Romancing Planet Earth

Let's Reverse Personal, Social and Environmental

Romancing Planet Earth: The inquisitive mind can be a wonderful force for good. Recently, upon completing Michael J. Cohen's (MJC) new book Reconnecting With Nature: A restoration of the missing link in Western thinking, Dr. Daniel Levine, (DL), Superintendent of Schools of the Lopez Island School District in Washington State, phoned Dr. Cohen and, for use by his faculty, he transcribed the author's responses to questions about the book.

DL: In Reconnecting With Nature you say that for 35 years you have been an innovative outdoor educator and counselor. What do you see as the present state of our relationship to Planet Earth and each other?
MJC: A majority of the world is discouraged by the costly violence, discontent and hatred growing in industrial society. The destruction of our forests, wildlife and oceans distresses most people. Each of us would like to help heal the wounds we inflict on our planet, economics and selves. Our discontent constitutes a major motivating force for recovery if we empower and support it wisely.

DL: What is the human potential for a model society?
MJC: In my work I observe that people have the innate ability to co-create with nature and sustain responsible relationships. We can produce a way of relating that organizes, preserves and regenerates itself to produce an optimum of life, diversity and beauty. We can do this without producing garbage or pollution. No person or thing need be left out or toxified. Society does not have to produce war, insanity or excessive violence. Doesn't that model sound worthwhile?

DL: Of course, but it's extremely idealistic. We would need to gain some magical wisdom.
MJC: It's neither idealistic nor magical. That wisdom is available. In fact we already have it, we just don't use it

. DL: Oh? Where is it ?
MJC: The natural world itself operates like this model. It neither creates nor suffers our problems. The global life community has sustained the model's integrity over the millennia. It has intelligent, thoughtful, "magical" healing powers. It is nature, and since we are part of nature, it is us.

DL: But if that were true, we would not be having our problems.
MJC: We are born as natural beings. We are born in and with that wisdom. It is in our soul. But we educate ourselves to discount it rather than treasure, culture and apply it.

DL: Why don't we use it?
MJC: Although we are part of nature, just as every species is different from each other, we are different, too. The major difference between humanity and nature is that people have the natural capacity to communicate and relate verbally. We interact through spoken and written language. The remainder of Nature achieves its beauty and perfection through non-language communication and relationships.

DL: Isn't our language capacity a gift from nature?
MJC: Absolutely, but industrial society uses that gift to create stories that separate us from nature. We teach ourselves to think in language while every other species, and many other cultures, think in non-language ways. We don't learn to think the way nature works, even though we are born with that capacity. Our personal and global problems result because our language stories define our destiny and they are disconnected from nature's wisdom.

DL: Can you give me an example of this phenomenon?
MJC: We live, teach and emotionally attach to a story that says to survive we must separate from and conquer nature. That story educates us to spend, on average, over 95% of our time indoors. We learn to think in indoor, nature disconnected terms. We learn to spend less than one day per lifetime in conscious non-language contact with nature. That's like expecting an infant to grow normally after it has been abandoned by its family. It is similar to an arm that is 95% torn from a body; the arm feels pain that it can't identify because it is so disconnected from the cognizant mind in the torso.

DL: But isn't that the human condition?
MJC: No, it is learned. Natural beings, including nature-connected people stay connected with nature. They continuously make tangible non-verbal contact with natural areas. They incorporate nature's wisdom and integrity in their daily lives and they neither produce nor suffer our personal, social and environmental problems.

DL: This makes sense idealistically, but we are not going to return to gathering and hunting in nature, so it seems impractical.
MJC: I didn't say we should do that, did I? You see, our indoor story and thinking tends to conclude that we must live like the first nation people. I suggest, and my reconnecting with nature process demonstrates, that we can learn to reconnect with nature and incorporate nature's wisdom in our thinking. The benefits are dramatic. What is idealistic about that?

DL: So you suggest that we learn to hunt, gather and incorporate knowledge of how nature works?
MJC: Exactly. Some people already know this is possible because they sense nature's peace and healing when they visit natural areas. However, often the nature-disconnected bias of our stories won't let us validate what we experience in nature.

DL: Can you give me a example of the significance of our detachment?
MJC: I recently participated in a hurried, almost stressful training schedule for volunteer social workers whose differences kept them arguing amongst themselves. They had little interest or time to hear an explanation from me of the unifying and healing benefits of the reconnecting with nature process. In the midst of this hubbub, a bird flew into the meeting room through the door. It could not find its way out. Without a word, the behind-schedule meeting screeched to a halt. Deep natural feelings for life and hope filled each person for the moment. For ten minutes that frightened, desperate little bird catalyzed those seventy people to harmoniously, supportively organize and unify with each other to safely help it find its way back home. Yet when they accomplished this feat, they cheered their role, not the role of the bird. In their story of the incident, the role and impact of the bird went unnoticed. They returned to the hubbub of the meeting, as if nothing special had happened.

