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Nature As Teacher and Healer: How To Reawaken Your Connection to Nature

by James A. Swan, Ph.D.
Pulitzer prize-winning biologist Rene Dubos likened our ecological state of affairs to that of a frog, who when hopping gaily along chanced to jump into a bucket of warm water. This body of water seemed rather pleasant to a cold-blooded creature, and so the frog went swimming about merrily. In time, the water grew warmer, and the frog responded by becoming more active and happy as his metabolism increased. Unaware that he had jumped into a kettle of water being heated on the stove, over time the temperature increased and increased, and then suddenly the water came to a boil and the frog was cooked.
Dubos presents this story in his book Man Adapting, a penetrating analysis of the human tendency to acclimate to environmental conditions that may not be acutely toxic but in the long run are detrimental to health.
Adaptation is part of human nature. We must adjust to the ever-changing cycles of nature to survive. People become complacent about negative environmental conditions when the detrimental consequences are not readily apparent, and there is no basis for comparison.
Growing up on Grosse Ile, Michigan, a cigar-shaped island which lies where the Detroit River flows out into Lake Erie, I came to know the validity of the Dubos' thesis only too well. Grosse Ile is downwind and downstream from the massive Detroit automobile manufacturing complex. In the 1950's and 1960's, dustfalls at the north end of the island often averaged 120 tons per square mile per month. When you awoke on a winter morning and saw orange snow, you knew that the previous night a steel mill had vented its stacks. Black snow was caused by soot from either a coal-burning electrical power plant or a coke oven. The siding on white homes on the north end of the island would turn salmon in a year or two. Paint on your car would pit. Like many people in that area, as a child I suffered from chronic bronchitis until my family moved to the south end of the island when I was twelve. Fifteen years later, when I directed a public opinion survey of people living in the Downriver Detroit area, we found that the incidence of chronic respiratory illnesses was eight times the national average. Until after the first Earth Day in 1970, no one in the Downriver Detroit area said much about the obvious air pollution. Smoke billowing out from industrial smoke stacks meant prosperity.
Our new home on the south end of Grosse Ile was on a canal that led directly into Lake Erie. Living on the water, a new ecological demon became apparent. Several times a year boat owners would wake up to find the sides of their boats coated with black oily substances, a telltale sign of a night shift engineer flushing an oil tank some place upstream, hoping the dark of night and the silent dilution of the mighty river would save the company the expense, time and trouble of waste reclamation. This was only the easily perceptible tip of the iceberg. In the 1950's, quietly, communities all along the Detroit River stopped drawing their drinking water from the river due to growing waste discharges. As a replacement, the towns all teamed up with Detroit to build a water supply pipeline all the way to Lake Huron to get potable water from an upstream source that was still pristine. A 1964 International Joint Commission report declared that the lower 26 miles of the Detroit River were "polluted bacteriologically, chemically, physically, and biologically, so as to interfere with municipal water supplies, recreation, fish and wildlife propagation, and navigation."
Wildlife biologist George Hunt at the University of Michigan, estimated that as many as 10,000 waterfowl would die every winter when migrating flocks of ducks, geese and swans landed in oil slicks in the middle of the night. As a high school science project, I experimented with different ways to try to remove oil from the feathers of waterfowl that were so coated with crude oil that they could not fly. Once when there was an especially bad slick in the early winter before the river froze up, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources recruited volunteers to scatter corn in the shallow waters on the east side of Grosse Ile, hoping to attract migrating whistling swans away from the black stream of death that lurked along the west shore of the island. In those days we always bought Canadian fishing licenses to fish on the Canadian side of the river, because the river was cleaner there. Fish caught from the American side of the river up through the late 1960's often had chemical tastes due to phenol and other waste chemicals poured into the river in the millions of gallons.
Despite sizable damage to the natural environment, personal health, and property, there was almost no opposition to air and water pollution in Southeastern Michigan in the 1950's and 1960's. Like the frog, people had adapted and accepted pollution as a price of prosperity. There were no organized groups campaigning against air and water pollution in that area until the UAW created the Downriver Anti-Pollution League in the late 1960's. People made good money working in the factories of southeastern Michigan and with it they bought property in northern Michigan for vacation homes. The Detroit River was still pretty to look at, and the price of waterfront property was quite high and rose faster than overall market values. Poorer people who lived in the inner-city of Detroit simply came to accept gray-blue as a normal sky color, I learned when in the late 1960's I conducted surveys on the perception of air quality in the Detroit area.
When I went to college at the University of Michigan I was 35 miles upwind and upstream in Ann Arbor. Detroit was a distant haze in the eastern sky, but nonetheless I was determined to do something about the polluted conditions that I had grown up with. I began as a wildlife biology major and then switched to conservation education, figuring that people needed help to wake up to what was going on. For my Master's thesis in Resource Planning and Conservation I studied the socio-economic costs of water pollution in the lower Detroit River area. I found millions of dollars worth of damage, but virtually no one who wanted to take issue with what was going on. What struck me from my studies was how pollution originates from human decisions and the attitudes and values that shape them. I attended a conference where Rene Dubos spoke, heard him tell the frog story, and decided that if I was really going to be an effective environmental educator, maybe I should study psychology to see what factors would move people to value, even love, nature more so that we would not adapt and boil in our own effluents.
