My experience in nature shows me that I am person who gets good feelings when I smell, see, and touch a newly bloomed flower. I am attracted to the beautiful vibrant colors and the softness of of petals. The smell is sweet and clean. It makes me feel I am a blooming flower inside, opening up to the world around me.
For this activity, I was attracted to my front yard. I have a small flowerbed where irises and day lilies come up every year. One day lily had just bloomed this morning, and I was very drawn to its vibrant orange bloom. The contrast of green and orange and red is magnificent. I silently asked permission to sit and touch and smell the day lily. I felt permission was granted, so I sat down on the ground and began to think attraction over and over. I put my nose to the flower. It tickled me on the nose with its red stamen. I closed my eyes and touched a petal, it was very soft. I sat for a moment, just lightly touching the petal feeling the energy of the flower. My body relaxed, and I entered a feeling of calm serenity. I sat that way for awhile, feeling the texture and temperature of the flower, lightly caressing the cool softness with my finger tips. Then I opened my eyes and drank in the wonderful color. I felt energized, and happy, after about 5 minutes of just watching the flower. A small bug alighted on a petal and I remember thinking the air I breathe out helps this plant and bug to live, just as the air, plants and bugs help me to live. My emotions for this beautiful lily, are love and care. Flowers grow every year, from bulbs in the earth, into wonderful bright beautiful green, red, and orange plants. They are changing and growing every second . I am changing and growing every second also. The world we are in, the lives we lead, it is all change and interaction. We all depend upon each other in the web of life. This is how earth speaks to me.
“In moments when we focus ourselves on our natural attractions to nature, we make sensory contact with the earth community network and our origins there. ” (p. 62)
I learned the activity statement itself is nine leg thinking, because I can trust the elements in the words used to build the statement. These words are verbal expressions of my non verbal feelings and senses, my natural attractions.
My senses of color, textures, temperature, and touch are very strong natural attractions.
“Our senses are ancient non verbal “inventions” of, by, and from nature” (P.62)
Everything in nature connects, interconnects, links, relies, depends, on everything else. It is truly a web of life
I would feel depressed if I could not see, smell, feel, and love the beautiful color and form of the day lily, if I were not allowed to touch it, and feel the softness of its petals against my finger tips it would be a loss to me. If I could not feel relaxed, calm and happy, life would be very stressful.
My sense of self worth is enhanced now that I think of myself as a blooming flower, changing and growing, resting and replenishing, blooming as beautiful and colorful in my life as a citizen of Earth.
“We are in dire need of contact with each other and with other living things” (P. 63, Dr. Mark Germaine) This is an attractive statement to me because it is true, and I trust it as a feeling, a natural attraction. I know in my body that it is true. I feel the need to be in contact with nature, now more than ever. To feel the wind against my skin, to touch a flower, to watch animals feeding and scurrying about their lives, to hear birds sing and chirp, water rushing and waves lapping at the shore. To see and sense motion, to feel the rain, and its cool wetness soaking my skin. These experiences invigorate me and awaken my senses to everything around me. I feel the need to connect with, and have contact with other people. These are natural attractions our society denies with our dis connections. I have identified inside and outside myself that conscious contact with other living things has been lacking in my life, until recently, and is a general lack in our society.
Tabitha C.; “As I left work, I had moved strongly into 5-leg thinking. I thought the rain would prevent me from doing this activity and felt hopeless and negative. Then I realized through my 4-leg senses that I love being out in the rain. As the rain falls it brings a sense of purity to the environment. It creates life and gives strength for nature to bloom. I love how it feels on my skin and it washes and purifies me. I sit paying attention to the silence. No birds sing nor crickets. Not even the wind disturbs this moment. We as a society are so used to being separate from nature that we consider this normal and we are now comfortable with our dis-comfort. Something that provides healing, hope and a sense of peace is so unfamiliar to us that we fear it and are unable to recognize its true value.”
Kathy G response; “This kind of experience seems to be happening to me a lot now, I get all caught up in the 5 -leg woes of my life and problems, and the I think, wait there is something I can do! Smell a flower, take a walk, touch a tree, and it always seems to help now. Even if I feel extremely stressed about something, if I take the time to go outside and stand in my yard for a few minutes, I begin to feel calm.”
