[John]

<div>SUMMARY POST – Nature Connection can be defined as an interaction with Nature that takes one to a deep level of awareness that is free from the normal(?) everyday mind chatter we all experience. It is a state of being characterized by feelings of awe and reverence, free from the steady stream of technological distractions that modern life has become. As John Miles put it in Wilderness As Healing Place, to connect with Nature is to “… tap a spiritual dimension of the human experience…”. Or as Theodore Roszak has said, a connection with wilderness “…abandons the office, the city, the clock in favor of a setting that more closely corresponds to the natural habitat that has always been used by traditional cultures for healing the troubled soul.” (T. Roszak, Preface to Steven Harper, The Way of Wilderness). Nature Connection re-awakens a component of self which in most of us has long laid dormant.</div><div>

Gary Snyder, quoted by Steven Harper in The Way of Wilderness, has written that “… a culture that alienates itself from the very ground of its own being–from wilderness outside (that is to say, wild nature, the wild, self-contained, self-informing ecosystems) and from that other wilderness within–is doomed to a very destructive behavior, ultimately perhaps self-destructive behavior.” We see the signs of this every day; our self-destructive behavior is catching up with us. But we cannot heal the planet until we heal ourselves. This is where we as Nature-Connected coaches/guides come in; through our own connected relationships with Nature, we have the knowledge and tools necessary to lead others toward a deeper, more soulful interaction withe our Earth Mother. In the process clients learn to cultivate their own connected relationships with Nature in order to find answers to the deeper questions confronting them in life and to heal long-buried emotional scars. They develop a more spiritual connection to Nature. As a natural result of this transformation our collective relationship with Nature and our planet–the only home we know–will begin to change for the better.

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[John]

Sorry about the format garbage in my post. Not sure how that happened; it didn’t show up on my original. Next time I will change my font…

It was good to read all of your posts. Toni, I love your first paragraph describing the status quo in mainstream America. That’s what we’re up against, but it feels good to be on a path that addresses that situation, one person at a time as you say.

Cici, I like what you say about trees. I love trees, too. I often go up to a tree and put my cheek and ear up against it. There’s a stoic energy there, like Tony says, “nature gets everything done but doesn’t require a frenetic schedule, a long to do list or exhaustion to do so.” Trees just do their thing, quietly and without complaint. I am fascinated by their ability to go dormant for months out of the year. Even more by the ability of seeds to be dormant for years!

For what it’s worth, my take on the John Miles article Wilderness as Healing Place is that activities designed to be conducted in a natural setting would most likely fall short if practiced in a gymnasium, meaning that the success of those activities when performed in Nature is directly attributable to being tuned into Nature itself, not the content of the activity.

[John]

<font face=”Calibri, sans-serif”>I have
tried to think back to my earliest conscious experiences of being
truly connected to Nature. One event when I was about 7 or 8 years
old comes to mind. It took place on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where
my grandmother lived. Most summers my little brother and I were
shipped off there from our home in New Orleans because of an
extremely dysfunctional home life. My grandmother’s property was
about 4 acres in size and was situated right on the shores of the
Gulf of Mexico. The house (they called it a “cottage”; it was
listed on the National Register if Historic Places as were most of
the other houses along that stretch of coast) sat back from the water
but there was a good view of the water. Behind the house was a
smaller structure that reputedly had at one time been either slave
quarters or an ice house, maybe both over time, depending on who you
talked to. That little cabin is where we stayed when visiting my
grandparents. So we had pretty much free reign of the place when we
were there, only being called into ‘the Big House’ mostly for meals
and socializing. We were allowed to walk down to the beach to a
neighbor’s pier to fish. I loved to fish and I spent countless hours
on the end of that pier. The experience I’m about to relate took
place when I was alone one morning at the end of the pier just before
sunrise. I had baited my fishing pole and was sitting quietly at the
end of the pier, looking south, out to sea. The sea was calm and
flat. When Sun’s rim first peaked over the horizon my attention
turned to the east. I remember to this day the orange glow of Sun
washing over me as it grew higher and higher above the horizon. It
was huge! I could feel it’s warmth, and I remember being surrounded
in such a still, sacred silence. I felt changed at that moment. I
felt I was being bathed in Peace. It was as if Sun was telling me “I
am here with you; all is well; there is more to this life than you
know.” The image is to this day crystal clear in my mind and I have
never forgotten that experience. </font>

