The Unacknowledged and Endangered Healer The foundation for inner security is…to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion, to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. — Albert Einstein My heart is tuned to the quietness that the stillness of nature inspires. — Hazrat Inayat Khan The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. — Black Elk Last fall, someone gave me a fitness magazine, which I would never ordinarily read. For some reason, I thumbed through it, and happened upon an article about ecopsychology, a synthesis of psychology and ecology. The concepts of ecopsychology — that people and nature are an interacting system and are totally interdependent — are inherent in the view of indigenous cultures. Before discovering ecopsychology, I'd been suffering from a depression that had lasted more than two years. During this period, I tried numerous therapeutic approaches and did a variety of workshops. I found many of these approaches helpful, but I kept falling back again into the same black hole, and bouncing from one counselor or workshop to another. Perhaps this depression was the culmination of a half-century living life disconnected from the nature within and around me. The processes I learned through ecopsychology enabled me to experience a deeper and more sustained sense of connection to myself and to the universe than I had previously experienced. My passion for nature and for life was reawakened, as well as senses I had learned since childhood to numb out. Several months after doing nature-connecting activities, I realized that I no longer needed the St. John's wort I'd been taking for depression. I learned that nature could be my ally in helping me transform deep feelings of sadness and disconnection into feelings of connection, oneness, and peace. Doing the activities, writing down my experiences, and communicating with others by e-mail about them helped to validate the powerful effect of nature in my healing process. They helped me to really look at stories I have learned that interfere with my own perceptions, and to reverse that process by beginning to trust nature — and the nature in me — more. Certainly I still have my dark moods, but they are not as heavy, and lift much more quickly. I've found a certain emotional balance I'd never before experienced. While I've always loved nature, and my feet had wandered the paths of many parks (especially during my two-year depression), I had taken my relationship with nature for granted and not really begun to tap into its healing power. I marginalized my good experiences in nature, thinking that they were a kind of escape, a reaction typical of our nature-disconnected culture’s conditioning. Like many in our society, I have been so conditioned to ignore and suppress my natural senses and feelings. In this nature-disconnected society, it is no wonder so many people develop addictions to quench that sense of a never-ending need. I learned to counteract the nature-disconnected forces in my daily life. Now when I take my thirty-minute lunch break in a natural area near my workplace, I find nourishment and refreshment in seeing the swallows fly near my head or watching pigeons in their courtship rituals, and can become lost in the beauty of a cedar tree or a small flower. Now I experience meditation in a whole new way, and the natural areas I visit feel like sacred sanctuaries. The sense of love and joy I experience seeing a bird or butterfly fly near me, connecting with the delicacy of a fern, or hearing a robin's song often transports me into another dimension. I understand now why many spiritual masters experienced their "enlightenment" after spending a period of time in nature, and yet it seems that nature is rarely acknowledged for its power in mystical experiences or in healing. It seems inevitable that the more one experiences a sense of oneness with nature, the more one feels compelled to become involved in a positive way to protect the diversity and wonder of life on this planet. One feels the pain of the planet and the loss of natural areas and endangered species as one’s own. Personally, the changes I've been experiencing in my relationship to nature have created a shift in how I view my life, and I’m becoming more involved in environmental causes I care about and looking for ways to live my life in a more eco-friendly way. Previously, while my sympathies went out to many environmental causes, I felt too overwhelmed by life to participate. Now I feel overcome with emotion, and wonder how I could have been sleeping passively for so long. A sense of urgency to devote as much energy as I can to helping protect natural areas and creatures on this planet propels me, and I no longer feel that I am separate from the problem. My sense is that a shift of consciousness through reconnecting with nature and really opening to their oneness is essential for people to awaken to the environmental crisis and feel that they can contribute in some way to a solution. It seems that only through a shift in consciousness can people begin to awaken from their dream of separation and isolation and feel the peace of being part of the whole. With the alarming rate at which devastation of this planet is occurring, as well as the increase of incredible social ills, it is apparent that our society as a whole needs to embrace new values and a new way of thinking that are more in harmony with nature. Hopefully, as more of us engage in this process, we can begin to turn the tide. Applied ecopsychologist Dr. Michael J. Cohen, Ed.D., founded and coordinates Project NatureConnect and is the author of many books and articles, including Reconnecting with Nature; Einstein's World; and Well Mind, Well Earth. Some of his articles, as well as information about classes and degree programs, are available at <http://www.ecopsych.com/>. |