Kathy G. response to Sassona B; “Sony, I like what the tree teaches you! I think I will visit some trees today. I sure could use these qualities in myself right now! This is wonderful, that you felt the energy of Willow, and the energy stayed with you! So refreshing! This is an attractive statement to me "We are adaptable, so the hopeful thing about this exposure idea, is that when we do build more awareness about the benefit of being out of doors, and we begin to experience it more, we could then learn to like it more until eventually the natural story would become the default." -Sassona B Because it is just the way I feel and think about it all. I feel like I need to bond more with nature now, and as it is becoming a familiar practice for me, I am preferring to do so more and more. I have always gone to sit in my backyard, when the weather is nice, not freezing or storming. I never knew why I did this, I just felt a need to. Now I understand natural attractions in me are wanting to re-connect with the web of life.”
The value of doing summary option C, is that it shows me I can think in connection with nature. The words used in the activity statement “My experiences in nature show me I am a person who gets good feelings from” are verbal words, expressing non verbal attractions, senses, and feelings. The words help me to consciously seek contact with nature, and my natural attractions, my feelings to be near, feel, sense, see, hear, touch, love, and care, help me make conscious sensory connections within the web of life.
Integrating thoughtful, trust-able words, and real true feelings and senses into my thinking, helps me to consciously connect in nature.
I am a blooming flower, like a flower I change and grow.
I trust my webstrings, and the good feelings I get when I re -connect in nature. I have more confidence and trust in my nonverbal feelings and senses, and in being able to connect them with verbal thoughts. My 9-leg thinking is strengthening.
I am attracted to the fact that we are born with the inherited ability from nature to sense, feel think and learn through webstrings. Earth teaches me that I am the immediate moment.
For this activity I went to the beach on the lake that I live on. It was a quiet day with no people or boaters. I was not feeling well as I had been sick with bronchitis. I felt attracted to laying in the sun on the sand for healing energy. While I was there I began to contemplate the question, who am I really?
As I lay there I became aware of my attractions to the sound of water gently lapping the shore, and the birds chirping in the trees all around. I felt the warmth of the sun on my skin and at the same time the breeze of wind gently cooling me. I looked up and felt the tree I was laying under was waving its branches at me. My thinking mind was running, so I began to jam my mind with one word, as I read about on the website. I used love. I closed my eyes and very gradually my awareness was attracted to every little sound all around me, a dog barking in the distance, people talking somewhere, insects chirping and buzzing around, water lapping the shore, leaves rustling in the wind, birds flying overhead. I felt and sensed I am alive and energized. I sensed a tingling in the back of my head and it spread down my whole body and made me feel energized, like I would imagine a small electrical current might feel. I love this sensation, it feels good. I opened my eyes I noticed a small grasshopper had parked next to me on the blanket. It must have been attracted to me. I lay next to the grasshopper just feeling its presence next to me. When he hopped away, I sat up and looked at the trees across the lake, I can see the energy aura all around them, they seemed to be glowing with life. I reached into the sand and felt the course grainy texture. I am tiny like a grain of sand, I am clear and cool like the water. I am alive in all of life, and there is only this moment right now. I am animal, vegetable, mineral, water. I am the energy of life, and it feels good to be alive and this is true. I can sense and feel my surroundings and I can connect my inner nature to all of nature, because I was born with this ability.
Section 2:
During my visit to the beach I felt love for the sun, wind, water, trees, and sounds of life. I touched stones and rocks that I was attracted to, I love their rough and smooth surfaces. I was attracted to wade into the water to cool down. I love water because it is clear, cool, strong and powerful. I love burying my toes in the sand and feeling the grains on my skin. The concert of nature around me is beautiful and full of life. I do trust the feelings and sensations that ecosystems convey to me. My love for this natural area and all of the webstring attractions is more true than 2+2=4 to me. I feel and sense all of life around and inside myself and this is a sensory learned truth, not a story learned truth like mathematics is. I am attracted helping myself and others learn to think in globally balanced ways, and to live in greater peace and responsibility with myself, society, and nature.
Section 3
For this activity I visited the park down the street. The park has a natural area to walk through on trails. The trails are very nice, and the area is natural and attractive to me. I have been walking there for years. I felt attracted to the park, once I got there and began walking on the trail, I could not get the sound of the traffic on the road across the lake to fade. I was attracted to sit on a bench in the middle of the woods near a small pond and observe the blue dragonfly's flitting about. I love how they hover around plants. I was attracted to the motion of the water and the sunlight glinting on it. I was attracted to the frog singing in the pond. All of this made me feel good and I began to hear all of the life around me, and feel a small sense of relaxation, yet the roar of trucks and cars would not leave my consciousness. I became aware that this bothered me because it reminded me of what our 5 leg thinking stories have done to our world, and how our perception of the natural world has been changed by stories. We seem to think it is OK to keep on the way we have been even though we are know we have gone to far as a society. The lies that tell us to dominate conquer and abuse our home. The body of the organism we live in! We are told its OK to pollute, destroy, abuse, control, dominate, manipulate, and conquer nature. We are told it is OK to do this to our own, and each others physical, mental and emotional bodies. And we do it, because these are the escapes the lies provide for us. We are hurt inside because of our disconnection, from nature. By being socialized into the 5 leg story world, we are taught to think with our logic and reason, and not with our senses and feelings, our natural intuitions, attractions, and loves. I believe the attractions and connections that I did sense in the park activated my 9 leg thinking and sense of reason, because I became aware of all of this as I was sitting on the bench in the park. I was aware and attracted to the warm sun, the sense of peace, and community in the trees, plants, animals ,the sounds around me, and the color and motion of the water and the dragonfly's, I also became aware of the sounds of traffic which brought my attention to my awareness of the damage our excessive use of gas and oil does to our Earth. I decided to leave and go to a more naturally attractive place.