The University of Michigan allowed me to create a joint Ph.D. program in natural resources and psychology, so I began taking graduate courses and reviewing the literature. What I soon discovered was that there was no psychological literature about the love of nature, and next to nothing about the effects of environmental conditions on people or how environmental attitudes and values are formed. I put together a program of classes on perception and survey research and created a dissertation on awareness of air pollution among Detroit inner city high school students. In this project, I asked the question if there was any relationship between how much knowledge a person had about air pollution and how concerned they were about air quality. What I found was that there was no statistical relationship between knowledge and concern. It was then clear that education alone would not be sufficient to rally support for the environment. What was needed to build an ecological conscience was something else, which I set out to study.
In the early 1970's, after I had graduated and begun college teaching, I went to a convention where I chanced to meet the pioneering psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow had had the important insight that most psychological theory was based on the study of animals and people with mental illness and learning disabilities; there was no psychology of human healthiness. So, to expand our concept of human nature, for a number of years he studied the potentiality of people to be extremely healthy and productive. As a result, he coined the term "self-actualization" to describe people who seemed to be exceptionally psychologically healthy, and in the process helped give birth to the fields of humanistic and transpersonal psychology to describe the more positive dimensions of consciousness and health.
I told Maslow of my interest in what made people feel deep personal love and concern for nature. He listened and told me two things. The first was that all the self-actualized people he had studied seemed to have a deep reverence for nature and took delight in natural beauty. Then he advised that I should seek out people who seem to have a deep love for nature and from that population perhaps I would learn what made people in general care deeply about the natural world. His advice has inspired some 20 years of research that has included surveys of hundreds of people, numerous interviews, studies of biohistories of committed environmentalists, nearly a decade spent as a psychotherapist, and cross-cultural studies with Native American Indians, Eskimos, Polynesians, Asians and Africans. This diverse research has led to some conclusions about the love of nature and how it is formed, which I will briefly summarize.

Pathways to Nature Kinship

The love of nature is something that people write about, talk about, and act upon, but we know precious little about its origins. For some people, protection of nature is a deep and central issue in life, a touchstone of consciousness and commitment that moves them with a passion to make great personal sacrifices and undertake life-long commitments to action. They may take on careers in support of environmental issues, often at lower wages than in other fields. They spend time, money and resources to aid what they feel is the wise use and protection of the ecology of the planet, when they could be doing other things. Some of the names we know well -- Barry Commoner, Rene Dubos, Jacques Cousteau, James Lovelock, Rachel Carson, Robert Rodale, John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry David Thoreau, and Gifford Pinchot -- are just a few of the modern defenders of nature whose dedication is renown. Many others, like the officers of state and local environmental groups, the people who run local recycling centers and nature centers, organic farmers, and people who spend countless hours with petitions, picking up roadside litter and leading nature hikes are less well known but equally important. My research has sought to identify what common developmental forces seen to have contributed to these people expressing passionate feelings on behalf of the Earth.
One conclusion is that our earliest experiences often have a profound influence on later life, and early childhood exposure to environments that evoke feelings of pleasure, awe, and beauty, frequently in the company of a parent or a loved one, appear to be one of the most important roots of the love of nature. David Brower speaks of his childhood when he took his mother on nature walks and became her "eyes" when she was going blind, as a critically important influence on his life's course. Singer Pete Seeger, who has developed the sloop Clearwater to draw attention to water pollution in the Hudson River, as a child loved to play cowboys and Indians in the local woods, choosing to be the Indians because they seemed to close to nature. Scientist Rachel Carson was tutored by her mother at her family farm, devoting much of her early education to nature study. Actor Robert Redford, an ardent conservationist, speaks of an early vacation trip to Yellowstone National Park as being a strong influence on his life-long work on environmental issues. Psychiatrist Carl Jung, who helped us better understand the symbols of our unconscious, reports a number of his earliest memories involve scenes of natural beauty, thus helping him in later life appreciate the important of nature to mental health. Many people, such as Theodore Roosevelt, and more recent presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, as well as Henry David Thoreau, report early memories of hunting and fishing as being among the most vivid and pleasant experiences of their childhood. It seems critical to underscore the primary importance of getting kids outdoors and helping them learn to enjoy nature with respect and wisdom, not fear, as being crucial to kindling love and respect for nature.
Early experiences are an important influence for later life. They establish a perceptual foundation from which to evaluate life situations, and give inspiration and guidance which shape choices, regardless what path one takes. One can develop emotional feelings for nature and environmental quality in later life without strong, positive early life experiences in natural settings, but their absence is certainly a handicap to achieving nature kinship, and perhaps emotional health in general.
As people grow and develop they embark on various paths of personal expression, moved by situations and conditions that uniquely suit them. Among the people I have studied, there appear to be five major paths to achieving nature kinship and becoming committed environmentalists as adults.
1. Intellectual Knowledge -- The nature writings of John Muir, Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Burroughs and Aldo Leopold inspire many people, as do the modern eco-activist writings of Paul Ehrlich, Thomas Berry, Edward Abbey, Barry Commoner, and Rachel Carson, as well as magazines stories and television documentaries by Jacques Cousteau and others. In my research, many people say they enjoy nature writing and programming, but few people say that educational materials are the primary moving forces that launched their commitment to environmental action. Books, radio and television more often help support and inform environmental attitudes, but they do not seem to be original motivation forces for adopting the attitudes. Perhaps this finding is changing as more and more people live in cities and do not have daily exposure to nature, but without some kind of underlying emotional root in nature, ecological concerns tend to be lumped into social issues in general, with whichever is in vogue, or currently heavily reported in the mass media, getting the highest degree of attention.
