Blog Archives

Two Steps to Connection

6/30/2014

In Love With the World

Two simple rules of natural attraction ecology have changed my life as I practice them. They form the first steps of every activity in my soon to be published book of 20 nature connection exercises anyone can do from anywhere called "Naturography". Until then, here is a review.

Ever walk, run, drive, or cycle somewhere and not remember anything from Point A to Point B? Ever been to an incredible place in nature but spin your mental gears or focus on some athletic endeavor to the point you are not taking in what is around you?

Now think of a time you are/were in Love with someone and being with that person in a crowd could make everything else seem not to exist. This is the Love you can have with all of the natural world and I believe this is the Love that all humans had until we forgot.

1) Go toward a place that is attractive to you and make sure it remains attractive to you for at least 60 seconds. If the area does not remain attractive, move on to another space that is. This can become empowering over time because you learn to identify and trust your own natural attractions and to remove yourself from them if they feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

2) Ask permission from the natural attraction to help you with whatever connection activity you want to do. Doing this announces to yourself (and your surroundings if you choose to believe it) "I am an equal," "I mean you no harm," and "I respect you." Try it for yourself and see if doing this changes your experience in the natural world.

The photo above is a perfect example of how practicing these two steps work to enhance my connection to nature. I was frustrated for 30 minutes of trying to capture a photo of any bird for my book. They all flew off too quickly for my simple camera. Suddenly I remembered to ask permission. I silently asked all birds in the area if they would allow me the opportunity to take a photo. Thirty seconds later these young horned larks appeared and stayed in place for several minutes, one with a caterpillar in its beak.

A Gift for You

For those home or hospital bound especially, may you soak up this beauty and let nature in.

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Work in Progress

6/23/2014

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Love in Time of Turmoil

I see and feel Love toward living more
compassionately in relationship to Earth rising everywhere among my networks. I read of all sorts of ways people are greening the Earth with urban agriculture, finding ways to integrate nature connection into jobs once not considered "green." My vision to bring Healing Outdoors to address stress on family caregivers in hospitals is one of those efforts. Many of us are envisioning something we have not seen before in exact form.

My attempts to work with existing support groups inside hospitals have not yet met success. Support groups are closed environments built upon trust, and for institutional liability led by someone with a proven track record or credential. I am working toward an ecopsychology degree, but in the meantime seeking any opportunities to volunteer with groups of people leading simple nature connection activities. I love being outdoors (obviously) and remain open to the possibility I may do this on a volunteer basis outside hospitals in completely different venues for a while. Maybe someone who works inside a hospital might take it on and carry the torch in a way I cannot foresee.

I have no ego invested in the idea of ownership, only want to serve people in hospital environments because Healing Outdoors was a form of support that would have been powerful for me while going through the turmoil of being an intensive family caregiver.

On the horizon in August, I have an exciting opportunity with my daughter to lead two 45-minute groups during this event for people of all ages. I am also working on a set of flash cards for nature connection activities anyone can do to reduce stress, bring their senses in balance and ease painful emotions with feedback from the natural world. For now I can print out a few copies to share with groups, but as soon as I can find a way to afford to publish them for distribution, I hope they will become available to anyone in hospitals.

Flash Card Samples

2 x 2 SCAVENGER HUNT

Go to a spot attractive to you in nature.
Silently ask consent from this spot to help you with this activity.
Mark or visualize a boundary of 2 x 2 square feet using sticks, stones, leaves, anything natural. Your hunt area will include all the soil below you and everything above you to the thin blue line of space.
Find and check off as many things on the Scavenger List as possible in 5 minutes, including one item representing a current challenge in your life, and one item representing a current joy.
If in a group, share with the group what you would like, including how doing the activity made you feel. Did it validate your sense of self?

LISTENING TO NATURE

Go to an area you find attractive and safe in nature.
Silently ask permission from this spot to help you with this activity. Get comfortable.
For 3 minutes close your eyes and listen to every sound you can hear, inside or outside of you.
After 3 minutes, write down as many items as you can.
Now take crayons/coloring tools, even a stick in sand, and draw an image of the sounds you experienced.
If in a group, share your drawing or list, including how blocking out your visual sense made you feel.

Pathologic Depression or Ecological Sadness?

Spending the last two years doing work validating my true nature through daily conscious nature connection, I have been struggling with how to carry the deep sadness/grief with witness and awareness of what is being done to the natural world on massive scale and what I am personally doing by driving a car, riding a ferry boat, buying processed foods, plastics, etc. I do not believe I am alone, since the rise of medicated depression and anxiety over the past decade is truly staggering in "first world" countries, for lack of a better term (are not indigenous humans first?). Joanna Macy's concept that our grief IS our Love for the world gives me solace.

Despite all the sadness, I feel the best way to heal our pain is to stop spending 95% of our lives indoors if possible and reconnect in whatever way we can to our innate wisdom. It exists right there, inside our old sensory brain, and our language processing brain validates it for us. There are as many forms of nature connection as there are people, and no one way is "right." You do not need to go on a wilderness vision quest or even enjoy camping to be able to connect, though certainly you can go deep. If you let Nature teach anywhere you are, you will learn what you need.

My lifelong deep conversation with the natural world despite living a "modern" life and working at a computer the past 20 years has led me to want to find a way to live in the woods, be a hermit, fantasize about living in a different age. But I have also felt validated and transformed the more time I make for nature's feedback in my day to day life, and that is the key I want to share so people can unlock their own natural wealth, get on board the listening wagon, and reconnect their wisdom to nature's wisdom.

