Spirituality, Therapy, and the Good Life

In preparing for this coming Sunday’s event here at SagePlace, “Honoring the Sacred in Nature: Honoring the Sacred in Ourselves,” I came across a book filled with wisdom and beautiful imagery entitled, “By Monomoy Light” written by North T. Cairn. In it she wrote,

” I have spent most of my life exploring the hinterlands of the hidden self, and when the time was right, I made the north – the mythological direction governing birth and death; the body and nature; growth, creativity and silence – my own.”

She also wrote, “Still, the last decade of the millennium was more for me the beginning of ten years of wandering in a small wilderness, and it would change me for good. It is not that I found myself in the sparse wilderness of Monomoy, but rather that I lost myself there, in the intricate elegance and uncompromising energy of nature.”

For me, Maine fits her description of the North perfectly and offers us opportunities to be both lost and found.

WebMD has a very good slideshow available online that offers an overview of Depression including its symptoms, impact on daily life, whose at risk, causes, diagnosis, and treatment. You can view it here.

On this earth day I am reflecting on the tremendous amount that has been written about the value of encountering the natural world (of which we are a part)close-up. Winifred Gallagher in, The Power of Place, quoted James Swan, an environmentalist and psychologist who advised that his prescription for inner conflict was spending time alone with no activities or distractions in a natural setting. Swan observes that as we spend most of our time indoors, we become estranged from “the vast mine of meaning, art, metaphor, and teaching that we evolved in.”

According to Gallagher, signs exist all around us suggesting that we long to reconnect with our natural environment. In exploring our growing attraction to nature-based activities, as well as the benefits of such endeavors, Gallagher cites a study conducted by Stephen and Rachel Kaplan who concluded that nature has a profoundly positive impact on both mental and physical health. Acts as simple as listening to a bubbling brook, feeling a gentle breeze ruffle your hair, lifting your face to the sun, following the flight of a butterfly, each of these experiences can be soothing and restorative.

Psychologist and researcher, Marc Fried, found after identifying the significant factors that enhance the quality of our lives that while the strongest predictor of life satisfaction was a good marriage, the immediate surrounding (the natural environment in particular) rated as the second strongest predictor. Not everyone is graced by a garden in the backyard, a beautiful view, or a park nearby. However, most of us can bring some degree of nature home by including live plants or fresh flowers in their living and work spaces.

According to Sam Keen, in Hymns to an Unknown God, the organization of the human soul reflects the world in which it is contained. He observes further that most of us have been cut off from our natural environment, working at desks and confined to artificially cooled and heated buildings for much of our lives. Keen believes that in order to sustain spiritual health we require expansive views, close contact with the elements of nature, the wind, water, the sun, lightening storms, and “the reassuring sight of something that grows from seed to maturity.”

On this beautiful, warm and sunny Earth day in Maine I prepare to head outside to count my blessings…

“the world is sick; it needs healing, it is speaking through us, and it speaks the loudest through the most sensitive of us.”
Sarah Conn

Following are quotes from the book, ” Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth Healing the Mind.”

“…the trauma endured by thechnological people like ourselves is the sytemic and systematic removal of our lives from the natural world: from the tendrils of earthy textures, from the rhythms of sun and moon, from the spirits of the bears and trees, from the life force itself. This is also the systemic and systematic removal of our lives from the kinds of social and cultural experiences our ancestors assumed when they lived in rhythm with the natural world.”
Chellis Glendinning

“Our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption … we need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate… “
Victor Lebow

“Psychological evidence shows that the relationship between consumption and personal happiness is weak. Worse, two primary forces of human fulfillment – social relations and leisure – appear to have withered or stagnated in the rush to riches. Thus many in the consumer society have a sense that their world of plenty is somehow hollow – that, hoodwinked by a consumer culture, they have been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy with material things what are essentially social, psychological, and spiritual needs.”
Alan Thein Durning

http://www.youtube.com/v/kgpQQbAyxZo&hl=en&fs=1

I came across a wonderful collection of articles some time ago collected and published by Cross Currents, a publication and global network sponsored by The Association for Religion and Intellectual Life. You can view these articles online here . They include:

Trees, Forestry, and the Responsiveness of CreationBrian J. Walsh, Marianne B. Karsh, and Nik Ansell

The Greening of Buddhist PracticeKenneth Kraft

The Gaia Hypothesis: Implications For a Christian Political Theology of the EnvironmentStephen B. Scharper

