If you’re coming to the Creating a Culture of Nature Connection talks in Southern Ontario between March 4-7, 2010, you might enjoy engaging in some of the material I will be covering in advance. How cool is that?! A chance to try some exercises out before you even get there! Even if you’re not coming, check this out and see how you like it! Tell your friends about it.

If you don’t have time, you might just want to read this through. It’s up to you. Enjoy!

Each day between now (Friday, February 26) and the talks I will add to this post another way to connect with nature. These can build on each other or you can grab on here or there. What’s important is to have fun! Each post has something to think about, a new way of looking at things, as well as an optional activity. My intent is to gain some interaction between you and I before the talks.

A Few Ways to Engage:

1. Read one or all the posts before you come to the talk, send me your comments.
2. Try one of these ways and tell me what difference it made for you that day.
3. Try all of these activities and share with me the impact doing all of them had on your primary relationships.

4. Interact with others participating in these exercises and talks around Ontario on the Art of Mentoring Facebook Group

5. Please send me questions and comments about what you are wanting in your life right now. I will do my best to incorporate those into my talks. Categories to consider: How is your connection to yourself? Nature? Family? Community? Personal purpose?

See you soon!

Mark

 

Introduction to the Exercises:

Give up Something.

Most of the time what’s stopping me from nature connection is me. Habits I have that disconnect me. For example, Internet time (read cell phone, twitter, facebook, email etc.). No Internet before 9 am. That would be a start. Or no internet after 6pm. Omigod! What am I going to do with all that extra time?

Quick ! Make a new Daily Habit. (outdoors)

I am going to recommend something tiny here. The smaller the better. Otherwise the large commitments end up being a clever form of sabotage.

Two practices that will support the 7 ways to Nature Connection:

A. Create a sitting place no more than 1 minute from the front door of your dwelling. Agree to go there every day for 7 days. Minimum 10 minutes each time. (notice how measurable this is)

or

B. Walk around your dwelling at half to quarter speed every morning. Stop 4 times in each of the cardinal directions for 1 minute. Make the loop no more than 10 minutes in duration.

Okay, here we go…

 

Day One:

Eyes: We, as humans, are a visual animal. We have a bias towards the visual. Breaking that habit will require a new commitment to your other senses as if they matter. Practice peripheral vision on your walk or at your sit spot. This means imagine that you are an owl and that you can’t move your eyeballs (glued in the sockets), so you put your attention on the edges of what you are seeing, up and down, left and right. It makes your focus go a little fuzzy, but it’s a good trade for how relaxing it can be. Imagine you are giving your brain a chance to relax out of focused attention to natural awareness. This is your only task today!

 

Day Two: (Eyes plus Ears)

Ears: Listen. Listen beyond the close sounds. What is the farthest sound you can hear? Include natural and man-made sounds. How many airplanes went by? How many different bird sounds can you keep track of? Notice that the wind blowing through different tree species makes different sounds. Close your eyes for while.

Day Three: (Eyes plus Ears plus Touch)

Touch: Have you ever ran your hand up and down the bark of a tree and imagined the texture that it has? It is so reliable as a tree id tool. Close your eyes and rotate very slowly, feel the whispers of wind on your cheeks and the heat of the sun on your skin. Does your nose change temperature as the moisture in the air changes? How? Allow yourself to touch things with your hands, when you normally wouldn’t. Grab snow. Place your cool hands upon your face, breathe.

Day Four: (Eyes plus Ears plus Touch plus Smell)

Smell: My nose is so small compared with my large eyes and ears. Imagine what a Dog can smell! Perhaps 100 times better than us. Hmmm. Does that mean I could smell an apple pie, inside my neighbors house, a block away ? Or detect the smell of bacon from the pantleg of a person that ate it that morning in a bacon infused kitchen, that brushed a twig, yesterday ?

Expand your mind, expand your awareness on what you can smell. Salmon smell their way back home, 100’s of miles. What is the home you are smelling back to ?

 

Day Five: ( Eyes plus Ears plus Touch plus Smell plus Taste)

Taste: This is a good one. We eat all the time, but how often are we really slowing down to taste? Imagine the difference between a rushed meal on your way out the door, and tasting your food the way a Sommalier, or professional wine taster would savour each mouthful. How many times have you looked down and found your plate empty? Whoa! I wish I could accuse someone of stealing but the only person here, is me! Taste your food without salt. Skip sugar for a day. Outdoor option: expand your sense of smell the way you expanded your vision days ago. Put a couple of pine needles in your mouth (they are edible, but be sure it’s a pine). Chew and experience one of the most potent and free sources of Vitamin C ! (a handful is 5 x the vit C of an orange) Spit out roughage.

 

Day Six: Combine Them All!

All Senses: Combine them all for a minimum of 1 minute. Sounds easy? Tell me how long you went afterward. Focus on how you felt before you started and how you felt after? Note that with intense scrutiny. Write a poem or a song. Imagine that wolves spend 24/7 in this state. If they didn’t, they would die. Is that true for all animals? Is that true for us?

 

Day Seven: Intuition

Intuition: Ask yourself an impossible question, like “Where around my house is a natural mystery right now?” Then return to all the senses, adding one at a time, until you have all of them going. When you get to that Quiet Mind, Start walking straight towards that Natural Mystery.
Often people report all kinds of amazing experiences when they use all of their senses, and allow themselves to follow those senses. I’d love to hear your story, big or small. Please share if you’re willing. Thanks so much!

That concludes: 7 ways to Nature Connection.

 

Mark Morey is a nature connection blogger, international mentor, and father, from Southern Vermont. He will be visiting Ontario the first week of March to speak about the Art of Mentoring: Making healthy connections between Nature, Children, Family and Community.
www.IfNaturalLearning.Com/blog/