2. Social Justice -- Many people whose lives are moved by concerns about social justice see environmental problems as one more example of the kinds of flaws that arise from our social system, including racial inequality, women's rights, and poverty. Often people who are especially concerned about social justice issues may not be ardent nature lovers or well-schooled naturalists, although they may see themselves as environmentalists. Some like Ralph Nader take on ecological issues as they relate to consumer rights and public safety. A number of current leaders of the animal rights crusade openly admit they really are not that fond of animals, but they feel that the treatment of animals is symptomatic of the overall violent nature of modern society, which is not morally or ethically justifiable to them. Some of the popular entertainers who perform benefits on behalf of environmental causes seem to come more from a social justice background than one of having great familiarity with nature and ecology.
3. Threats to Health -- Some people become concerned about environmental issues when they find their lives and property threatened by pollution and they are forced to fight back in self-defense. Caesar Chavez's campaign against pesticides was moved more by his feelings about harm being done to farm workers than concerns about fish and wildlife. Barry Commoner's interest in global ecological issues was initially stimulated by concerns about the health effects of atmospheric testing of nuclear devices. Author Debra Dadd, who has become a world-recognized authority on toxic-free living, was forced to give up her career as a professional musician because of chemical sensitivity. Researching a lifestyle that is free of allergic substances, such as food grown without pesticides and fertilizers, organic cleaning agents, and fabrics and home furnishings made from natural materials, led her to a greater appreciation for nature as a healing force; a pattern shared by others whose initial interests in ecology begin with pollution problems.
4. Health and Fitness -- In recent times there has been a tremendous growth in interest in health and fitness in the United States. People are making personal choices to improve their health including exercising and eating organic foods. Awareness of how environmental factors such as toxic chemicals and air pollution may influence one's health has led many to become concerned about ecology in general. Through his many publications, including the popular magazines Organic Gardening and Prevention, the late Robert Rodale was a leader in creating awareness of organic living. An important aspect of this path is that it is person-centered more than externally oriented, and as such it is more likely to endure because the emotional motivation for ecological concern is not based on ever-changing social and environmental conditions but ongoing personal health, which is not likely to be a passing fad.
5. Transcendental Experiences -- Modern western psychology has had considerable difficulty accepting spiritual experience as part of normal psychology, and yet the psychology of transcendence concerns some of the most important human experiences, such as death, birth and love. Many aspects of spiritual transcendence, such as seeing visions, hearing voices, communicating with other species, inspired writing and art, and feelings of oneness with the Divine, until recently, have been considered to be symptoms of psychopathology, especially schizophrenia, by modern psychology and psychiatry. Yet when one studies the lives of many environmental leaders and as well as healers, artists, religious leaders and political figures, one finds that special moments of wonder and awe, usually associated with natural beauty, are frequently seen as being pivotal moments in their lives. Aldo Leopold's concern for ecological ethics was inspired by an emotional moment when he had to kill a wounded wolf. Albert Schweitzer's concept of "reverence for life" came to him spontaneously while paddling a canoe through a dangerous herd of hippos. Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester in Theodore Roosevelt's administration, conceived of the concept of "conservation" in an ecstatic moment while riding a horse through Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC.
For some people, such transcendent moments, which Abraham Maslow called "peak experiences," resulted in personal healing. Theodore Roosevelt was troubled by asthma until he was sent for a nature cure at a European health spa followed by an African safari. Rachel Carson was a rather frail person who regenerated her health by periods of solitude at a Cape Cod retreat, moving her to develop a sense of wonder about nature. Chief Justice William O. Douglas, as a youth, "adopted a mountain" as a "second father" to replace the void in his life when his father died. Religious historian Mircea Eliade acknowledged how bathing in mud baths at natural hot springs in Europe seemed to improve the health of himself and his family.
Abraham Maslow concluded that as self-actualization increased, people also tended to have more peak experiences. Research on such experiences finds that they tend to be commonly triggered by encounters with beautiful natural scenes. Nature, then seems to foster people having peak experiences, and these experiences are integral to mental health and self-actualization, rather than being automatic symptoms of psychopathology.
Nature can be a powerful source of wisdom and health, inspiring us and affirming our self-identity. As Maslow concluded, self-actualization and the love of nature tend to go together, and this conclusion is cause for concern when one considers the overall urbanization of modern society. Recent research shows that the average American spends 84% of his or her life indoors, often in air-conditioned environments. The average visitor to a national park does not go more than 50 feet from the road, and spends six hours or less in the park, often the most time being spent at the visitor center, restaurant and bathrooms. People today may know more about ecology than ever before, thanks to the work of environmental organizations and the media, but as my research has found, and this finding has been replicated by others, the simple accumulation of knowledge about ecology and pollution does not necessarily lead to a fondness for nature or an intuitive wisdom about how to live in harmony with nature. An analogy would be that it is one thing to watch love blossom in a feature film, or read about it in a romance novel, but quite another to fall in love and work to preserve the relationship.
The study of ecologically-committed people in modern society helps shed light on the formation of an ecological conscience, but such research is inherently biased due to cultural conditioning. The fact that contemporary psychology textbooks do not have lengthy sections about the psychology of love for nature and its importance to human health speaks to a serious blind spot in our understanding of human nature. We must expand the modern psychological paradigm to enable us to appreciate how kinship with nature really works and its importance to the human soul. We need to look cross-culturally to broaden our perspective.

