Institute of Global
Education
PROJECT NATURECONNECT
The Natural Systems Thinking Process
Complimentary Discovery Course...Part Three
Exploring Psychological Connections With Nature
Trusting How Your Nature Works
Instructions: Do the following sequence of activities while you have immediate contact with a natural area, a park, potted plant, aquarium or backyard so you can also experience them in conjunction with nature.
Bonding to the Familiar
The Picture below (sometimes unavailable) shows 2 chinese figures like * #
....
A group of subjects was shown 15 meaningless Chinese-type figures of calligraphy similar to the above, (but the above have meaning). Some figures were shown only once, others as many as 25 times. The subjects were then shown all 15 figures and asked which ones they liked. They consistently liked the figures to which they'd had the most exposure. The figures that had the least exposure were least appreciated.
Your Thoughts: What significance does this study have with respect to the fact that, on average, we spend 99.9% of our lives thinking in our indoor, artificially built surroundings and stories, separated from nature on a conscious sensory level?
Effects of Rewards
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..............................
......../////..Figure 1 ..............................................Figure 2
In an experiment, people played a card game in which they randomly selected cards.
They were payed a dollar reward whenever they received a card with the Figure 1 image above.
They forfeited a dollar whenever they received the Figure 2 image-card above.
After an extended period, the players were shown Figure 3 below. Most of them easily recognized Figure 1, the money winning figure but Figure 2 was often very difficult for them to perceive.
...................................Figure 3:
...............((Fig.1.
....Fig. 2
What implications does this demonstration have with respect to our extreme disconnection from Nature, our economy and personal income? Can you see a relationship between it and Upton Sinclair's observation: "It is difficult to get people to understand something when their salary depends upon them not understanding it."
Subconscious Action
When you ask an adult to pick any number from one to twelve, except five, most people will pick seven, or seven will have been their first thought. Subconsiously, the request to "remove five from twelve" hooks our webstring of reason into its conditioned mathematical training, it subtracts the numbers and seven appears automatically in our mentality.
We are bombarded by almost 3000 commercial messages every day along with the rules of correctly living contemporary indoor life. For example, houses are automatically thought to come with lawns, no matter that lawn care products are one of our greatest water pollutants and wildlife habitat is dangerously disappearing.
NOW CREATE A MOMENT THAT LETS EARTH
TEACH
Go to a natural area - potted plant, aquarium, backyard or backcountry,
the more natural the better- and let a webstring attraction there
reach out to you and enter your awareness so that you recognize
it: a flower, sound, breeze, warmth, motion, color, shape, texture,
smell, sensation etc. Trust this attraction as a sensory truth
that is as real and true as any other fact. What happens as webstrings
reconnect? What does the reconnection offer, add or say with
respect to the point being made here: that we are guided by our
immediate environment and that we spend 95% or our time indoors
and 99% of our thinking disconnected from nature? How does what
you learn from this connection feel?
The Rewards of Sensory Connections
The phenomena on this page arises from an aspect of life that we learn to overlook in our disconnection from nature. Moment by moment, life is rewarding. In each moment, one or more of our many webstring senses experiences a degree of gratification as it is fulfilled by contact with the environment, be it our built indoor story world or the natural world.
Once a sense is rewarded, it tends to seek that reward again for further gratification. The reward feels good; connecting with it produces endorphin and dopamine neurotransmitters that produce good feelings. The sense begins to bond to that reward. The reward is psychologically/emotionally gratifying and important so our webstring perceptions of ourselves and our relationships psychologically tend to warp based on how we are rewarded.
Good grades, approval, status, money and connectedness with people reward us for being literate because there is value and gratification in knowing something by its name, label or story. However, this is not how nature knows itself or works to produce its perfection. In addition, many of the stories we learn denounce nature or nature connectedness because our society believes that for our survival we must conquer nature and/or change it into something that supports our indoor lives.
AN ILLUSTRATION OF HOW WE THINK:
Spending 99.9% of our sensory lives consciously disconnected
from the web of life leaves a blank area, a wanting blind spot
of deadened webstrings in our thinking and knowing. This is blatently
seen when you ask even environmental specialists, "What
are the web strings?" and nobody says anything nor seems
to care. This blind spot is like one step beyond our daily lives,
a venture into the unknown. When the psyche hits this blind spot
point it fills it in with what it
does know, usually the same nature disconnected way of thinking
and perceiving that has brought us to today's dilemmas even though
many corrective alternatives exist.
Select
here to see an interesting demonstration
of this phenomenon.
ASSIGNMENT
In a few paragraphs that incorporate your thoughts and feelings from the material presented on this page including the connection with nature activity, write a short statement about how your past and your destiny may have been influenced by how we have learned to separate from and think about nature. Do you think that helping people understand and do nature reconnecting webstring activities would improve our thinking and relationships? If so, how could you or those you know help make this happen?
Summary Option:
You are encouraged to do the following evaluation activity:
Below is a summary statement about the activity above followed by an agreement indicator. For future reference and growth, read the SUMMARY and then mark on the indicator the degree of agreement you have with the statement. Record and retain your score on a separate piece of paper.
SUMMARY X: In our society, our psyche is subconsciously routed to produce our problems by thinking in ways that disregard or conquer nature's intelligence, balance and beauty.
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OPTIONAL: On a piece of paper, record the SUMMARY letter above (X) along with the number (below) that indicates your agreement with the summary statement. 1.........2..........3........4.........5.........6.........7.........8..........9.........10. |
B. Supportive Reading
Read the article located
at
http://www.rockisland.com/~process/3explorekaren.html
C. Thoughtful verbalization:
Send an email to the NatureConnect List, whose subject is EXPLORATORY COURSE RESPONSE so that other course members and List readers can identify it, read it, and share their attractions to it. In the email, share your experiences, thoughts and feelings from the activity and reading assignment on this page to the group along with the following Seven Interact Catalysts:
1) a general description of how you did the activity and what happened, along with quotes you like from the readings and how they added meaning to the activity.
2) the three most important things you learned from the reading and webstring connections;
3) how would you feel about having the webstring attractions you experienced in the activity taken away from you?
4) whether or not the activity and reading enhanced your sense of self-worth and your trustfulness of nature;
5) the part of you, if any, the activity identified or re-educated inside or outside of you;
6) your reactions to what you found attractive in the postings you read from the other group members. Be sure to save the interact postings of yourself and others that are attractive to you so that you can refer to them and quote them at another time.
7) What value, if any, was there to doing the Summary Option (If you did it.)
The use of the Seven Interact Catalysts will enhance your learning experience and that of the others in the course as well.
REMEMBER: You will increase your learning from this activity by 75% if you teach this activity to another person. You may ask your interact group for help if you need it.
Dreamtime:
Get at least one night's sleep before doing the next activity.
Note, during the following day, whether any changes have occurred
with respect to your outlook or the way you feel.
Continue on to the Course Conclusion
*Images borrowed from http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~amhadjin/idiot.html
*For these and other similar studies see Vernon, M.P. The Psychology of Perception, Gretna Louisiana: Pelican, 1971
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PROJECT NATURECONNECT The Natural Systems Thinking Process P.O. Box 1605 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 360-378-6313 www.ecopsych.com www.webstrings.org Dr. Micheal J. Cohen, Director send e-mail |