Section 4:
I went hiking near the river, and my first attraction was to the sound and motion of the water rushing over the rocks. I climbed off the trail and down to the river to stand there watch and listen. I was immediately attracted to a cluster of wild yellow irises. Their color and how they seemed to be growing right out of the water was beautiful. I felt drawn to go to them, but my sense of reason told me it was dangerous, because it was almost a cliff face. So I climbed up to the trail and continued. I got hot from the sun, so I was very attracted to the river. It looked, smelled, and sounded so cool and inviting. I followed a small trail off the main one, and it led me to beautiful spot on the bank of the river. I sat down on the warm stones and just relaxed to the sound of the river rushing by. I felt peaceful and as I looked around I began to notice motions and sensations all around me, trees everywhere on the banks of the river waving and swaying with the wind, plants and beautiful colorful flowers. Insects crawling on the stones, birds landing nearby for a drink of the river and a snack of insects. Birds flying and flowing gracefully in the sky. Colors seemed to be brighter, the air smelled fresh and clean The sense of being hot from the sun and the attraction to go into the river to cool down. Which is what I did, and I felt the power of the water rushing over me, pulling me. The water cold against my skin felt so good and refreshing. My sense of balance kicked in urging me to balance against the surge of the water pulling and pushing me. My attraction was to stay balanced and in place, rather than let the water pull me over the rocks. The river moves so swiftly it is very strong and powerful. It is alive. I am alive, everything is alive and connected. I left the river and sat on the warm stones to dry. I felt at peace and like I had everything I needed at the moment. I felt and sensed energy in myself, and all around me in the living world. My natural attraction is to preserve these natural areas, so they do not become polluted and destroyed. I know earth is a wisely balanced living organism and identifying it that way does make a difference in how I think, feel, act, and relate. I have become more conscious of the damage being inflicted upon Earth. We kill earth a little more each day because of our disconnected thinking, our bonding to the words and stories, images that we are fed everyday, messages our leaders send .The stories that our leaders tell us about what we must do that further destroys our earth, our natural ecosystems, and continues to change our perceptions of our natural environment and our natural webstring connections. They have led us to believe that we can use anything we please to make ourselves comfortable, that we can deplete our natural resources because earth is just a thing to exploit and use to our gain and satisfaction. I can no longer identify earth as a dead natural resource, because it is not and never has been. Earth, and every living organism in her, including us, needs to be treated with respect and love.