Nature Kinship In Traditional Cultures

Psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that we have two souls, an ancestral soul, which is wise and rooted in nature through sympathies and direct sensory perception, and a contemporary soul that is attuned to the culture in which that person lives. The primary mental dis-eases of modern man are associated with loss of contact with the ancestral soul, which is so closely linked with the unconscious. In therapy, the modern person seeks to unravel cognitive blocks and misunderstandings so that the underlying wisdom of the self can make itself known and the splits between mind and body and conscious and unconscious can be healed. Modern education does little with mental functions other than the intellect, leaving us under-educated in other aspects like emotions, intuitions and sensory awareness.
In a traditional culture sensory awareness is highly prized and developed through educational techniques little understood by modern society. Mental dis-ease among traditional peoples is more concerned with the loss of self; falling victim to external forces that pull one away from one's self, or one's intuitive guidance system for life, or becoming swallowed up by the unconscious which arises from unmediated raw energies of nature. The practice of traditional healers focuses more on driving away negative forces that are pulling people away from right livelihood, which is in turn causes distress, restoring sympathetic links to positive forces, and with people who have violated cultural norms, taboos, etc. and need to be reunited with the community norms as established from myths and symbols more than laws.
The love of nature is at the core of the working psychologies of most native cultures, rather than being a peripheral issue as it is in modern psychology. The reason is quite practical; if you are not at the right place at the right time and do not have good food supplies, you will starve. Faced with a reality where weather, tides, seasons of the year and movements of fish and animals take precedence over the kinds of concerns that preoccupy people living in modern society, consciousness is more predominated by sensory experiences and intuition rather than directing attention to printed words on a page of paper or watching an animated screen.
Genetically and physically we are not significantly different from our ancestors or other cultures. It is not easy to appreciate the different worlds of awareness that may lie so close to us because of the restrictions that modern civilized society places on perception. Modern science, for example, asserts that there are five primary senses and debates the existence of a sixth. According to Oriental wisdom, we have 100 senses by which to perceive the environment. What can these 95 other senses be? They include faculties such as dreaming, awareness of electromagnetic fields, sensing impending weather changes with various parts of the body, interpreting animal behavior as omens, and the ability to readily enter trance states and make symbolic interpretations of external objects, as if in dreams. Modern culture is so tied into visual details and abstract, intellectual thinking that senses such as intuition, touching, tasting and smelling are largely undeveloped in most modern people, yet there are good examples of how modern people can develop acuity in little used senses -- wine tasting, massage therapists, perfume makers, etc. Cultivating love for nature in modern times will require us to expand the definition of normality to allow for a much wider range of perceptual experience.
Peak or transcendent experiences -- moments of awe, wonder and insight, visions and voices, which are prized in traditional cultures and sought through ceremony and ritual -- are "abnormal" and suspect as symptoms of mental instability to modern psychology, yet among Eskimos, Lapps, Bushmen, Indians, or Aborigines, if one does not have visions, hear voices and converse with animals, one is diagnosed as being mentally ill and taken to the shaman, who conducts rituals to induce altered states of consciousness so healing can occur. A careful review of the biohistories of many modern environmentalists shows that they, too, also have frequently had moments of transcendence in nature, which they generally consider to be a cornerstone of deepening their love for nature. Typically, however, modern ecologists are reluctant to openly share their numinous moments for fear of being labeled crazy. Frequently these special experiences occur at places of special beauty and power.
One of the most fundamental elements of environmental perception in traditional cultures is that there are special geographic locations that have an unusual spiritual quality or presence. The act of visiting a place of power is one of the oldest expressions of ecological respect. Even today people are drawn each year by the millions to places includes Macchu Picchu, Mount Fuji, the Ganges River, the Pyramids, Stonehenge, Lourdes, Mecca, Jerusalem, and Mount McKinley, for reasons they cannot explain, except that these places have a special magnetic attraction for them. My interviews with people who have undertaken such pilgrimages finds that at such places people frequently do have experiences that could be called paranormal. Many people report having unusual dreams, hearing voices, and having unusual encounters with animals at places of power, in general, though, one of the most important benefits from visiting special places is inspiration, which aids creativity and even health. One could argue that undertaking pilgrimages to special places is one of the most important acts of nature kinship; perhaps among the earliest ways to seek out how to best live in harmony with nature.
We need to find ways for modern men and women to preserve and enhance their sense of wonder about nature to recover our basic kinship with nature. We need to encourage people of all ages to get out into the natural world and allow themselves to experience the beauty, wonder and magic that is there. The ancestral soul in each of us needs to be conserved. We must also find ways to have scientific theories expand and integrate perceptions of the non-rational states of consciousness. One example of how modern science and ancient wisdom can work together is to believe that the earth itself is alive. Ancient wisdom all around the world asserts that the Earth is a living being, but modern science has not held this view until a relatively recent challenge by British scientist James Lovelock, developer of the Gaia Hypothesis.
Open a high school biology text and you will find that "life" exists when something can grow, metabolize nourishment and reproduce. Lovelock concluded that these qualities really need to be integrated into a perspective that looks more at systems than isolated qualities of objects. The defining characteristic of life, Lovelock feels, is the ability to be self-regulating. The Earth has a number of well-known homeostatic systems -- oxygen cycle, carbon cycle, water cycle, etc. -- and so the Gaia Hypothesis asserts that the entire Earth is a living being that carries we tiny humans through the heavens.
