that any particular thing will happen, but trusting that there is a way to feel right, good and welcome in this world without effort and  struggle. Watching rather than envisioning. Finding rather than creating or making.

Tools of NSTP have been a great gift to me to understand how the rest of life works and to participate in learning how we too can live like the other  creatures and beings on this Earth.

What a phenomenal relief! And still a phenomenal challenge, but one which like learning to walk, we are perfectly; equipped to undertake

It is in terms of such things as these that I will enjoy giving and receiving support and sharing. For I suppose like many others, I don't live in a community where the powers that be operate or support such a way of life. But there are many people here who do, or at least want to. Last night, for example, I enjoyed the most amazing experience. Someone who is close to me suddenly understood and embraced the concept of nature’s non-verbal intelligence attractions.!  I had to stop my mouth for dropping open as this person has been quite adamant that there is no such thing and I have just let that be, just sharing and inviting but totally respecting the lack of consent.

I am filled with such hope and gratitude right now.

A REACTION: Since learning to learn through nature connecting activities, I feel so much more whole, creative and free...knowing that every time I step outside, there are infinite numbers of connections that can nourish and guide me.  I would not want this taken away...and it is re-assuring to know that it can't be.

The Love of Self as Nature

I love this newly bloomed iris flower because it is fresh and breathtaking.  It is so much more than it first appears.  Translucent lavender petals streaming outward and dripping down like water flowing over a fountain ledge.  A ridge of stiff yellow hairs are waiting to tickle the belly of any bumble bee who is drawn to the pale powdery lines that lead to sweet nectar in ultraviolet colors and patterns not visible to the human eye.  That alone refreshes me from my anthropocentric influences and makes me fell awe for the great mysterious complexities of life which I will never understand but feel so filled with gratitude for having experienced them.

Like the flower, I am part of nature. I love myself because I am fresh and breathtaking.

Saying this, reading this, feeling this makes me feel very alive and very special and very loved.  Not simply loved by my self, but loved by the world.  I feel like a unique gift, a special offering, for the time I have here, to revel in this world and also honor the world by reveling in it!

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about going through life always as a beginner, despite how much I learn, see and do.  There is an attitude and an ego that accompanies being the “go-to” person, the “know-it-all.”   There is something heavy and protective about conceiving of oneself as the person who knows best, who knows more.  I find that remembering to be a beginner and letting go of the ego attachment to being the “one who knows” makes me feel fresh each and every day.

Often, to our cost, we emotionally attach, addict to or depend on persons or substances that fulfill our wanting, nature-disconnected senses.  Addictions are so commonplace, a part of everyone‚s experiences whether it is firsthand or via a loved one, and I believe it has much to do with our disconnect from nature and our lack of self-worth and sense of connection.

If I did not have conscious nature connections, I would feel less alive. The activity was wonderful.  It was powerful to transpose my impression for an iris to my own self and see myself through such loving, wondrous eyes. I was re-educated by feeling an absolute absence of holding back about my own glory.  Every day is a new day.  Fresh morning. Fresh me.  I want to try to see myself in the way that a bumble bee sees an iris petal dripping down like flowing water, eternal spring of sweet nectar. I’ve put into my protected psyche-space the fresh, glorious iris.

A REACTION: The comments through out the sessions were validating but none more than after the nature-connecting session where one man disclosed that he had almost died from Congestive Heart Failure several years ago and this was the first time he had been pain free in years, coming up to me later and joyously  proclaiming "I can't believe how much energy I have!"

A New Way of Listening

It is a spectacular day here...and I am thrilled to be home after over a week on the road doing lots of business meetings/hotels, etc.  Sitting in the backyard, I am enchanted by all the different birdsongs I hear around me - the rasping of the crows, fussing of magpies, sweet chirping of sparrows and lonely cries of the gulls high above.  As I tune in to each one, I realize that each type of birds unique song is resonating with different parts of my body...I can really feel the crows in my belly, whereas the sparrows are touching my heart...and the gulls are calling to the dreams stirring in my dream chakra. 

I have never listened to the birds in this way before (at least not consciously), and it feels much more "whole" and "complete" in communications than if I were to be listening with my ears only.  in this way, it feels like I am experiencing the innate web of life intelligence of listening with my whole body and being much more present with my surroundings as a result.  The quote which seems to really speak to this from the readings is from Chang-Tzu "That which fills the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I see as my own nature."

This activity taught me that my experience of nature is as unlimited as my imagination in any given moment, and that every attraction is communicating directly to a part of me to wake it up, bring it into greater consciousness.

I am always astounded by the new layers and levels of awareness and connection that can come from engaging in these activities....and each time a find a new layer, I find a new way of engaging with the spaces I find myself in...my scope of relating and knowing expands...which absolutely feeds my spirit!  By tapping into the intelligence of our web of life connections, we become more whole, more complete.  I have put a new way of listening to the world into the part of me I trust most.

