[Mandy Bishop]

What a rich post, David! I appreciate hearing your transformative experiences that have occurred outside of EBI. It totally makes sense to me that the way in which you’ve experienced travel has been a long threshold experience.

This part of your post really stood out to me as something I can identify with and a part of what gives context to the power of accompanying a client through a threshold experience:
“Alone in threshold, it’s easy to glaze over a meaningful experience offering itself as a portal to further inquiry and growth. The parts of me afraid to change can dismiss an experience as insignificant. However, the skilled and trusted guide can offer a safe container to push through those barriers. The simple act of being asked the sacred question, or having a symbol reflected back in threshold, can solidify the validity of that portal inward which some parts may want to ignore. But the reflection by a guide can give enough attention and validity to the portal that the Soul can speak louder than the afraid parts and dive into exploring the meaning.”

I can really resonate with this especially having spent a significant amount of time exploring my questions through my own Medicine Walks and having had a couple powerful threshold experiences where I was accompanied by a guide. I know for myself, it is easier for me to glaze over or dismiss a symbol that could be incredibly significant. It really seems powerful and real to me that a guide reflecting back the symbols encountered could provide a safe ground to investigate further down the rabbit holes that we might not go down on our own.

[Mandy Bishop]

I’m thinking about dance and how it all relates to me and this process of discovery through nature connection. Before I really go into it, I feel like I need to have a sort of disclaimer about what I mean by “dance” because it can conjure up anxieties in many as they instantly begin to think “I can’t dance, I’ve got two left feet”, or “dance just isn’t my thing”. When I say dance I am not thinking of performance or beautiful, synchronized, graceful movements. Though all of those things might happen in the true dance of the soul, what I mean is movement that expresses from the innermost part of our beings out through our bodies. It is movement that gives shape to the truths deep within. It doesn’t necessarily look pretty, it may look messy, but it is truth and it is beautiful.

What’s coming up for me is that dance is a bridge, a connection to soul and to spirit. It’s as if the body can either be a barrier between soul and spirit, or it can be a doorway. We can go through so many experiences of living, of making it through childhood in this society, in a disconnected and isolated environment, just the experience of making it to where you find yourself today can put us into a state in which we are protecting ourselves (literally our Self and our cells) with our defenses up so strongly that the fence becomes thick and the mote wide and the shadow cast so huge that we can’t even see or hear or feel the soul any longer. The body becomes so rigid and stiff with its defending that parts of it even close off entirely. We are “protecting” ourselves so much that we actually move out of our bodies entirely and take up residence in the brain. We put our trust into the brain and shut down the body and close off to the whispers of the soul. But dance can be a way to open up those relationships yet again, those connections that we’ve become so closed from. Dance can be a doorway into soul, just as nature can. Perhaps, as ecopsychology points towards, as much as nature reflects to us our larger consciousness and psyche externally, dance reflects to us our inner consciousness, inner psyche and soul, that inner wilderness. I’m beginning to see that there is a sacred union between the two — inner, outer; soul, spirit; body, earth; dance, nature. Just as nature will give us symbols and metaphor for what is going on in our psyche that we may not yet be conscious of or be able to give words to, I find myself sometimes without words for what is happening inside, but able to make a shape of it or give it some expression through dance and movement.

I’m writing all of this out in a search for how dance ties into what we are doing with nature connected coaching because it is absolutely related for me, but the threads are not yet woven together. I was really struck by the ideas in this ecopsychology portion regarding the psyche, something we so often think of as contained within our own minds, as being completely interlinked with the entire natural world. “The psyche is rooted inside a greater intelligence…the psyche of the Earth herself that has been nurturing life in the cosmos for billions of years.” (Rozsak, Where Psyche Meets Gaia, p.16) There just seems to be something coming up that I have not fully unraveled yet about the interplay that dance, the body, movement have within the context of psyche, truth and soul, and I wanted to open it up for discussion.

[Mandy Bishop]

I’ve had a bit of difficulty and resistance to this week’s question and paper, not because I don’t agree or relate with ecopsychology. Actually, quite the opposite. Some of the readings, especially the content from Roszak, was incredibly moving and touched on a deep knowing in me. At times in reading the articles I felt as if someone else had been in my head and was writing out my own very thoughts.

I think what I’m having a bit of resistance to is not the content of the material at all, but (like Brian mentioned) the over-intellectualization of it, which seems somewhat counter to the subject matter itself. I even feel a bit of that very over-intellectualization in trying to write out this paper to post here. However, I am pushing through that to try to get my thoughts and feelings out on paper because I know it is helpful to my own process and to the group.

