Health Lies at Our Interface with Nature by Warren Grossman, Ph.D. We are organisms. Like all organisms, whether plants or animals, we live in the only environment that supports life. We live in nature. We live in the natural world, even if we are city dwellers. If we are to be healthy, we must be close to our appropriate environment. A shark cannot thrive in a desert, and an orchid cannot live in Siberia. We humans are of the earth, and we must have frequent, intimate contact with the earth if we wish to be well. Health is not merely the absence of disease. Health is existence that is vigorous, happy, and free of physical or psychological disorder. Ironically, some of us think that our home is somewhere other than nature. As participants in a complex, excessively stimulating, human-made society, we imagine cities, industries, ideas, and products to be our reality. We imagine that reality is job, mall, house, television, fashion, and the people around us who share these same unnatural yet compelling beliefs. We are out of touch with reality. People who live in simple societies, in Stone Age cultures such as barely remain in New Guinea, Australia, and South America, are never out of touch with their natural environment nor with their appropriate role in relation to that environment. They would never imagine that something they created had more value or meaning than a natural thing. They live close to and understand their relationship to the earth. They perceive and interact with the energy of the earth; they know what it can do for them. "Healing" is a word that has many meanings. I use the word to mean "becoming simpler and more natural by the use of nature's energy and human love." This will increase your health, joy, and spiritual sensitivity. This is your birthright. You are a child of the earth every bit as much as deer, mushrooms, trees, and birds. That we are alive is a result of our environment. That we can heal, that is, become healthier and happier, must come from that environment, as well as from love. If we want the earth to heal us, we need only to engage attentively with her. This is not frequently recognized in our industrial-urban culture. Instead, we assume that only by our own cleverness and invention can we outsmart disease or despair. What does spirituality have to do with healing? Spirit is that which is not matter. Anything that is not matter is spirit, or "life-energy." Some attempts at naming this have been to call it chi, ki, prana, orgone, or maybe even God. The earth and the plants may seem at first glance to be matter, but they are animated by spirit. A living tree and a dead tree are both matter. However, the living tree emanates spirit, energy, or life. It is this energy, which exudes from all living things, that can be healing to us. A clear experience of this energy is often called a spiritual experience. Spirit, energy, life — all the same phenomenon — is the most ordinary thing in the world. It is just that it is subtler to the senses than is matter, and so it is often overlooked. A culture is a set of solutions to human needs. Each culture takes the form of a set of beliefs, behaviors, and products. These are transmitted to each succeeding generation of children by their parents. When one has become acculturated, that is, trained in the ways of a culture, one has had one's perception trained. Perception is the way that a person unconsciously organizes his or her understanding of the world to help make sense out of life. We learn to perceive from our parents, as they are the conveyers of the culture. One could say they are the conveyers of the perceptual strategy. They convey the American or Malaysian or Navajo culture by their words, actions, emotions, rewards, and punishments. All of the members of any one culture perceive similarly. They value similar ideas, things, events, and behaviors. They are often blind to possibilities that lie outside of their culture. Western culture obscures the obvious — the natural. This is the way that we have been taught to perceive. Instead of learning to pay attention to nature, we learn to pay attention to words, numbers, concepts, human-made products, electronic signals, and so forth. Often these are arranged in elaborate series such as science, business, or fashion. Simpler cultures must pay attention to natural phenomena. These people are trained by their parents to pay attention to the qualities of the earth, plants, animals, and weather. They look for the answers to each day's needs in these places. In our culture, we might look for the answers to the day's needs in the newspaper, television, or shopping mall. We who live in industrial-urban cultures are perceptually divorced from nature. As a result of our culture, we are cut off from our natural habitat, leaving us dangerously ignorant. Because we do not perceive our natural home, we do not know that we are at home. As a result of this, we do not feel at home. To not feel at home is a disease in itself. It is a continual state of stress, of lack of relaxation. Failure to relax is the precursor to many serious diseases. We mistakenly believe that we are not dependent upon the earth, so we feel free to destroy it. We do not learn that we are interdependent with other organisms, so we destroy entire species and create animal and plant monocultures, leaving ourselves vulnerable to disease and starvation. We mistakenly believe that we are not similar to other species. This leaves us in contempt of their needs, which are often identical to our own. We do not realize that the source of energy and vitality is to be found in nature, so it is difficult for us to be buoyant and happy. We believe, instead, that health and healing is the province of an intellectual-technical system of science and medicine. In fact, many of us fear characteristics of our natural home, such as dirt, animals, cold, heat, night, rain, or snow. We may also have learned to perceive characteristics of our home as undesirable, such as weeds, animals, and autumn leaves. If we are to heal, to become happier and more buoyant, we need to discover the available resources for healing. We need to rediscover our natural environment, and to rediscover our identity as animals who live on the earth. This will take a bit of time each day spent outdoors paying attention to nature and your connection or interface with nature. The interface between you and nature is where your body and nature touch. • Take a fresh sprig of parsley and hold it against the center of your chest. Sit quietly with your eyes closed and pay attention to (feel) where you and the parsley meet. Afterward, notice your physical and emotional sensations. • Now, take that parsley and inhale its odor very deeply several times. Pause and note how you are feeling. • Lean your back against a tall, straight tree and pay attention to the place where you feel the bottom of your spine against the tree. Do this for about a minute and then take a walk. Pay attention to your physical sensations and your emotions. • When you are not feeling comfortable, possibly at the end of a workday, lie on your back on the ground for ten minutes. You may want to curl up after you do this. • Place a chair on the ground and sit so that only one foot touches the ground. Put all of your attention where you feel the sensations of that one foot touching the ground. Then walk and compare your feet. My students at The Institute of Light in Cleveland lie on the earth each morning. They take their pain, physical or emotional, to the earth or trees. They stand barefoot on the earth and learn how to accept her energies. They study gentleness by feeling her breezes. This, combined with learning how to deliberately open their hearts, causes their lives to improve, as do the lives of those about them. You can do these things also. I have invented nothing. This is your world, your mother, your healing source, your sacred home. Embrace it. Dr Grossman's new book, To Be Healed By The Earth, is available from <www.Amazon.com> or by telephoning The Institute of Light at (216) 371-5411.