A REACTION: It was almost embarrassing at the environmental education conference when I was asked to explain the nature of the workshop I was to present.  I couldn’t say much because I was interrupted time and again by folks anxious to tell the audience of how the nature-connecting activities had helped or saved their lives.  In public they were emoting over a bush or bird that had given them the power to make important adaptations that were previously unobtainable.

Connecting Through Nature

I was at the sea on a warm Autumn day after visiting a baby at the local children's hospital – The experience was very hard to undergo because of the desperation written in the faces of the mothers and the crying children. They are all from very poor backgrounds and look completely helpless in the face of serious disease. After the visit I felt a strong urge to go to the sea to let Mother Earth teach me how to deal with this experience.

As I sat and watched the waves I thought about both my children so far away - one in Australia and one in Spain, and how the mothers of the sick babies must feel when they feel they can do nothing for their children. My daughter is having a particularly difficult time right now and I feel the need to help her.  This was the problem I gave to Mother Earth.

The attractions I sensed where myriad...the sound and smell of the sea, the call of the seagulls, the rustling foam spreading over the black rocks and the irresistible pull of the sea to the waves. The water is very cold down here - numbs the feet, but gives a sense of clarity as well. I didn't go right in!

To sense the essence of the sea is overpowering. I felt a connection with all the oceans on the planet - in fact the sea is all one - only humans name different areas of it. I knew that the drop of water leaving my hands would carry a blessing through the essence of the water to both my children. I felt lighter and more confident of my connection with them through my connection to the water. I was taught - "All things/people are connected. There is no separation but your thinking makes it so."

The same wonderful energy that moves the waves moves inside us if we only acknowledge it. It can be used for anything - from healing sick babies and soothing mothers' worries to regenerating the parts of the earth that have suffered the depredations of human beings.

A REACTION: Most moving after the activity was a mother telling me privately in front of her daughter and husband..."You don't know how much you have helped her (the daughter)...You  will never know how much you have helped her...We just picked her up from  the hospital three days ago to bring her down here...She was in the hospital  because she tried to commit suicide and you have given her a new life!" Earth is an amazing Healer

Lasting Companionship.

“As I have mentioned in my last posts, I have been shifting focus from “what is required of me by other people” to “what is required of me by nature’s perfection is to be, do, have the results I am wanting to create”.  The results:  profound, easy, graceful, fulfilling, aware, flowing, all encompassing, shifting, oneness, joy, self attainment, gratefulness.”

“What you have posted, above, is is always a subject of concern to me.  I and my daughter both like encouraging and praising words from my husband but he barely says any.  We decided not to attach ourselves to such unsupportive wrangler who has always disappointed us.  Instead, we will encourage and praise each other as part of nature’s perfection by ourselves.  Yet, we are still living in a life of dependency upon him.   To get a shift of focus and attention like what you have done could help us to move a big step – because we want those beautiful fulfillments.”

REACTION: “Yes!! I get exactly the same feeling from my garden when I haven't been there for a while. It is as if my garden has personality and understands me as well. It is like having a wonderful companion and friend who demands nothing but our love and gives back so much more.”

Discover Natural Attractions

A little more on Vicktor Frankl. When I interviewed him I was so into the positive thinking we-can-create-our-own- reality process, the mind over matter mode - that I kept talking to him about "creating meaning" in our life. His book you know is Man's Search for Meaning. Well, he kept correcting me. I still have the tape. My brother got what Frankel meant right away and teased me about it because I just didn't get it.

When I started doing nature activities, one day I had this flash - Oh, finding meaning is like following natural attractions! Instead of going into the forest thinking about what I want to see or the experience I want to have, finding (discovering or encountering) the experience that attracts me.

I've been amazed at how people I do nature activities with do this too. They say something like - Well, I went out in nature to enjoy the flowers, but they weren't out yet. So I'll go back next week end. Or, I went out to enjoy the sun but it started to rain.

Of  course, Frankel was an expert at understanding such distinctions from his experience in the concentration camps. I suppose that if you remained attached to what you thought you wanted, you would never have survived there.

I agree with creating in the here and now. Life is so creative and so are we. It is life actually. so once again, words fail, but the experience is there for us.

A REACTION: A quote I liked from the readings: "In this regard, there are no substitutes for the real thing.  People must connect with genuine nature or suffer from the imperfections of the substitutes we create for it."  Indeed, even "fresh air" is so much more alive than an air conditioner!

Depending on Natural Attractions

“I know my inherent sensitivities to natural attractions are alive and well because I could enjoyably feel a sense of calm and connectedness to the earth while gardening”. I felt grounded and like an “assistant” to the life force that awakens in other natural beings-especially in the spring time. I thanked the soil, seeds, started plants, water, and the sun for allowing me to be a part of this cycle. After asking for consent to be included, I felt a heightened sense of belonging and camaraderie with all of the organic matter. I thanked all of the earthly bodies and wished them a share of the life force in the weeks to come. My sense of gratitude was bigger and my respect greater for the environment and for the reciprocity of feelings I received.

