-
APNC 1.1 (Summer/Fall 18) C4
-
9 Replies
-
hello
-
It has been said that while at sea a sailor develops what is called “sea legs”. i.e. the ability to adjust and maintain balance with the shifting waves as they beat upon the vessel whether or not they are congruent with its own propulsion or at odds against it. They develop the ability to work within the ebb and flow of the rise and fall of the tides and even over time develop a sense of land in the distance while the contour of the ocean floor slowly escalates to pierce through the sea’s water barrier in the distance long before it can be seen. When on land however their baring is off and they find themselves unable to maintain even a straight gaze let alone stroll.
For most of us, flat landers, we also have forces that influence us. I will not say they are more subtle but they are more familiar. The earth beneath us has its own mass, composition and gravitational pull, the structures we live and work in there own buzz of preoccupation and pulse of activities. When attentive one knows whether you are on a firm foundation or one that bounces when another walks by, violently compressing your vertebra, or if there is even fresh air flowing in the midst or just stagnate dust simply being moved around. In both environments however we adjust to harmonize with our surroundings and adapt to our conditions with very little conscience thought of our own harmonics. How they are affected and/or affecting others and the environment we find ourselves in but not necessarily connected to.
This connection can be seen and appreciated with a deeper awareness when watching an artist deeply concentrating on the task of creativity at hand. When they are engaged with the medium with which they have chosen and the material with which they wish to depict the subject in, whether oil, acrylic, water color, charcoal, chalk, crayons, pencil or photograph and regardless of if its with bright pastels or muted shades of gray, but the life of the depiction is only brought out not merely by a talent but more so by the connection being made between all the elements in the equation. It’s the “in-betweeness” of what happens in the orchestration of each in a harmonic blend of them all, captured in but a moment, which makes it easier for us to see what so fluidly surrounds us in a constant stream and therefore so easily missed.
From our reading the quote from Allen Watts stands out to me, “you didn’t come into the world you came out of it, like a wave from the ocean, you are not a stranger here.” The question therefore I ask myself with regard to Nature Connection and its importance is how familiar am I with both the environment and myself and the attenuations of each let alone the “in-betweeness”. Here in Colorado I experience, like many the concept spoken of by John Mur when stating, “The mountains are calling” but I can also be completely disconnected while also in a high tech fast passed, heads down, and fractured world radiating only the glow from a computer screen, as the “digital creep” steals something from us all in exchange of convenience not connectedness.
To borrow from Richard Price, “Wilderness is a leaderless teacher, there is no one preaching change to us, the only personal transformation that occurs arises from within ourselves.” So in interest of identifying the challenges of growing as a human being and developing a connection with nature within and around me. The best I can formulate in simplest terms is a mantra like statement. I am but a witness and I strive to be a good one and forever in amazement, it makes life entertaining.
-
What is nature connection to me?
In 2011 I spent 6 months living in the deserts of Australia. I travel by 4wd over 25,000km, 18,000 of them were off road. My life condensed to 3 tee shirts, a pair of denim shorts, a tent, a mattress and a small box containing 2 forks, 2 spoons, 2 plates, 2 wine glasses, a cutting board and a chief’s knife. The vehicle was our life vessel. I needed no more, and I needed no less. When I ran up rocks in the dawn light I was the earth itself. When I plunged into cold waters of a gorge I was renewed. I was delighted and bewildered. Life has never been the same since.On Friday I flew from New Zealand to Bali for a week’s break. Around half way I looked out the window, down on the red, red earth of central Australia, and my heart broke.
“…In the peacefulness we so often feel [in nature] there is also confusion or profound sadness.
….Many return to a great sense of loss or pain, realising how cruelly we have divided our lives.”Well, these words in the reading hit home, and enable me to understand the heart ache and disconnect I felt on the flight. I could see the red centre: I could see it, feel it, hear its call, but I was 30,000 feet away. I sat in my seat and sobbed.
My connection to nature is the place I lose myself. My boundaries disappear, I lose my hard edges, I become my senses and become part of something else. Connecting with self, people and the environment around me is inevitable at those times. On reflection, I’ve seen it happen in unlikely places; under a flowering bougainvillea in Sicily, in the crowded streets of Ubud (Bali), and listening to the 1812 overture with 50,000 others under a night sky.
