Using Nature To Rediscover Intuition

I just returned from Burlington Vermont where I spent a few days with my son (a student at the University of Vermont) and gave a talk in the Medical School. More and more I find myself lecturing on the value of mindfulness meditation or other contemplative practices to enhance our children's (and our own) emotional health and well-being, to balance the massive information overload and heightened stress of Western society today.

As my son and I took a walk in a park, the beauty of nature struck me, in the snow-covered trails and ice-covered rock around us. He shared an experience he had where a class he was taking had walked out on a similarly snowy day to a similarly vast open field. They settled along a single wooden fence to read Robert Frost poetry, experiencing surroundings as he might have experienced them when inspired to draft his poetry. The boundless beauty in nature to inspire us is evident whenever one leaves behind the Blackberries, pagers, cell phones, and massive building environments for a moment of solitude in nature.

A recent article in the Am J Child Psychiatry highlights the necessity to bring our children back in tune with nature by creating safe walking routes from home to school, safe parks and playgrounds, and nature centers that allow children the time to walk, explore, and play outside. The growing rates of anxiety, depression, and learning disorders in our children are, in part, a consequence of the complex interplay of our biology and our current separation from nature, from play, from creativity and intuition. As adults, we also are in dire need of comparable activities away from the intensity of technology and production and into a haven of effortlessness experiencing.

As we turn our attention to enhancing health and well-being rather than merely treating disease, we will begin to likely create new spaces for such inward activities - whether they are small quiet spaces, public gardens, art and music centers, or activities that foster awareness such as meditation, yoga, or other contemplative practices. The underlying urge to change and improve things (including ourselves) may be met by an intuitive awareness to just experience things as they are, and in such experiences, creativity unfolds. It's funny how we each glimpse this intuitive awareness time and again throughout our lives and yet we spend much of our lives pushing it aside in search of something else.

The good news is it is with us all the time and requires very little effort to be revealed. Lie down on the ground and watch the sky for a while, sit at the beach and watch the ocean, sit by a tree and watch the leaves, or close your eyes and listen to the sounds around you. Watch your thinking of past and future as you would watch the leaves on a tree, the clouds in a sky, or the notes of a musical interlude. Let them rise and fall as they may, and just watch what is.

Comments

[Jude2004]

I have agoraphobia. I can imagine few things more stressful than sitting by a tree watching the leaves.

[lamarguerite]

Did you see the trailers for the new documentary 'Renewal'? One of them features the Sheva community and how they engage children around nature and spirituality. Very powerful. For more info, you may go to my blog and read my latest article on 'They Are Trying to Save God's Creation'.

http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
'Listening to the Planet'

[stevesrant]

Sweet post, the plain truth, self-evident to those of us fortunate enough to live close to the non-manmade world. The sad truth is that 60% of humanity now lives in cities; their whole world is manmade. And many of them don't want anything to do with - and know nothing about - "nature".

[eaglecapri]

I'll never forget South African native and actress Charlize Theron telling a reporter - 'nature gives you instinct'. It's true. Whenever I need to solve a problem, I always turn to nature. Anyone whose lived on a farm or the majority of time in nature, I'm sure will agree with Ms. Theron.

[bethinCary]

Great post Susan.

Reading Rudolph Steiner now.
He says that what food is for the body and mind-feelings are for the soul.
We have to maintain a duality about feelings:like seeing the new growth in nature-but recognizing the decay as well.
sometimes people are not aware of-or cannot untangle thier knotted up feelings inside. Sometimes something in nature can connect to that specific feeling-as if on a similiar vibration-and bring it to the forefront.Sometimes these things can be enough to wake the soul-and distance it from preconcieved prejudices/negativity that the mind holds. By focusing on just being in the moment-instead of filling the mind with past or future thoughts (especially in nature)-ones' soul will be stirred to the whispers of nature. When this happens, instead of thinking of the sounds as isolated or listening to sounds of inanimate objects-we begin to hear a rhythm to the world and we begin to listen through our own souls-as opposed to our minds.

[Kungfublood]

We have to maintain a duality about feelings
(WE) is already duality.
(have to) is pressure.
(maintain) is flat out impossible.
( a) is already duality.
(about) is kind of separation again -duality.
(feelings) set aside where they come from just see where they go and don't use
mental dialog...just ...see....

[bethinCary]

Yep.
You are right Kungfu.
the sign of Pisces is supposed to help bring this about-in a meditative way.
In nature seeing the beauty-but seeing the decay too, birth & death,how the colors bring a "color" that resonates with the soul-beautiful or ugly and facing it.....
duality.

[WilliePilgrim]

I began reading this thinking it would lead to some airy "pie in the sky" kind of wishfullness, but I must confess, it has great merit and would serve well those who wish to keep their eye on the horizon while their feet are on the ground.

[SmackwaterJack]

"Must we always teach our Children with books?

Let them look at the mountains and the stars up above. Let them look at the beauty of the waters and the trees and flowers on earth.

They will then begin to think, and to think is the begining of a real education." - David Polis

[Kungfublood]

David Polis..didn't he write a book..