If self-regulation is a defining characteristic of living organisms, one might propose that sacred places are organs of the living Earth who help humans learn to live in greater harmony with nature and themselves, and at the same time inspire us to be more fully human. The mental state of communicating with the Earth may be difficult to comprehend for members of modern society. Contrast our educational system and its training with that of the pueblo Indians of the American Southwest who according to tradition, send teenagers to live for up to nine months in an underground room so they can be "born to the second mother, the Earth." During their time in the womb of the second mother the children cannot speak, but must instead focus their attention on sensory experiences. A primary goal of this time in isolation is to learn to listen to the voice of the Earth Mother.
Scientists will debate whether the Earth is alive or not for years to come. Scientific theories are like shoes, we need to find the best fit for our purposes. There is an additional value of viewing the Earth to be alive, however. Carl Jung concluded that all symbols that live in the human unconscious are alive, for in our dreams and visions they can become animated and converse with us. Within each of us, then, there is a living Earth as part of our identity. Science does agree that whenever two or more things come into harmony, energy is exchanged. Believing that the Earth we live on is alive helps to bring the planet into harmony with our inner Earth, this sets up an intuitional sympathy with the Earth, which is an essential element in learning to live in harmony with nature.
Among the Salish Indians of the Pacific Northwest Coast of the United States there is a word "skalalitude," which seems to sum up the mental set of traditional people in regard to nature. Skalalitude means that when you are in proper harmonic relationship with the place where you live, the special places of power that are magnetic to you, and the many creatures of nature, then magic and beauty are everywhere. In a skalalitude state of mind, nature is a force for teaching and healing. To develop the skalalitude consciousness, Indian children are taught to learn to "listen with the third ear -- the heart" by spending time alone in wild places, aided by supportive adult teachers.
There is a sense of peace that one feels when you are with people who have a positive harmonic relationship with the Earth where they live. They do not suffer from the stress diseases of modern civilization. In fact, native people who avoid serious injuries from accidents and infections can live to very old age, deriving considerable joy from appreciating the beauty of nature. In the consciousness of native people, when skalalitude exists, nature becomes a source of nourishment and health -- a teacher and healer. We cannot go back to the past, but we can and must find ways to bring the consciousness of nature kinship of the past into the present and integrate it with modern society.

Obstacles To Nature Kinship

Developing an ecological literacy is one of the most important fundamental requirements of responsible citizenship that must be mastered by everyone today, but knowledge alone does not automatically lead to ecological respect and stewardship. Intuitions, emotions and feelings play a powerful role in shaping our thoughts and actions, and we must find ways to allow the rich diversity of human experiencing to be cultivated and refined into a sophisticated environmental perception if we are to achieve a holistic harmony between nature and humankind.
Both fear and guilt are inhibiting emotional issues that are capable of distorting our perceptions of self and reality enough to cause psychosomatic illness on a personal level. Emotional blind-spots can restrict our abilities for critical thinking, problem-solving, planning and development, they can lead to imbalances and dis-eases on personal and planetary levels. There are special kinds of ecological fears and ecological guilt issues, which if not mastered can lead to projecting our personal problems into creating buildings, towns, highways, waterways and waste disposal systems that create more pollution and resource mis-use. Here I can only briefly touch upon the nature of environmental fears and ecological guilt, but the core issues can be at least recognized in hopes that the serious reader will pursue these in more detail.
1. The Fear of Nature -- Fear is a learned response to a perceived threat, real or imaginary, and nature is not always nice. It can be painful, even a killer. Spiders, snakes, scorpions, and rabid raccoons can kill. Ice storms and tornadoes can destroy homes and crops. Floods, volcanoes, tidal waves and earthquakes may wipe out entire towns. Bears can attack people. There are some aspects of nature that are frightening, but there are many others that are not threatening but which still may be feared by people if they are not familiar with natural phenomena.
Fear is manifest by the fight or flight response. After early childhood, we learn what to fear and how to effectively express our feelings. Such concepts can be carried into later life, influencing they way we work, act, play and build our towns and cities. If we learn as children that nature is something to be feared, then as adults we will protect ourselves through architecture and design. It is generally agreed that alienation from self and nature is very widespread today, and alienation, or separation, is caused by fear. Frank Lloyd Wright called modern architecture "cash and carry," implying that it was mechanical, paid little attention to local landforms, and was based more upon expediency and economics than human needs. One wonders how much of our lack of design sensitivity is an expression of the fear of nature translated into sealed, air-conditioned buildings that protect us from climatic change, and cities that offer few or no parks or scenes of natural beauty.
Pest control strategies represent another way that fear can be transferred into action. Insects of all kinds can eat our crops, carry disease, and consume the foundations of our homes, but sometimes we spray with toxic chemicals more out of fear than a real need to protect ourselves. To a farmer who views the world according to a Newtonian-Cartesian mechanical model, which has been the prevailing model of science for many years, coping with an insect pest is a matter of finding the right chemical poison to kill the insect or animal as quickly and cheaply as possible. However, as practitioners of organic gardening have clearly shown, pests can also be controlled by strengthening potential victim plants with added soil nutrients, planting companion plants that naturally repel pests, and introducing natural predators, like lady bugs and praying mantises, to eat the pests. The methods of the organic farmer are all based an understanding of the dynamics of systems, and the methods of control are rooted in changing natural relationships, letting nature do the work, rather than applying poisons that often harm life systems far beyond a single pest.