The statement “Remember, too, that nature exists in the natural systems of people…we are part of nature” was especially inspiring! For me, this is part of the “psych” in ecopsychology-here it translates from relationships with nature to relationships with people (part of nature). It is so helpful for me to remember this when I find myself struggling with my human flaws of judgment. Thank you!

I definitely believe that all beings are part of the web of life, and therefore have to depend on attractions to others to survive -none of us could live without the assistance of others- just like my plants need the water and soil and sun to thrive.

A REACTION: Had the worst panic attack ever after election night, Can there possibly be any question why?  But.  I counted 63 trees from our apartment steps and since I've restarted the course I've only needed 1/2 my sleeping and anti-anxiety medication.  So I'm down to 1/6 what I needed before my Feb. 7, 2005 reenrollment in PNC.  Personally I suspect my entire nature-disconnected-conditioned system was serendipitously rebelling last autumn against the election But.  This PNC Healing Process is good and I'm back.  In better shape than ever. 

The Nature of Death

I have just read through your posting for the third time.  What is it that impacted me so, I wanted to know

First of all the beautiful descriptive writing of your place in the woods was wonderful.  Truly I felt a sense of sacred place each time as I listened to you tell about it.  And more than that, in the way you wrote about your experience of being with the trees and all, seeing through their changes in time, I felt a sense of your presence there. 

But of course, it is your contemplative thoughts of dying and living that has filled my mind.  The topic is not unfamiliar to me.  Iâve taken so many classes, read so much on this topic, been to a gazillion seminars, and have facilitated many Grief Support Groups throughout the years.  So, why was I touched so by your perspectives?  Maybe because I’m living the grief now, not just thinking and talking about it. And I’m not just living the grief of loss of another, no matter how dear.  I am grieving my own life.  I am grieving the loss of so very much of my life as I knew it as a sighted person.  And I am actively, as I see my health due to lifelong diabetes become rapidly frailer, experiencing prefatory grief as I look, more closely than I am comfortable with, at my final death.

Your writing touched all this difficult, often overwhelming stuff in me.

I loved seeing the beauty of your view of the cycle of life and death in your analogy of the crumbling, dying tree.  It’s when I think about the assumption of the ‘the other world” where death is held that I lose clarity.  I need not go on about the many ideas which, over dozens of years, I have, with intensity and focus, considered of that possible world. Before my vigorous health began to fade in the last few years and my eyesight left me, I did think about a world of non-physical being, but these days, it feels a lot more personal.   

Here I’m saying just that your powerful writing for Day Three, below, greatly and deeply touched me. Thank you.

“I headed into a nearby forested area of a city park and ended up sitting on a fallen tree trunk to read chapter two and consider my posting for today.  As I walked down the path through the forest, it was the rattling leaves on a beech tree that called my attention to a spot in the forest that I felt attracted to and desired to be near.  As I approached the beech, my eyes were drawn to a fallen tree behind it that was covered in a patchwork of green moss, brittle bark, and decaying heartwood.  Funny that a dead tree trunk would seem to me to be the most beautiful thing in the forest that morning.  As I read Chapter Two‚s descriptions of how the stories we tell ourselves (or are told) affect what we see/value and what we don’t see/value, I thought about how removed and disconnected our society is, in general, from death and dying.  Obviously, death and dying are not attractive.  But is that really so true?  Do we do a disservice to ourselves and to our lives by pushing away the only true certainty that we all have in common: we are all going to die?

Sitting on the fallen tree trunk, I deeply knew that this was not the ‘end‘ of the tree.  Not death as an end to life, but rather a passage ˆ an entrance and an exit ˆ between cyclical worlds of living and dying.  The moss turning decomposing wood into soft, green substance; the holes made where woodpeckers had found sustenance from a wood-boring insect that was nourishing itself on the dead tree trunk; the crumbling bits of organic matter that slowly, almost imperceptively, seemed to belong more to the forest soil than to the tree trunk. The message was “Embrace the ‘stories’ nature has to tell ˆ expansive, accepting, encompassing, cyclical

If I hadn’t spent time in nature this morning while reading this chapter, I would feel less at peace than I do now, less at ease with my self  It enhanced my sense of self worth simply by helping me to breathe and feel more at ease with myself, with life, and all the little ups and downs and nuances of daily living and relating.  Because of the feeling of connectedness that I feel in nature, my ‘worth’ is enhanced because it feels like it is not mine alone.

The activity contributed to an ongoing process of "re-education" that I have recently been undergoing relating to my perceptions and awareness of death and dying. I am really enjoying reading everyone‚s postings.  I find myself humbled and inspired by everyone.  A few things that really stood out to me were: Dan‚s observation that the moon is reflecting sunlight, Trina‚s awareness of the spring flowers in her garden, Ingrid‚s insight that understanding who we really are is the basis for authentic and lasting relationships, and Cate‚s paradigm shift to see that she is nature looking into a world of society and trainings. Nature doesn‚t use words to tell stories.  Listen with your heart and you will hear.the decaying tree trunk is a passage 'an entrance and an exit' between two coexisting worlds, life and death

Powerful stuff.  Thanks!