<font face=”Calibri, sans-serif”>So for
me, being connected to Nature is different than having contact with
Nature. Nature Connection is much deeper than simply inserting
oneself into a natural setting. There has to be an interaction with
Nature that takes one to a deeper level than just physically being
there. Nature connection is </font>

<font face=”Calibri, sans-serif”>a
collection of feelings, a
state of being; not a bag of
outdoor activities. It is characterized by feelings awe and reverence
for the world around us. Some would go so far as to say there is a
divine component to it.</font>

<font face=”Calibri, sans-serif”>All
of us are naturally connected to Nature; it’s our birthright. But
the “use it or lose it” principle applies here. The demands of
modern urban/suburban culture take many of us away from any kind of
meaningful interaction with Nature. For many of us, our inherent
link to Nature wastes away from lack of use. This is where NC
coaching comes in. Through a collaboration with Nature, along with
transformational guide work, we as professional life coaches are able
to help rekindle the inherent spark of nature connection which lies
dormant in so many of us. Once that flame is re-ignited, we can
point out to our clients the way toward finding answers in Nature.
In the process, we promote self-confidence and self-reliance. It’s
like opening a new doorway for the client to pass through. In this
way, the Nature Connected coach is more than just a coach; he/she
becomes a tranformational guide.</font>

<font face=”Calibri, sans-serif”>The
beauty of the Nature-Connection coaching model is that it applies to
any type of professional coaching because in all cases the client is
guided to find their own answers, to make their own changes, through
nurturing a deep connection with Nature.</font>

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[John]

Hi Hannah, I enjoyed your post. It’s so true what you say about everything in the ‘container of nature’ (“birds, trees, plants, bugs”) start to become more a part of your awareness, and: “They seem to share information and come at the perfect timing to share its wisdom and lesson…”. Isn’t that the truth?!! Perfect timing, indeed! It’s almost spooky how that works; uncanny.

[John]

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<font face=”Times New Roman, serif”>Joy,
you hit right on what I was writing about in my recent comment to
Lindsay when you wrote, <font size=”2″>“</font>Remembering
to take that feeling [of nature connection] into the present moment
and keeping that connection through everyday life stresses is true
connection in my eyes. Yes! I think that is the goal for us going
forward, to learn to maintain a constant conscious connection to
Nature 24-7, where it becomes a way of life, a way of Being. I also
chuckled at your concept of ‘neutral amusement’ in regard to baseline
changes. Ha Hah! What a great way to deal with flies and mosquitoes!
Thanks for your post! </font>

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[John]

<font face=”Times New Roman, serif”><font size=”2″>Lindsay,
I like your reference to Alan Watts in The Way of Wilderness:
“You didn’t come into this
world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a
stranger here.” You then wrote “To know this is to be connected
to nature. To feel this and realize this is exhilarating and
comforting. It’s a sense of belonging, as an element of nature
itself, on and with this planet.” Gosh, I know exactly what you are
talking about. There are times when I am down and find myself
somewhere on my farm or in some other natural setting—not
deliberately having gone there to try to have a re-connection or to
deal with my issue—but it will hit me like a big gong going off: I
feel that sense of belonging and it is indeed exhilarating and
comforting. Then I realize that the connection has been there all
along at a soulful level and that it’s really the mental me that has
simply blocked it. Thinking about this now and how it relates to
what Michael and Daniel were telling us on the mountain, I realize
that the Nature-Connected state, with practice, can become constant;
the switch can be “On” all the time, even when we are not in a
pristine natural setting. After all—as we’ve said before—we are
Nature, and Nature is everywhere, even in the heart of the concrete
jungle. We just need to remember that connection is always there
within us. Thanks for bringing that out.
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