Two weeks ago I would have listed a bunch of logistics as my biggest challenges to connecting with nature; having a job to go to, bad weather on weekends, other commitments… Today I can see my biggest challenge to connection with nature is in fact my perception of where nature starts and stops. When am I in nature? If I walk on the beach then go home, at what point do I leave nature? How do I define this connection? How do I carry it with me?
This process of reflection has dispelled a sorrow today. I am grateful to have the time and space to share this.
-
I have always felt more connected in nature. Connected to my God, creator, source. Simply being in nature fills my cup, makes me feel complete. More alive, more clear. The difficulty maintaining that connection has been in prioritizing my need for it, as well as, making time to spend in nature when I have had so many worldly expectations of being a mom, wife, daughter, employee, volunteer, friend, etc.
Today on my journey, nature is playing a larger role as I am working to become one with creation around me. I am seeing the importance of putting my needs first to be the best me I was created to be. Learning what and who’s expectations matter. Seeing what being my best balanced wholehearted self really looks like. How and where we are all one.
Along with understanding my need for this connection to nature I am ready to be a student of it. Ready to learn the lessons nature can teach. As I continue on my journey I am learning to let go of the worldly expectations and embrace earthly endeavors. I believe all the answers have been provided, we just have to learn where to look and listen for what is right before and within us.
-
Discussion question: What is nature connection? For me, nature connection is coming home to our truest Selves— a self in tune with its environment, be it an inner city, or a deep wilderness. This Self recognizes intuitively and deeply our coming out of the earth, not coming into it, (as if we’re aliens, thus we feel alienation!). Nature connection is about deep attention and observation to outer phenomena, and to our inner response(s). Nature connection also involves trusting the rightness of what’s happening at this moment—not denying our experience because it may be uncomfortable or new. Ultimately, our degree of connection with the outer nature is a mirror for our connection with our inner nature. When we are deeply connected, we enter into a reciprocal relationship with our outer environment, one that informs our inner selves to the deepest soul level.
Why is it important to you? Nature connection is essential to me because without it, I am like a motherless child, cast upon the hard shores of a soul-less industrial society! Nature connection makes me feel deeply alive and reverential for all life. It connects me to the more-than-human world in unspeakable, but deeply felt, ways. The connection is also infinitely scalable: It connects me to long cycles of cosmological time, to my human ancestry, to a grove of brilliantly turning aspens whose scent carries in the breeze, and to the black ant who I almost stepped on. Nature is our universal mother. I am not human without a connection to, and a dialogue with, nature.
What are the real challenges you face in maintaining your connection? I often fail to be outwardly observant enough to make a real connection with my environment. I go too fast. I see it, I label it, but then I just go on. Thus, the thinking about my own personal drama begins, and the rest is…history. Then I’ve totally lost any connection with anything outside my own fear-based ego center. So, I have to be going slow enough to REALLY notice my environment, and then have the intention to engage with it, as you would a lover or a small child. Lots more listening, little inner chatter. Use multiple senses. Be present, and open to the experience.
-
A sacred question…what is nature connection to me? To begin to put words to a topic that can not be explained, I separated nature and connection to explore both individually. To me, nature is all things and no thing at once. I really don’t see a separation of city, forest, rivers, mountains, ocean, sun, moon, solar system etc. It is clear for me how these separate physical forms are not separate at all. In fact, it occurs to me like divine art…when I realize for brief moments how beautiful life really is.
One of the definitions of NATURE in the dictionary is: a creative and controlling force of the universe. This is my favorite of the potential definitions for nature, because it does not limit nature to this planet. I interact with nature as a “force” greater than SELF. In this context I see connection as an “act of” or state of being…a mode of communication or transportation. When I experience connectedness…there is nothing or no thing in between. In the articles for this module…it is referred to as ONE or oneness. When this exploration of nature and connection is combined, for me…there is a deep understanding that…I am…nature. A oneness with nature just “shows up” as an experience. A communication with nature arrives as a self generated act…to “leave myself” in service of something greater.