Section 5:
By spending time at the river and walking the trails, exploring my natural attractions to water, warmth, coolness, trees, flowers, plants, breezes, birds, animals, insects I become aware that my psyche holds the stories that say I need to make money to survive, that I have to drive a car, power it with gas and oil, heat with gas, throw my trash out (to where?) drink polluted water, take pills for pain, live in a trailer, and that I should strive to work hard to make money to buy more things. Truly nature provides everything I need to survive, if I had never known modern society I would survive in nature because my natural sensory attractions, my webstrings would naturally let me know and learn, sense and feel what to do, and how to be. I have been socialized by industrial society, telling me over and over, that their ways are true reality. This has made me in effect not free, and cut me off from nature. Until now, I am realizing this as I sit near the river feeling and sensing the greatness and love of it all. The changing, moving, growing, living river of life right before my eyes, in and around me. I am changing now, and believe and trust the webstring connections I am making. I am attracted to 9 leg thinking. We, as a society, learn to relate and know nature through the stories of our nature conquering society. We spend most of our lives indoors being taught that nature is dirty and bad, must be controlled, contained, and used for our gains. The rewards that are given to comply, the monetary gain, to consume material possessions and the escapes provided for us. We are so dominated as a society that we actually believe it is OK to keep going on like this. We consume, buy, waste, throw away, and pretty much base our lives and existence on the lie of material possession, and gain being important to our survival. Our survival depends on keeping our bodies healthy, including the planetary body we live in, Earth. The lies we are socialized to believe as truth about conquering, taming, and using up natural resources is destroying our thinking and our natural world, it is killing our individual bodies and the body of Earth. People are sick, and mentally ill, depressed, killing themselves, and each other, we fight wars constantly and kill each other. The earths atmosphere, biosphere, is being destroyed by our pollutions. The natural ecosystems of earth are being disrupted by our actions. We all have natural attractions, webstring connections inside of us to heal. Earth can heal from the damage we have inflicted upon her. The ecosystems can naturally balance , recycle and purify themselves, but humans, the supposedly most intelligent life on this earth, must change the way we think and act in relation to nature. We as a culture need to realize we are part of nature, we live in nature, and when we destroy natural areas and ecosystems and extinct other species we are also destroying our selves. We need to naturally balance, recycle, and purify ourselves! I am realizing this now, and wanting to take more action, and start living a more balanced responsible life in connection with nature. It is time humanity realizes that nature is intelligent, and is our natural sensory way to learn and exist. When we do, we can begin to restore balance in ourselves, and facilitate healing of our natural environments. Not enough people know about this way to change their thinking. I am attracted to helping people become more aware that we are part of nature, and that we can know the world differently than what we have been (are being) taught. We can create a more sustainable, globally balanced, nature friendly way of living by connecting with, and loving our natural surroundings, because we will take care of what we love. I am attracted to taking better care of my self, and earth, because of my love for nature. I trust what earth teaches me.
Thoughtful contemplation: The swing, A nature connecting activity
July 6, 2010
"I am grounded, balanced and centered. I take time to renew myself by connecting with the energy of Earth. I connect in some way with nature every day."
Several years ago, while living in Alabama it was my daily habit to sit on my swing in the back yard.I would do this every morning after returning home from my 3rd shift job, and getting my kids and spouse off on their day. I felt needed this time to relax before sleep. On one of these occasions I recall experiencing the profound realization that earth is alive, a living breathing, vibrating, conscious organism. I had never been taught this notion nor noticed it in my consciousness before this moment.
Sitting there enjoying the smells of fresh dew and honeysuckle in the morning breeze, feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin, all of a sudden I became aware. Colors intensified, the trees, grass, and bushes seemed a brighter green, the sky bluer, the shadows deeper. I could feel the ground, Earth moving, breathing, pulsating with life and vibrations in and around me. What seemed most intense in this experience were the sounds. Birds, insects, frogs, all of the hum of life around me, I suddenly sensed inside me, filling my being with the rhythm of the music of life. Like I was part of a concert. It was as though I was connected to all life and it to me. I remember thinking Wow! What a new way to feel! Everything is alive, and I am in it all. Earth is alive! I felt joy and wonder.
I was not taught any of this, or to sit in my back yard to relax by a class, book, or person. I now realize it was a natural attraction, a webstring connection that led me to experience the rewards of peace, stress and tension release, clarity of thought, and deep relaxation. I knew inherently that connecting in this way would help me to feel better, more relaxed and peaceful.“ I go to Nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order” John Burroughs
Remembering this experience, allows me to recognize that I do have inborn, intact webstrings, that my inner nature has the ability to register and retain, attractive sensory connections in nature. I experienced these sensations and feelings, I did not think them. This happened 12 years ago, yet I can still clearly recall how and what I felt.
The most important things I learned from this chapter are that even the attractions that we experience as non- attractions such as the pain, fear, stress, are webstrings. At the time, I was deeply depressed, having mental health issues, stress, fear, and pressure in my marriage, financial and personal health. I was in pain mentally, physically, and emotionally. These attractive warning messages are what led me to seek more rewarding natural attractions. Clearly the more rewarding attraction I sought was the release of dopamine in my brain. The feel good attraction to the surrounding nature in my backyard.
Nature encouraged me to do this, my webstring attractions are what drew me to sit in my backyard every day that I could for the better part of 2 years.
While enjoying this connection, without realizing it,(until now) my sense of self worth, self esteem and self confidence were enhanced to the point that I had the courage and ability to make positive changes in my life, such as leaving the abusive relationship I was in. If these webstring connections were taken from me I would be depressed and devastated. Looking back, I now feel that “ relaxing in my backyard” was a catalyst for positive changes in my thinking and actions.
I have re educated my self to my feeling inside, by recalling this experience, that “God/Goddess” is Nature and everything in Nature, including me is “God/Goddess” because “God/Goddess” is a Natural Attraction Energy. “ I believe in God, only I spell it Nature” Frank Lloyd Wright. This brings to mind my early studies of religions, and the Gospel of Thomas in the collection of Gnostic Gospels, and how it impacted my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about God and Nature.