I was just outside on a night wander under the full moon and wandered down to a huge old cottonwood tree that is down near a lake on this country property I live on. The cottonwood has got four main branches that split out from each other, and in the middle of all the branches there is a place you can sit. I asked permission to enter and just stood there, held within the embrace of this huge grandmother tree. As I stood there, without even trying, I started to feel myself settle. I could feel my energy coming into the very center of my body. I could feel all of the cells of my body relax and become receptive. I felt myself attuning to the tree herself. Soon, I heard a prayer coming out of my mouth from my heart thanking this tree and all her relatives for their support, their nurturing, their unconditional love. I found myself beginning to weep as I apologized and grieved for the ways in which we humans have forgotten these tree people — how we’ve overlooked them, ignored them, used them without asking, and maimed them. And I asked this cottonwood if there was anything she or they needed from me. How can I give back to you? I sat down in the middle of the arms of this tree and waited. And listened. As I sat there I began to become enveloped by this almost overwhelming sensation of love. My chest and entire torso felt warm and open, and there was this incredible dual sensation of expansiveness and being held. Everything was alive and tingling. I realized then too that my breathing was slow and rhythmic, and I imagined that as I breathed out she was breathing in, and we were in this sort of intimate reciprocal exchange. And we just were like this — giving and receiving, seeing and listening to each other. And it was enough.

This experience to me encapsulates all that I read about for this section. It really is very simple for me — we are in relationship with all other beings on this planet and out in our solar system into the universe, and many of us have forgotten this. We are in large part humans that suffer from amnesia. This is part of the human condition in my opinion, and it has become increasingly exacerbated over the past century. Most of our society has grown incredibly detached from the Earth, from nature, and from any sort of notion that we are interconnected. Roszak, in Psyche and Nature in a circle of Healing states, “The problem of our day is an inner deadening, an increasingly deployed defense against the stresses of living in an overbuilt industrialized civilization saturated by intrusive advertising and media, unregulated toxic chemicals, unhealthy food, parasitic business practices, time-stressed living, and a heart-warping culture of perpetual war and relentlessly mindless political propaganda. No wonder so many of us disconnect, feel nothing, and resort to medication or other addictions, inflicting violence upon ourselves in an attempt to temporarily drown out external hostilities.” As a result of this detachment and even dissociation from the ground of our beings and from the living Earth, there has become an ever present feeling of NOT belonging. I think there is a strong sense that many have that they don’t belong anywhere or to anything. When I really feel into this, NOT belonging to something or to someone or to someplace removes you from any sense of responsibility to it. It is through connection and belonging, through relationship, that we begin to recognize our responsibility to that thing and that we feel a moral obligation to honor it and to tend to it.

I think ecopsychology is about re-orienting those that are suffering, lost, dissociated, confused, or detached towards that which we all know somewhere in our bones and breath — that we are a part of the living Earth, and that we indeed come from her along with all other beings on this planet. In Where Psyche Meets Gaia, Roszak states that “at its deepest level the psyche remains sympathetically bonded to the Earth that mothered us into existence.” I believe there is an ever present amount of resourcing we can tap into when we remember this and seek out support and relationship with her and the natural world. Part of what I am seeing as my role as guide is to help bridge the gap of remembrance between where we are as a society today, and where we have come from and must tend to. The great storyteller, Dr. Martin Shaw, talks about something he calls Bone Memory, which is a sort of primordial connection to something greater than ourselves and our own lives. Bone Memory is where you remember something deeper, where your remembrance is not tied up with what you’ve experienced in the walk of your particular life of however many years, but that is a larger deeper truth of our collective unconscious and the psyche of the living Earth. This is precisely what I think some of these articles allude to, and what part of the focus of ecopsychology is. To me, ecopsychology is not a new idea or a brilliant concept. It is the most ancient way of being and relating that has been remembered more recently by a few in the western world and has been presented in such a way that has garnered the approval of the scientific community.

As I stated above, these concepts and ways of relating with the natural world speak to my soul on such a deep and fundamental level, it’s almost difficult to break them down and analyze them for the purposes of this paper. It is a no brainer to me that “if the self is expanded to include the natural world, behavior leading to destruction of this world will be experienced as self destruction.” as stated in Where Psyche Meets Gaia (Roszak). I think a big part of the work that we are learning to do as guides is to help others to slow down, to learn to open and become receptive, to allow the flow and to trust in the messages received from nature and from the soul. To allow ourselves to open all of our cells to receive the love, the story and the answers that are just waiting to fill us from Spirit in nature. Martin Shaw says, “My mind is not contained in my head, but is part of the perocity of the forest.” We are one connected web all born from the same place. In opening ourselves up in this way, the self expands and begins to sense and feel the interconnectedness of ourselves with our natural world. This leads to relationship, which leads to a sense of belonging, which leads to a desire to serve, love and protect.