Islam and EcologyMarjorie Hope and James Young

Ethics and Trauma: Levinas, Feminism, and Deep EcologyRoger S. Gottlieb

Christianity and The Survival of CreationWendell Berry

Eucharistic Ecology and Ecological SpiritualityBeatrice Bruteau

Mountains Made Alive: Native American Relationships With Sacred LandEmily Cousins

On The Wings of a Blue HeronPaul O. Ingram

Re-conceiving God and Humanity in Light ofToday’s Ecological Consciousness: A Brief StatementGordon D. Kaufman

Global Requiem: The Apocalyptic Moment in Religion, Science, and ArtJack Miles

The Ecotheology of Annie Dillard: A Study in AmbivalencePamela A. Smith

Green Lap, Brown Embrace, Blue Body: The Ecospirituality of Alice WalkerPamela A. Smith

The Green Face of God: Christianity in an Age of EcocideMark I. Wallace

And the Earth Is Filled with the Breath of LifeArthur Waskow

Most of the above articles are written in sophisticated language and are not simple reading however, their messages are worth the time and energy expended in absorbing them.
These messages include but are not limited to:

1. The need for us to recognize and address what Thomas Berry has defined as our “cultural autism” and to develop an ability to ‘hear’ the voices of creation once again.

2. The significance of the Gaia hypothesis and it’s implications for our culture.

3. The earth’s crisis is fundamentally a spiritual crisis

4. Many of us are traumatized by the growing threats to our world

5. The view of our earth as a eucharistic planet (the true presence of the divine) has existed in almost every culture in the world in one form or another and reclaiming this view is essential for the protection of our world.

6. Learning about Native American religious traditions can help non-Natives as they offer a model for developing a spiritual relationship with the land.

7. If we look at hell as a metaphor then, “hell is land that has no spirits to claim it.” (Mamie Salt)

8. Religious life and the earth’s ecology are inextricably connected.

9. The importance of a biohistorical perpective of being human , one that emphasizes “our deep embeddedness in the web of life on planet Earth.” (Gordon Kaufman)

10. The very real possibility that humans might become extinct sooner than anyone imagined offers significant opportunites for spiritual and artistic growth.

11. “In the deepest origins of Jewish life, the most sacred relationship was the relationship with the earth.” Arthur Waskow

12. “Earth itself has become the nigger of the world…While the Earth is poisoned, everything it supports is poisoned. While the Earth is enslaved, none of us is free …. While it is `treated like dirt,’ so are we.” Alice Walker

http://www.youtube.com/v/79m1B5V6ZHg&hl=en&fs=1

Jim Stoltz “a Montana Folk Singer and traveler is bringing his multimedia show, “Forever Wild” to the First Universalist Church of Auburn. In his preformances, Stoltz takes his audience into the wilderness using photography, musc and stories. Named Walkin’ Jim for the 27,000 miles he has traveled in the wilds of North America, his lyrics convey his deeply held respect for nature. The show will begin at 1 P.M. and tickets are $10 for adults, free for children. Make reservations by calling (207) 783-0461 or at uuauburn@myfairpoint.net. “

In an article by Zachary Hecht-Leavitton in the College Media Network Jim explained, ” “In my show, I combine photography and music and put them together to create a real double-whammy. Art plays to heart. Getting more than one sense working makes for a stronger message and touches people in a more powerful way.”

Recently I listened to a young man lament that for much of his life time he didn’t feel as if he belonged — he didn’t belong in his family, at his school, in his neighborhood or at his workplace. I asked if there was any place that he was able to experience a sense of belonging and he responded that he felt connected and at peace when he was in the woods or in his canoe. I was immediately reminded of the words of Alan Watts who observed, “you did not come into this world, you came out of it. You are no stranger here.”

How many of us find ourselves at home in the natural world, and how great of a price do those of us who find ourselves estranged from it pay?

Tonight at 7:00 at Gilsland Farm Audubon Center in Falmouth there will be a discussion of an essay and a book, “Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility.” The Audubon website offers the following description:

“Three years ago Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger lectured to environmentalists that their movement had outlived its usefulness and must die so that something new could arise. The essay angered many environmentalists, but ignited a much-needed debate over the fate of the environmental movement in the United States. In this follow-up to the original essay, the authors give us an expansive and eloquent manifesto for political change. What Americans really want, and what could serve as the basis for a new politics, is a vision capable of inspiring us to greatness. Making the case for abandoning old categories such as nature vs. market, and left vs. right, the authors articulate a pragmatism fit for our times that has already found champions in such prominent figures as Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama.”

It should be both an informative and inspirational evening. Hope to see you there!