The Gospel of Thomas shows little or no concern for orthodox religious concepts and doctrines. The Gospel of Thomas emphasizes direct and unmediated experience. In Thomas saying 108, Jesus says, "Whoever drinks from my mouth will become as I am; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him."
The teaching of salvation (i.e., entering the Kingdom of Heaven) that is found in The Gospel of Thomas is neither that of "works" nor of "grace" as the dichotomy is found in the canonical gospels, but what might be called a third way, that of insight. The overriding concern of The Gospel of Thomas is to find the light within in order to be a light unto the world. 1
G Th 77: Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all; from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."
This is, by far, the closest parallel between John and Thomas. In this passage Thomas comes very close to the Stoic natural theology which saw the revelation of the divine in everynatural phenomenon.2
I realize these are teachings of man, and man made words of the intellect, yet they did, and still do, hold a powerful insight for me that “God is everywhere in Nature.”
I feel I am as connected as anything else, and that “This connection with nature is a webstring that attracts me to regenerate and recycle my thinking.”
The value I found in summary option A is in realizing I am a naturally sensory being, and the sensory contact I felt in the attractions to smells, textures, colors, light, sounds, and motions, provided the rewards I obtained during my visits to the backyard. I am hopeful and grateful that these experiences will continue to repeat in my life.
“In feeling and sensing the inner-connectedness of all life, my relationships with myself, my fellow beings and Earth are strengthened.”
In conclusion I trust my intact inborn ability, my webstrings, to have, register, and retain natural attraction experiences through sensory contact in nature. It is real and trustable. I am attracted to reconnecting webstrings that have been cut or damaged, by the way I have been conditioned to think. I sense my inner nature allows me to understand and feel that I am nature, and nature is a fact of my life.
Funk, Robert Walter and Roy W. Hoover, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? the Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, Polebridge Press, 1993
2 THE GNOSTIC SOCIETY LIBRARY The Gospel of Thomas Collection Essays and Academic Articles Online, Johannine Sayings in the Gospel of Thomas:The Sayings Traditions in their Environment of First Century Syria
by Alexander Mirkovic, Ph.D. student in New Testament and Early Christianity GRADUATE DEPARTMENT OF RELIGION VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY Fall, 1995
All quotations from the Bible are from the Revised Standard Version and from: Bible Works for Windows, Hermeneutika, Computer Bible Research Software, Seattle 1993.
All quotation from the Gospel of Thomas are by Marvin Meyer.
I am taking a course on Re-connecting with Nature at Project Nature Connect The above is an activity from the website Tags:
In balance with nature, a nature re-connecting activity
June 5, 2010
I was sad and feeling a little stressed at the prospect of my oldest daughter and grandson moving to Georgia. I live in Michigan and do not have a lot of money for travel, so the thought of not seeing them makes me feel anxious and sad. I had just finished talking to my youngest daughter, who lives in Alabama, and whom I miss very much. I became upset while telling her that her sister and nephew were moving. I even started to cry.
I chose this time to do the activity In balance with earth, because I had reviewed it just prior to our conversation. I walked to the lake I live near and sat on the grass at the waters edge underneath a budding bush. I thanked the natural attraction energies for attracting me to this spot then I asked silently for permission to visit this area including the water and the earth. It was very windy and cloudy as a storm was moving in, yet the minute I asked for permission, the sun broke through the clouds and warmed my face. I felt that permission had been granted, and further I began to feel calmed and less sad and stressed at the thought of my daughters impending move. I silently thanked the area, water, bush, earth, grass for allowing me to visit and do this activity there. I relaxed there for another 10 minutes or so, enjoying the sound of the waves and wind and the birds singing. It seems that all the sounds and feelings became amplified, like the birdsong was clearer and stronger and the sound of the waves lapping at the shore louder and the wind stronger. That is what I sense. I feel the area is even more attractive to me now. On my walk back to the house, I felt attracted to smell the new blooming lilac bushes, as I walked to a bush, I silently asked for permission to visit, stating that I would not do any harm. I waited 10 seconds and a branch with blooms brushed me against my face, I believe permission was granted for me to stop and smell the lilacs. I feel better now, than I did a half an hour ago, more calm and centered, less anxious, sad and stressed. This is a very good activity.
"I am grounded, balanced and centered. I take time to renew myself by connecting with the energy of Earth. I
connect in some way with nature every day."
I am taking a course on Re-connecting with Nature at http://www.ecopsych.com
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