I truly believe that we have to fight for what we love, and I am fighting to acknowledge, serve and protect mother Earth. I believe that there is deep and profound healing that nature can provide for all of us in simply accepting us, holding us, breathing with us, modeling for us how to allow and trust in flow, and in giving us the love we so desperately desire. I see my role as guide to shine a light on the doorway to the unending availability of this healing, and I believe that once we receive that healing, we will find in ourselves not only a desire, but the capacity to serve and protect what gives us life — our most fundamental relationship. The guiding back towards remembering this most ancient relationship is a big part of my WHY for wanting to work with others in this nature-connected way.

[Mandy Bishop]

Kent,

I too can really relate to what you write about in your post regarding straddling two worlds, one of a sort of escape to the natural world which feels whole and cohesive, and the other a sort of messy and dismembered civilization. It is very disheartening for me to see how disconnected much of humankind is from nature and our roots and from the whole web of life. Reading through your post however, I felt such a sense of hopefulness and liberation. When you said, “I’ve slowly learned to accept my place in civilization and the ‘reality’ of everyday life. It exists. I can’t deny it or change it. And that includes people too of course. I can’t deny or change them. What I can do is deepen my relationship with nature, remember who I am, and live my life from the place of my soul.” I felt such a wave of empowerment in my own self reading this. It’s as if by you accepting your place in civilization and into the time and place you find yourself in in this life, and by you declaring what you can do within the relationship to yourself and your own soul, you are actually modeling and gifting and emanating that acceptance and that empowerment outwards to others… even through a thread on a post like this.

“What an exciting and empowering place to be in! I am honored to walk between these two worlds in hope that I will guide even one soul to their origin. Who knows what good that one soul will do for the world.” Also, BEAUTIFUL and I agree. Thank you!

[Mandy Bishop]

Kent, the part of your post that really resonated for me was when you bring up the notion that, no matter how disconnected we seem to become from nature and our natural cycles, some part of us always knows. That there is some part of us (possibly unconscious or asleep at times) that knows this interconnection and the threshold experience can bring us back into awareness of that, ultimately bringing us back into contact with our own soul’s natural voice.

“The threshold provides the space to move within the cycle and attune to the moment where I can hear the soul speak. Even the best coach cannot be substitute for nature’s unfiltered reflection of myself and visa versa.”

This points to that element of what we are learning through EBI that the coach does not contain any answers for the client, but that the answers lie solely with nature — the nature of the soul of which nature’s reflection helps us to regain contact with.

[Mandy Bishop]

Thank you Hannah for sharing your thoughts on threshold — I got a lot out of reading your post and hearing your insights. There were several sections that I really resonated with, but this one in particular:

“I imagine that they may benefit from, like I needed in my process, being reminded that these symbols are real, and meaning-making isn’t a negative thing in this space; on the contrary, making meaning in the threshold is most of what it’s all about.”

I have only had one non-EBI practice client so far, but I realized in that experience that it was part of my job as coach to create space for and affirm for my client that nature really truly is a co-collaborater in this process and that symbolism can and does hold much meaning when we have the eyes to see it. It felt like part of the container I was creating was to allow for and encourage my client to go into dreamtime, into the power of the nature threshold, and — like a child would — see everything and allow for meaning-making from absolutely anything that held a charge or a spark.

[Mandy Bishop]

Beautiful Kaity! I picked out the same quote as Kent that really resonated with me from your post, and also that threshold “allowed me to realize that it’s not always about living in alignment with what’s comfortable, but living in alignment with what is deep and real.” Wow, so true for me as well!

This is part of what stands out for me so much in what can be so transformative about threshold — that we are entering environments in which parts of ourselves and our deeper needs can be acknowledged, tended to and met. And I would guess that many times these are parts that have been ignored or quieted for a long time which can be totally uncomfortable to then greet and allow for. But, these shut away parts will not go away no matter how much we try to ignore them, and will most likely grow and become a wedge between living our most authentic lives — so allowing for them, moving with the current and going with the grain of our souls — what could be more precious than that!

[Mandy Bishop]

Hannah,

I so appreciate your vulnerable and genuine summary post. And I also very much appreciate having a full spectrum of personalities and modes of thinking within our group! It’s funny, the more I read other people’s posts, the more I’ve been seeing the benefit of the intellectualization that these articles present. Though I am naturally a right-brained person, I can see such value in being able to articulate clearly everything that we are feeling and experiencing in our experiences on the land. I imagine that within my coaching practice I will be meeting with all sorts of individuals that I will need to be able to meet wherever they are at, with whatever way thinking and reasoning they default to.

[Mandy Bishop]

Wow! This archetype feels really related to this entire discussion on ecopsychology, particularly noting the difference between two different states of being, stating “In one sense, our suffering comes from the constant drive to do, to fix things, to create success for ourselves.” And, “The love of the Great Heart is not emotional, but neither does it feel abstract or impersonal. It is a palpable sense of being held, embraced and seen. The Bhuvaneshwari Shakti can open us to the felt experience that we are part of all that is.” Thanks for sharing this Kaity!

