Ecopsychology

The web of attractions that hold all things on the planet together in a dynamic system is referred to in ecopsychology as “the web of life” and it is Nature itself. It is an intelligent, harmonious and supportive process that sustains all life.

The energetic strands of this massive web enable Nature to maintain balance and harmony by being in continual sensory contact with all aspects of itself and its environment. As part of Nature we too are linked to this web and have the ability to sense our connection to it. We, along all other forms of life, are born with this ability and it enables us to know how best to contribute to and be supported by the whole system of life of which we are a part.

Through the web of life, Nature has been, and when unimpeded by our interference still is, able to operate without creating the garbage, pollution, war, alienation, and other psychological and physical abuse and distress that plagues us today. So, what happened? How have we lost the life-sustaining connection with Nature’s web that would provide our lives with the harmony and balance we see in Nature? And how can we bring it back into our lives?

Answering these questions is the focus of Ecopsychology. As a field of study it explains why we suffer from the stress, depression, addictions, chronic illnesses and discontent that so often plagues us and how nature can teach us to heal our lives and live in harmony with our inner nature.

Ecopsychologists explain that as a species we have become disconnected from Nature’s web and therefore from our own nature for three principle reasons:

1) Societal Attitudes. For centuries, instead of living as a harmonious part of Nature’s web humankind has been determined to control and conquer Nature in the name of progress and survival. And we have indeed controlled and conquered much. In the process, we have also come to see all things natural as separate from ourselves, less sophisticated, less desirable and subject to our use, control and manipulation, even destruction, as we see fit. This has not only put us out of sync with Nature’s dynamic web, but has ripped massive holes in the web, hindering Nature’s ability to function in its flawless manner.

At a more personal level, our long entrenched societal attitudes toward Nature have also separated us from ourselves and put us at war with our own nature. Since we are biologically and psychologically designed to function as part of Nature’s web, being expected to live outside it, above and beyond it, cuts us off from ourselves and from our evolutionary family. We find ourselves in lives that feel quite unnatural, rushing and pushing, striving and driving ourselves just to keep up, finding little time for what we value most. And our bodies and psyches suffer.

In learning to distrust, disparage and manipulate Nature, we also learn to distrust, disparage and manipulate our own nature, our inner feelings and our desires. We’ve learned to rely instead on scientists and other experts to tell us who we need to be, what we need to do and how we need to live. We’ve become quite successful in doing this too. So successful that most of us have forgotten that our well-being and survival are dependent upon a natural relationship with our inner selves and with the natural world. Thus it becomes difficult to know what we really want and how we could create it.

2) Acquisition of Language. Some 144, 000 years ago humans developed the physiological ability to speak. The acquisition of language provided us with a way to communicate that’s not available to any other participant in Nature’s web. All other participants communicate, as we once did and still can, through a rich array of senses and sensations that are transmitted along the energetic attractions that make up the web of life.

At first, language was actually a representation of experience, evidenced by primitive languages and even more recent languages such as ancient Egyptian, but gradually words became less representational and more symbolic of thoughts, rational concepts, judgments and values, requiring us to live more and more “in our heads” and less and less in our bodies.

Language, thought, and judgment have become the preferred means of communication over the more subjective attractions that we experience as feelings and sensations, the non-verbal means through which all else in the web of life communicates.

Nature and indigenous peoples who live in nature-centered ways and therefore don’t suffer the runaway distress, dis-ease and stress-related illnesses, think and experience the world through at least 53 different sensory attractions or energetic connections that we would call sensations.

Each of these sensory connections is an intelligent way of knowing that inherently attracts to and blends with all the others to guide us to the common good through “common sense.” Nature helps create, sustain and balance life through these powerful 53 sensations acting in concert. To our loss, our excessive separation from Nature leads us to think and relate with less than six of these senses. The absence of this vital sensory input unbalances our thinking and leaves us berift of the full contingent of information we need to make the best life choices and decisions.[2]

We’ve narrowed our sensory input to only five vestigial senses and we’re expected to put even this limited input through the rigorous scrutiny of our scientific, social, political and academic authorities. If, for example, we experience a pain in a certain part of our bodies, we may be told by a doctor that such a pain is impossible, and some of us may actually believe that, concluding instead that it’s “all in our head.”

By relying almost exclusively on language and input from our five vestigial senses, we find ourselves going through life like the mythical seven blind men who are trying to identify an elephant but are each limited to perceiving the world through the one small part of the elephant they have hold of. By disconnecting from Nature and the rich array of sensations through which the web of life communicates with us, we get only a small percentage of the information that could guide us toward choices and decisions that would enable us to live in balance.

3) Indoor Lifestyles. We spend over 90% of our lives indoors. Sealed as we are, in our homes and offices, we don’t have access to the moment-by-moment invitations of Nature’s myriad of energetic attractions that would connect us to its intelligent web of life. We’re all aware at some level that even a brief foray into a natural setting can enliven and refresh us, because even without our knowing it, our bodies are responding to the sensitive connections to Nature that would make us whole.

For these and other reasons, 99.99% of our feeling and thinking today exists separate from Nature's wisdom and this separation is painful for us. It tears our psyches from their origins and we silently suffer a profound loss of contact from our nurturing sensory roots and their protective intelligence. Often, a word or an incident will remind us of this psychological separation and trigger the emotional pain of our disconnection, momentarily bringing it into our consciousness. But since most of us we would rather not feel such pain again and again, we do what we can to block these feelings and the memories of our roots and proceed along as if all is fine. But, on a daily basis we can see that both indoors and out, all is not fine and that absent of Nature's peace and wisdom, too often we live guarded, stressed, ill, lacking and destructive lives, regardless of how much material success we achieve.[3]

As a result, we no longer know how to stop doing many of the things that bother us about the way we live and we feel helpless to change many of the fundamental things that aren’t working for us.

But we are not helpless. We have all the abilities and qualities we need to reconnect with ourselves and with Nature's Wisdom through the process of Natural Systems Thinking.

[1] Boulter, Michael (2002) Extinction, Evolution and the End of Man. New York: Columbia University Press

[2] Cohen Michael (2002) Natural System Thinking Process, Counseling, Healing and Educating with Nature. Friday Harbor, WA: Project Nature Connect.

[3] Ibid.