Learning to think ecologically -- in terms of systems rather than simple cause and effect -- transforms scientists into tinkerers who experiment with systemic balances. Tinkering requires patience, as well as an attitude that one cannot or should not try to control nature, but rather must work with natural forces and organisms to achieve goals. Tinkering requires patience, tolerance, and ultimately love.
Another fear of nature that keeps many people apart from the wonders of nature, especially wild places, is the fear of being alone, and what may happen then. When we are alone, and without distractions, such as television, radio, and newspapers, our unconscious becomes more active, sometimes revealing aspects of ourselves that are normally suppressed. Some people are afraid to spend time alone in nature because they fear becoming aware of things they are doing that they really do not like, but do for money or security -- such as stay in a bad relationship or job.
Alone in nature, unusual sensory experiences that many people find frightening, may also occur. In the movie "Field of Dreams," Kevin Costner plays a farmer who hears voices from people who are not there and builds a baseball field in a corn field as a result. When he reports his experience to a group of seasoned farmers, no one questions that such things can happen.
A number of research studies have concluded that beautiful natural settings are an important element in many people having paranormal experiences. When one has such an experience, one loses control of ego consciousness. This may be very frightening to people, especially if they are used to living in a world that places high emphasis on controlling one's consciousness.
Some fears of nature can be prevented or erased by good educational programs, such as hands-on programs for young children that allow them to touch snakes, lizards, turtles, and frogs; take walks in the woods at night; and learn to tell poison ivy from English ivy. Knowing what to do helps if you meet a bear in the woods.
Modern psychology has devised a number of good strategies for helping people deal with fears. These methods need to be used outside the counseling office to help people feel at ease in natural settings. When unnecessary fears are curtailed, then people can develop feelings of respect and appreciation for nature that lead to what Rachel Carson called "a sense of wonder," which is similar to skalalitude. Studies have shown that spending as little as an hour a week alone in a natural area can have a positive effect on mental health. Learning to conquer our fears of nature is crucial to being able to accept nature as a teacher and healer.
2. Ecological Guilt -- The advice by the late mythologist Joseph Campbell to "follow your bliss," has become very popular. It is great guidance, especially in an age in which social trends seem to change as quickly as the wind shifts direction. Campbell also emphatically said on numerous occasions "Flesh eats flesh." I have yet to see that saying on a bumper sticker, but that wisdom is just as important to ecological harmony.
One of the fundamental psychological issues that all humans must resolve is that life is dependent upon death. Walking, breathing, and even healing yourself, all require killing microorganisms. Building materials and cloth come from once living plants and animals, and if the Earth is alive, then the stone blocks in your fireplace must be alive, or at least were alive before you took them inside.
The wisdom of traditional cultures asserts that everything is alive and has consciousness. Modern science now agrees that plants, as well as animals have consciousness. Therefore, even if you are a vegetarian, you must kill to live. We cannot escape being killers, and so the way to make peace with this dark side of human nature is to learn to accept the killer in each of us.
Humans need to cultivate "reverence for life," as Albert Schweitzer put it, a phrase which came to him one day in the African jungle in a moment of unitive consciousness when surrounded by a herd of menacing hippos. Schweitzer did not like to hunt, but he did eat meat, carried a gun for protection, and shot poisonous snakes and birds of prey that threatened his domesticated animals and pets. He came to formulate the concept of reverence for life as a way to describe an attitude that expresses deep respect for life, but also acknowledges the necessity of killing as a part of the balance of life. Cultivating a sense of reverence for life, involves people acknowledging that they must kill to live. As a result of this realization they develop deep appreciation for life in general, and more easily see themselves as part of the food chain, and not separate from it.
Food does not come from the supermarket. Today, the food you eat often travels thousands of miles before it reaches your plate. Learning respect for the food you eat is an essential element in forming an ecological consciousness. If you eat meat, and some people do need to eat meat for their health, then you need to find some way to show respect for the animals you eat. Finding peace with nature begins with loving yourself, and if you deny your personal needs, even for moral or ethical needs, at some level in your being you will be angry at what you are doing to yourself, and this anger with spill out into your relationships in some way.
There is a sense of peace that comes from eating food that originates from the land where you live. The plants and animals that naturally reside in a bioregion arise from that place as a result of millions of years of evolution. They arise from the minerals of the Earth and carry the subtle signatures of the rhythms and cycles of nature in that place. Eating them results in a sense of rootedness that aids emotional grounding. If each person could grow, gather, or harvest at least some of the food they eat, we would be a much more peaceful and ecologically conscious society.

Creating An Ecological Conscience

In the late 1940's wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold penned A Sand County Almanac, a poetic book that chronicles his sensitive observations of the annual cycles of nature and what those observations led him to conclude man must do to live in harmony with nature. He concludes that to conserve natural resources we need nothing less than a new "land ethic" arising from an "ecological conscience" to make conservation become the norm and not the exception.
When Aldo Leopold first wrote A Sand County Almanac, the manuscript was passed among a number of publishers who rejected it. When it finally came out, the book did not sell well at all. Re-issued 20 years later in the wake of Rachel Carson's chilling warning about the potential dangers of toxic chemicals polluting the environment, Silent Spring, and on the eve of the 1970 Earth Day groundswell of popular support for ecology, Leopold's book became a best-seller. Twenty years later, the book still remains one of the classics of environmental literature. Yet the land ethic and ecological conscience that Leopold urged us to create remain as elusive as the ruffed grouse on Leopold's farm.