[Mandy Bishop]

Also, YESSSS! Coyote… following and trusting your inner knowing… the elements, and seeing and loving your doubt!?! So wonderful!!

[Mandy Bishop]

David,

This quote really stood out to me as just being totally spot on: ” Relationship and responsibility to the Earth and to one’s own psyche are seldom connected in today’s world. I believe the disconnect of the two resides in one’s estrangement from one’s Soul. Deep listening to oneself, others, and to the Earth is dependent on a relationship with Soul, because Soul shares kinship with Nature and all beings.” Totally agree with you here and this is so well stated. It’s as if Soul is the thread that joins everything together or is in true resonance with all other beings/souls, so this work of awareness and connecting and listening to the soul is the most important thing we, or any of our clients, could be doing at this time. At least, that’s how it feels to me.

[Mandy Bishop]

Kaity,

Thank you for sharing so authentically in your post. I can totally relate to what you describe. What struck me in reading your post is that you seem to be tapped into and present with exactly what is happening for you internally, in your inner world, which seems to me to be precisely what the desired outcome would be of ecopsychology — to be able to read and be aware of your inner landscape. I appreciate your thoughts and feelings, and your willingness to let it be what it is at this time. That seems like such a valuable step towards NOT forcing, NOT efforting towards an outcome, but engaging with the flow and with what is.

[Mandy Bishop]

Kent,

I really appreciate your sentiments about the difference between operating on information only versus having a felt experience. This quote stood out to me: “Herein lies the gap; human beings do not change based on information. Right now, as I type this, humanity is at a peak of its ability to obtain more information than ever previously known. As a species we know more about everything, and that information is literally at our fingertips, yet we continue to destroy one another and the planet. The unfortunate thing is that we cannot make someone VALUE anything solely based on information. The information must be combined with experience (enter Nature-Connected Coaching).”

This sentiment also stood out to me: “The nature connection cannot fall short. I can on the other hand. If I operate too much out of my head or my own agenda, then I will cause to weaken the delicate thread my client has begun to weave into their lives.” To me, this speaks directly to that idea of operating too much from an information standpoint (the brain) rather than from an experience standpoint (engaging the senses and the body).

[Mandy Bishop]

Brian,

I totally resonate with this quote: “I simply want to guide people to a deeper connection to Nature and to Soul, thus allowing a life lived with purpose and passion. If I can help guide my clients to this deeper connection, then their devotion to help heal the earth, and their relationships will naturally unfurl.”

It is such a simple and clear desire and concept–one that I feel we have known deeply for thousands of years but have forgotten in the past few hundred years. This is such a clear and simple and noble “why” for what we are doing as coaches.

I also felt a little bit of frustration with the over-intellectualization of these articles which to me seemed to be a symptom of the exact type of thinking that can disconnect us so much. I really appreciate your statement about the quote from Roszak “Once upon a time all psychology was ‘ecopsychology’. This says it so clearly. Our culture makes things so technical that we lose connection. It doesn’t need to be that complicated. In my opinion these articles over intellectualize the idea of connection to Nature and Soul. Things just seemed to get watered-down and convoluted.”

[Mandy Bishop]

Hannah,

Yes, TOTALLY! I really resonated with your description of traversing through the seemingly different worlds of nature/wilderness and civilization/travel, and the realization that they are all “nature”. I am on the same page with you in coming to that realization and that it all comes down to our ability to deeply listen to whatever landscape we find ourselves in at any given moment, and our ability to sense baseline shifts as well. You encapsulated this beautifully with this sentiment: “a connection to nature is one that is all-encompassing and ever-occurring. This seems to come down to awareness and allowance in my interpretation. My connection to nature looks like cultivating a practice of seeing the nature in everything, and letting it be as it is without judgment. Whether I’m in the forest, observing the patterns of lichen and the effect of wind through the trees, or on a city bus observing the energetic reactions of people to an act of kindness or an act of distress, nature is always unfolding, and the shift of one being affects the state of all beings.”

I also really appreciate how you bring up the topic of control and surrender. This is something I am also really working with and notice much more clearly when I’m connecting with nature. This quote in particular really stood out to me as why it is so very important to be able to observe and bring awareness to these two elements in our coaching work: “As coaches, if we can tap into this mindful place of listening intently without the goal of changing or fixing our clients, they will have the space and support they need to address the issues that are surfacing to create the change for themselves. By giving up control over the outcome of our clients’ work, we are both modeling presence and connection to self and the greater forces at play, while allowing the nature of their process to move as it needs to.”