DL: Did you point out to them the impact of the bird, of nature, upon them?
MJC: I wanted to say something about the powerful effect of the bird but I didn't. People would have scoffed. They would have said what you said, that what happened was not important or useful for it was uncommon to have a wild bird interrupt their lives.

DL: I think I'd agree with them.
MJC: Would you agree that reconnecting with nature during that incident brought a special joy and integrity to their lives, as with the deer hunters? The individual and collective benefits were evident. It is the continual lack of such contact that creates our disorders. People feel distraught, yet helpless, about Earth's life and their lives being at risk, like the bird.

DL: Yes, but isn't this a vicious circle? We are radically separated from nature and lose its benefits, so how can we possibly use nature to gain them?
MJC: That is the heart of the matter. My work addresses it. It takes place in tangible contact with nature, in backyards, parks, even with potted plants, and wilderness, too. In any natural setting my books and courses help people learn to do, own and teach simple nature-reconnecting activities. The activities are fun and interesting. They provide, at will, the nature-reconnected moments missing from our lives. The process is an uplifting and responsible ecopsychology. It nurtures many natural senses. It produces the same profound effects catalyzed by the bird.

DL: You mean, by choice, any individual can reconnect with nature?
MJC: Project NatureConnect has published methods and materials that make this possible. We even teach people how to do this and share their experiences internationally by E-mail on the Internet at http://www.pacificrim.net/~nature/

DL: So the activities are easily available. How do they work?
MJC: Asbird incident shows, our mentality consists of many non-verbal senses and feelings. Each of these senses are by and from nature and they make up over 85% of our human mentality, of how we learn, know and relate. The activities enable us to tangibly connect with natural areas in at least 53 natural sensory ways. Just as importantly, they also teach us how to speak and reason from these nature-connected moments. The process incorporates nature's cooperative wisdom in our thinking. It profoundly alters the destructive stories that we are taught to believe.

DL: I learned we only have five senses; what do the others do?
MJC: I'll use thirst as an example, it's not one of the five: To sensibly remind us to drink water when we need it, nature intelligently created the sensation we call thirst. Thirst feelingly makes sense, It makes us aware of the dehydrated state of our being and it attracts us to water. When we drink water, we tangibly connect with part of nature. It flows through us and we feel enjoyably unstressed rewarded, quenched, fulfilled, satisfied. Similarly, thoughtfully connecting with nature through each of our 52 other natural senses produces the same results. Each connection unstresses us and enjoyably fulfills us sensibly. In congress, these many senses blend. They promote and sustain our inner nature's integrity just as they sustain the integrity and vitality of wild populations, for example: wolf communities or ant colonies. We learn to resonate and self-regulate with the global life community. We deeply feel part of something immensely important, part of life in nature and each other.

DL: What results have you observed from the reconnecting activities?
MJC: I've seen detachment from destructive stories and attachment to thoughtful fulfillments. The activities responsibly dissolve stress and discontent. They defuel and decrease stress related medical and emotional symptoms as well as apathy. Wellness, self-esteem and mental health increase. Greed wanes, for we don't continually want. That's why the activities are used in counseling, recovery, environmental and educational settings. The result is that we learn to feel good by relating to the whole of community, to natural places and things as well as people. Participants feel healthy when they do the activities.

DL: How can nature-reconnecting activities create responsible change?
MJC: We love sanity, peace and responsible relationships because they feel good and they make sense. When something we love is endangered, we act. It is the right and natural thing to do. The activities make us conscious of how sanity and peace are available to us in nature. Doing them reinforces our love for being responsible, and for natural areas too.

DL: What is their practical contribution?
MJC: The same as I've mentioned before. It's worth repeating. At least 600 million people internationally can learn to do and teach these activities. Think about it. What would our world be like if 600 million people daily enjoyed and shared nature reconnecting experiences that triggered effects similar to those from contact with the fawn and bird? How wonderful! These activities induce acts and internal responses that establish personal, environmental and global sanity. Therein lies hope.

DL: How can people get in touch with you?
MJC: Call me at (360) 378-6413 or write POB 1605, Friday Harbor WA 98250 Email mjcohen@aol.com Internet http://www.pacificrim.net/~nature/