The real challenges of maintaining connection to nature are present often. For example, I stray away from the present moment (now) and sometimes see the world through filters that I created in story form starting from a young age (i.e. Am I trusted?, I’m not good enough, I’m alone). I begin to interact with these past based conversations as if they are real. And…at times…they do occur as real to me (even though they are an illusion). Once I give merit to these illusions…I feel separate and the oneness experience…I am nature…is not present. I have accepted this battle of the mind and heart as a mountain with no top. I do have a “team” of people that I speak with each morning (the accent of the day) in pursuit of mastering a created life. The intention is to acknowledge, discover, set aside etc…the illusion and make way for the miracle and power of (now). The created act of being one with nature. For me, it is not the addition of money, knowledge or anything else but more the removal of (the illusions) that gives birth to the oneness with nature. The next challenge I would like to take on…from today…is growing my community of like minded individuals that are willing to hold me to account for what I’m committed to (being connected to nature).
-
Hi Rollin,
I enjoyed reading your post here, and one line really struck me–“I have accepted this battle of the mind and the heart as a mountain with no top.” This was a good reminder for me that the tension I perceive between feeling and thinking is constantly changing and never-ending. Thinking, thinking, too much thinking, I tell myself.I too tend to view it inside me as an on-going ‘battle’, and i now will consider re-framing the relationship to be more like a partnership than a battle, for upon reflection I see i cannot have one without the other.
Thank you for spurring this idea in me!
-
-
I could regurgitate the things that compose connection from the readings for the first week,but I’d rather consider what nature connection is to me. The attributes that John Young lists out as attributes of connection seem like they could be precursors or outcomes of connection. The ones that explicitly list connection in them (e.g., A deeply empathetic and sensitive connection to the natural world) can be an attribute of connection in general if the “natural world” were removed from them.
When I think of connection, and of course the concept will continue to evolve and mature, I think of Buber’s I and Thou. The way of encountering another as a relationship (I-Thou) rather than as a something to collect data on and use. This also starts to speak to the difference between the utilitarian approach to environmental ethics compared to the intrinsic ethic. The I-Thou encounter, though, is about relationship between objects (beings). This relationship is both transformative for both involved and universal (i.e., the entire universe is exists in this relationship). Buber says this type of relationship is possible with objects in the natural world as well.
To me, deep Nature-Connection is a relationship. It is feeling the natural world, and through that process the lessons that nature has as well as what nature “wants”. Part of my practice is often to ask permission of the beings in nature when I enter into it for various reasons. I also offer gratitude to the natural surrounding for allowing me to be there and what they bring to the world. I’ve also worked with “talking” to nature, feeling the life force in it.
As you might guess from this, such connection is very important to me because of the lessons that are possible. As a spiritual practice, I learn humility, connection (as a spiritual attribute) which leads to the other attributes Young talks about, and what is real. I also learn about myself, although some of these lessons I’m still learning, and I seem to have to learn them over and over. I could talk about some of these lessons from soul-o’s in the wilderness, but I’ll save that for later.
Many of my challenges deal with the ability and time to spend the time necessary in nature. I’ve done enough of this work that I feel like I don’t need a lot of time to “drop in,” but certainly as Harper mentions, extended time is important, and there is a huge qualitative difference between a week or longer and a day or two.
-
What is Nature-Connection, why is it important to you, and what are the real challenges that you face in maintaining your connection?
Nature Connection for me defines the moments when nature changes something in you… it could be life changing or soul opening such as the experiences I have when in the backcountry and away from civilization or it could be that small moment when you are distracted by something beautiful or even simple in nature that comes into your daily life. I believe a true connection to nature happens when you allow yourself the space and time to stop and acknowledge this moment, let it sink in, let it take you away from whatever was taking place in the moments before.
Living in Los Angeles my struggle is feeling like the close to home opportunities are not enough , when places like Joshua Tree and the Sierra are only a few hours away. And yet the close to home opportunities are quite spectacular all things considered. I am working towards redefining how and connect with nature and where so that I can truly appreciate and share the opportunities that are available daily and not just when I get out of town.