Today, because the media give us more news of eco-disasters and dangers, people are more aware of the problems of the Earth than ever before. Indifference has been replaced by a sense of urgency that we must act to save the planet -- memberships of large environmental groups has doubled from four to eight million in the last decade, and as many as 25 million other people may be involved at the local level.
Although people are more aware than ever before of ecological problems, this awareness is largely based on second-hand information, taken from media reports based on the sometimes conflicting views of scientists. In addition, large environmental organizations often base their funding appeals on reporting a seemingly never-ending series of new crises that are followed by appeals for financial support to address them. This approach may ultimately mean that environmental organizations may need crises to survive. In the long run, such an organizational personality promotes well-informed futility and cynicism. Political action is an essential part of ecological conservation, but it is essential that environmental organizations go beyond the need to have crises and enemies to survive. They must find new ways to generate and maintain their membership and revenues, or they will become dinosaurs and people will feel that nothing can be done to stop a seemingly endless stream of ecological crises.
Our growing intellectual familiarity with ecology alone is not sufficient motivation to establish an ecological conscience. A land ethic grows from first-hand contact with the soil and the creatures of nature that is gradually integrated with ecological literacy to result in an organic wisdom of nature kinship. Without the primary emotional roots in nature, ecology tends to be just one more topic that a socially responsible person should be familiar with, rather than a guiding force in one's entire life. Ecological responsibility is ultimately a way of life based on preventing environmental problems.
Knowledge of the terms and concepts of ecology is far more important than a great deal of what is taught in schools today, but to seriously follow Aldo Leopold's advice to create a land ethic from an ecological conscience, we need to provide ways for everyone to form an emotional/intuitive bond with the Earth. I want to conclude with suggestions of four ways in which we can help generate an ecological conscience through emotional ties to nature.
1) Holistic Education -- Our schools tend to focus on educating only a small fraction of the human potential -- primarily linear, rational-analytical thinking and memorization. This perspective rewards a few, asks many others to conform, ignores many creative and artistic talents, and alienates far too many. Environmental education, ideally, is not a special class or a special unit in a class, but a theme that pervades all of education, ensuring that an integrative social norm, a land ethic, is reinforced everywhere. Educational programs that seek to help build an ecological conscience should address a broad spectrum of human potentiality, and should include:
a) Consideration of the many different ways that people learn, offering programs that involve many different skills and abilities that lead to a life-long commitment to ecological stewardship. Programs and themes should begin in the earliest grades, be geared to the unique mental set of each age group, and be integrated into science, social studies, drama, humanities, art, physical education and manual skills training.
b) Fostering a positive emotional bonding with nature, which begins with a pleasingly landscaped school site and guided field trips to natural areas at all grade levels, and includes overnight camping and even wilderness solos in higher grades.
c) Being practical, as well as theoretical -- for example teaching students to grow and harvest some of their own food. In the area where I live, one private school operates a five-acre organic garden, run largely by student labor, which supports itself and some school programs through vegetable sales to the public. Units from the science classes are tied into the running of the farm, as is the economics of the operating the project. Two other high schools have undertaken stream restoration programs and established salmon runs in those restored streams. A number of schools all around the world have students conducting air and water environmental quality monitoring, thanks to the Global Rivers Environmental Education Network directed by the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment.** The more immediately relevant environmental education can be, the more that students will grasp its purpose and value.
d) Respect for cross-cultural differences, including how different cultures all around the world view nature, as expressed in literature and art, as well as cultural customs and religions. This is especially important in a culturally diverse society such as the United States, where each cultural group has its own unique values and customs about nature and all have value in developing nature kinship.
e) Promoting service to the community at large, such as undertaking beautification, recycling, reforestation, and wildlife habitat restoration projects as a regular part of the normal class work. 2) Design and Planning -- Another way to help foster a land ethic is through design that seeks to harmonize human activities with nature and to celebrate the uniqueness of each place. Simple interior design decisions such as placement of windows, colors and textures of walls, and use of art call to mind sentiments that are refreshing and tied to the natural world, diminishing a feeling of separation between people and nature that is found in many modern buildings.
Frank Lloyd Wright used to claim that he could design a home that would guarantee a divorce in six months. Modern psychological research is finding that Wright was probably right about how the construction of homes can influence people who live there. Simply having windows in hospital rooms seems to decrease the amount time patients need for recovery. Windows in office buildings reduces burn-out in employees. Research is showing that certain structural materials used in buildings can generate environmental fields that are detrimental to health -- especially electrical power transmission lines and certain kinds of plastics. These subtle environmental factors become especially important to health when people spend so much time indoors.
The shape and form of the landscape and the placement of human structures should show respect for the uniqueness of nature in that place. In American Samoa, the gymnasium at Samoana High School is built in the shape of a giant turtle and the modern building where the islands' legislature, the Fono, meets, replicates a dome-shaped traditional thatched roof structure, which is called a "fale." This shape also imitates the shape of the volcanic mountains of the islands.
Organic forms and shapes mirror and blend with natural features, creating feelings of peace and harmony, even inspiration. Walking into a home or building that has been designed as an organic expression of nature in that place, creates a feeling of rightness about the design statement that influences emotions and mental activity. It moves you to feel a sense of oneness with that place rather than a vague feeling of disconnectedness that contributes to anxiety and alienation in many people.
