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.