The interview below with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, author of "Spiritual Ecology" based on his latest book "Darkening of the Light," provides a broad context for my tendency toward despair and feeling something must be wrong with me and my sensitivity. I share it in case you are someone who struggles with these questions too. We are definitely not alone.

http://goldensufi.org/MP3/Work_Reconnects_Interview_2013/L_Vaughan_Lee_Interview_WorkConnects.mp3

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Heaven on Earth

6/17/2014

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Heaven on Earth is how I described the Oregon Coast when I first met it at age 11 on a family road trip. And how I felt during my three years of college in Portland. And what has called me the last three consecutive Junes. This year I managed a 36-hour vacation, 12 hours of it driving my daughter to a music camp on the Oregon Coast.

What do you do when you have a 24-hour vacation in an entire year and you are in Heaven? You practice joy! Five hours beach walking and 4 hours mud slogging through old growth rain forest, and I bow to my knees with gratitude for life bringing me there.

Two hours into my beach walk, my eyes were drawn to things out of place - pieces of plastic. So I returned to my lodging, got a bag and started picking up every bit of plastic I could find that crossed my path. One of my slides below represents everything inside my bag, retrieved from just one pair of eyes observing for an hour. Each time I bent down I said to Father Ocean, "Forgive us, we know not what we do." There were a few dilemmas - like the plastic water bottle that had become habitat for gooseneck barnacles. Do I pick it up and kill the living creatures? I let that and the tire habitat stay. Do you think if each and every one of us who tread on a beach made it our practice to pick up plastic we could make a difference? See 5 Gyres for more information.

More and more I recognize Heaven on Earth exists everywhere around us, but we often find it a challenge to focus our attention there - even when we are surrounded by it. Practicing conscious nature connection makes me want to wake up and greet friends everywhere around me and I see reflected back to me what is inside my soul.

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Interview With The Goodtimes Project

6/1/2014

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I have been a longtime fan of Camp Goodtimes West and would be even if my own daughter had not attended camp the past four summers. What they offer free of charge to families is nothing short of remarkable. Last fall they were notified the American Cancer Society would no longer be sponsoring them after 30 years, so I wanted to do an interview to see what that transition was like.

Carol Mastenbrook, Executive Director, who came on board in November 2013, spoke to me by phone.

I asked what The Goodtimes Project's biggest challenge was transitioning away from American Cancer Society sponsorship for the first time in 30 years in 2014?

Paraphrasing, Carol told me, ACS gave us the infrastructure, technology, accounting, etc. We had to build structure at the same time we were soliciting, essentially "driving the car at the same time as we were building it." Fortunately people in this region really love this camp and people "stepped up."

I am truly grateful and amazed they are able to offer camp free of charge to families again this year despite all that building going on behind the scenes.

I asked how Camp Goodtimes West is related to Camp Goodtimes in Canada?

Apparently they are not at all related but have the same name. ACS sponsored Camp Goodtimes East and Camp Goodtimes West until last year. Camp Goodtimes East moved from Idaho to Spokane, Washington.

I cannot think of a better program than Camp Goodtimes to represent the concept of "healing outdoors", so I asked, how might you describe what being outdoors means to a person being treated in a hospital?

Carol's answer: "Hospitals are full of scary machines, statistics, routines, stressful decisions. Being at camp outdoors, children get to be cared for, nurtured, and re-experience childhood."

I asked Carol whether a family caregiver outdoors weekend retreat is something that might be helpful to parents facing childhood cancer and whether she knew of any organizations that sponsor family caregiver retreats. She did not immediately, and I told her my research finds the only regular caregiver retreat for both family and professional caregivers in Washington State is in my "backyard" at the Tahoma One Drop Monastery. If anyone finds another, please pass the name along to me! She hinted that such a retreat might be considered in the future as The Goodtimes Project expands.

When I asked what advice would you give to someone trying to start a nonprofit, Carol provided very helpful suggestions about clarifying a 30-second description of my mission and how I might seek volunteers to attend free nature connection workshops I could offer in the Seattle area. Creating a nonprofit organization is a huge endeavor that requires a lot more resources than I currently have, and for now I intend to gain more experience and collaboration.

Finally I asked how many families has Camp Goodtimes served (primarily from Alaska and Washington) and was told roughly 4500 children over 30 years! This number includes cancer patients and siblings combined. A powerful "recipe" seems to be the fact the camp combines healthy cancer survivors with children currently in treatment. This creates space for empathy, understanding, and hope.

Aside from the mission listed below from their website, it would not be complete if I did not mention the importance of SNOJ (pronounced "snodge") at camp. What is SNOJ? Super Novas of Joy, of course!

My daughter is thrilled to be attending camp again this summer and hopes to become a camp counselor in the future. The camp staff are out of this world incredibly committed people to providing a beautiful service to families facing childhood cancer. Each time I drop off my child at this camp, I leave with my own spirit uplifted from the infectious joy they foster.

Thank you Camp Goodtimes!

MISSION

Affirms the joys of childhood often missed by those in treatment
Fosters friendships between children and families who share common experiences
Instills confidence through a variety of programs and activities
Cares for their social safety as well as their medical safety
Strives to send the children back into the world as more independent, caring, and capable youth
Offers parents peace of mind as they entrust their children to camp, and take a well-deserved break

FUTURE
Our future vision expands our outreach into an organization that serves all aspects of the community affected by childhood cancer, such as:

Patient, sibling, teen and family events and retreats
Organized services and visits to pediatric oncology wards at Western Washington and Alaska hospitals.
Year-round activities to sustain community, provide support, and give patients, survivors, and siblings opportunities to laugh, play, sing and dance, make friends, meet mentors, and take back some of the "normalcy" that childhood cancer steals away.

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Two Steps to Connection

In Love With the World

A Gift for You

Work in Progress

Love in Time of Turmoil

Flash Card Samples

Pathologic Depression or Ecological Sadness?

Heaven on Earth

Interview With The Goodtimes Project

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