In Seattle, Washington, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin has built a park over the top of an interstate freeway that bi-sects the town. Covering a freeway in itself cuts down on ambient noise and confusing energies, but Halprin has made the park in the spirit of the nearby water-rich North Cascades Mountain range, weaving evergreen trees and numerous rushing watercourses with boulders into an organic concrete freeform structure that resembles a high mountain valley. The pathways in the park draw people from all walks of life outdoors, to eat their lunch, relax, or stroll, uplifting spirits while all the while thousands of cars are speeding by underneath. The great parks of New York and Chicago similarly draw people outdoors, reminding those who live and work in concrete, steel and glass mountains, where life comes from and how important natural beauty is to us all.
Each place on the face of the Earth has a unique character, a blend of subtle forces of earth, wind, water and climate, as well as the indigenous plants and animals of that bioregion. Public art that captures and expresses the "spirit" of a place establishes the identity of that place, and helps unite a sense of community in support of nature in that area. In downtown Eugene, Oregon, not far from the Willamette River, a sculpture of a school of salmon sits above a flowing fountain ringed by a grove of Douglas Fir trees. Sited in the middle of several public buildings for Lane County, this art makes a statement about what makes this particular place special, reminding all passers-by of the annual migration of thousands of salmon in the nearby rivers, as well as the forested ecosystem that supports successful salmon spawning and is the mainstay of the local economy. In Mill Valley, California, just north of San Francisco, a grove of redwood trees remains in the physical center of town, reminding all of the importance of the giant trees to the identity of the area, which once was a center of logging for northern California.
3) Festivals to Celebrate Nature -- Annual cycles and rhythms predominate the moods of nature, balancing the linear aspect of time which is much more emphasized in modern society. Festivals are a vehicle by which communities can come together and call attention to certain features of nature, including the seasons and their unique qualities and influences on human life. Festivals are good for business, and they also represent an important opportunity to establish values and set or change social norms, as well as strengthen a sense of community. Festivals that help foster a land ethic should be:
a) Harmonized with natural cycles and phenomena. For example, spring flower blooms, fall harvests, migration of birds and fish, and seasonal sports, all can be unitive themes for festivals. They remind us of what makes a place special and calling us together to celebrate the uniqueness of that place.
b) Set an example of ecological behaviors. Festivals are ephemeral, but allow us to establish behavioral norms that can be carried on. A clean-up day at the beach can influence recycling, litter prevention, and trash collection the rest of the year. Tree planting and flower planting parties encourage people to landscape their homes. Showcasing organic fruits and vegetables at a farmers' market inspires people to grow more of their own food at home. Readily visible containers for trash which facilitate recycling illustrate how easy it is to recycle when people plan for it.
c) Encourage ecological restoration. Festivals call attention to certain special features, including history and native plants and animals of an area, and can organize people to action. We need to prevent pollution and protect precious natural resources, but in some places we can actually take steps to restore plants and animals that once were common, creating natural ecosystems that have evolved from the unique climate and soils of that place. Festivals can help us recall just how important the original plants and animals of a region are to the identity of that place.
One example of the power of restoration is the movement to bring back the American bison, which is catching on across America. The plentiful bison, once the most common ungulate on Earth, were replaced by the introduced cow, which is more easily handled but less hardy, and its flesh has a much higher fat and cholesterol content than the native bison. Bison meat is a health food endorsed by the American Heart Association, and buffalo restoration also aids the recovery of the Native American Indian religion, which is so tightly linked with the native creatures of the land, and the mythic images of the American wilderness. It seems no mere coincidence that the symbol of the US Department of Interior is the buffalo. If there would be a national animal, it should be the buffalo, for this land once gave birth to a herd that numbered at least 60 million. All across the land there are unique animals, plants and natural features which can be honored through festivals.
4) Arts and Entertainment As Education. The average American spends ten times more time in a movie theater than in museums during his or her lifetime. Television sets are on eight hours a day in many American homes. Music is the universal language. Documentaries are important to educate people about nature and the environment, but since ancient times, it has been the mythic sentiments, expressed through the creative and performing arts, which have most powerfully moved people. The first environmental education lessons were the songs, stories, dances and ceremonies that native people used to communicate environmental values and the mythic tales, instructing people in proper livelihood. While boredom is the all too often norm in schools, today the place where magic is alive most often is in theater, film, concerts and even on television. In Mexico and India, soap operas have proven one of the most effective means of public health education. I am waiting for soaps in the United States to focus on issues like population control and pollution as major issues, driving home the point that environmental concern touches everyone. We have musical events that raise money for various ecological causes, but not nearly enough songs, operas, plays, and ballet performances about nature. Nature kinship forms out of enchantment, as much as knowledge.
For many people today, nature is a distant land of wild animals which is perhaps lightly touched while on vacation or viewed on a television documentary, unless some dire ecological catastrophe blackens the skies or beaches and leaves wildlife and humans devastated. We cannot wait for eco-castrophies to be the sole rallying reason for supporting environmental conservation. People need to individually feel the value of the nature in their personal lives. This will lead them to know why the Indians of the Pacific Northwest feel that modern society's greatest sin may be the way it inhibits people from knowing what skalalitude is, and why that state of mind, where nature is a teacher and healer, is so important to the survival of the human species and perhaps the Earth itself.
* Nature As Teacher and Healer: How To Reawaken Your Connection With Nature by James A. Swan, published by Villard-Random House, 1992; and in Japan, Nihon Kyobunsha, 1995. ** Global Rivers Environmental Education Project, 721 East Huron Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48104.