Hi Everyone.
I thought you might find this letter useful to read. This is why I do what I do... to have the honour to be a part of someone’s journey, to share in that and to learn from them about my own journey and to discover who I am is truly a great privilege.
I hope you enjoy it.
Sending you all lots of Love, Light and Joy
Geoffrey.
**********************************************************
Hey Geoff,
How are you? I really loved speaking with you last time… I promised you that I should write some of my experiences, I’ve had during the natural awareness games, down.
I am not much of a writer, when paper and pencils come in mostly I am out, he he he. But okay I have to learn, and I really do not know why it is that I don’t like to put my feelings or emotions on paper.
I hope my experience could be helpful to you.
**********************************************************
My name is Yolanda and I am a 39 year old recovering addict from Holland. I am in the lucky position that I have joined the game of "find you’re tree" (Meet a Tree), that all happened almost 1.5 year earlier. I really did not know at that point what I could expect from it.
I just did what was asked me to do. Under the guidance of my partner I was brought to my tree. Blindfolded I felt my tree and connected with her. After a couple of minutes my partner brought me back to the beginning. Geoff asked me if I was ok. I was okay. I was now ready to go find my tree. For me then a miracle happened.
In one straight way I walked to my tree and without any hesitation I said “this is her; this is my tree” My partner with very big eyes at that point said ........”Yes it is” Off course I was happy that I found my tree. I felt proud, happy, peaceful and special.
At that point I had really no idea what so ever that this game was a life changing experience for me. That would work down in every level of my life, and most important for me, in my recovery.
During the week after the came, I felt at peace and experienced a feeling of being useful. The feeling of being useful I haven’t experienced for more then 24 years at that point. So that was a major feeling to have for me. It gave me hope and faith that there was deep down, inside of me a good person. Through the year after that, I have to admit, that I never thought about finding my tree that day very often anymore.
Although I talked to Geoff a couple of times there were other thing we discussed. A couple of weeks ago two friends of mine were going to visit Geoff in the UK. They asked me if I would join them. They made my day asking me to join them.
A strange feeling came over me just a couple of days before we were leaving Holland. I told another friend about it. I told him that I had a feeling deep inside of me that something important for me was going to happen there. I could not tell him what off course. It was just a feeling that I noticed.
The first days in the UK were good. I felt good, was happy to be with my dear friends and enjoyed the surroundings. I had a really good time. The third day Geoff asked us if we would like to assist with the game that day. Off course we would. I, to be honest was a little excited inside.
When we arrived in the woods, Geoff started to explain the game to the non addict group, the group of addicts and my friends. All the people were listening, but I felt a little restlessness in the group of addicts. They reminded me of the time I did the game for the very first time. Although I did not play the game this time, I guided a person, I was excited again. There was a smile on my face and a warm feeling in my stomach.
I guided the lady around for the first game, (tunnel vision). I watched how she connected with her tree. And noticed that the restlessness slowly disappeared. After several minutes I guided the woman back to the beginning. Geoff asked her if she was okay. She was okay. So now she could go and find her tree.
I think I was more excited then her at the moment. I hoped so much for her to find her tree and experience the benefits of it all in the future. I was in a distance from her and not paying to much attention to her anymore. I really enjoyed the surroundings, the other people looking for there tree, the sounds of birds, the smell of the woods.
I was having a great time and was feeling so happy. My eyes started to get wet at some point I guess it were tears of joy. The lady was still looking for her tree, and in one split second she turned around and pointed in a direction and walked over and found her tree.
I looked at her and said yes that is you’re tree. And immediately started to cry, (as I am doing now). I gave her a hug and apologised for being so emotional. I noticed that the woman, (just like me when I did the game my first time) was not realising how important this experience could become for her in her future live. The thoughts of that made me feel so happy inside.
I watched all the other people and my eyes stayed wet for the rest of the day. I realised that through guiding another person, the power of the game I played 1.5 year ago kicked in my inner soul again. I realised that I could with some exercise, tune in to that inner soul whenever I want to. What a lucky person I am that I had the chance to experience such a powerful tool.
After years of denying my feelings, did not want to feel them. Hiding my emotions behind a poker face, and realising that because of that I did not even know anymore what I was feeling or in what kind of emotion I was.
Today I learn to recognise my feelings and emotions. I do not have to hide from them anymore. The find you’re tree game was for me a very important event in my road of recovery. Because of the game I learned how to tune into my deepest inner soul. I learned that my thinking is not always telling me the truth; I learned that I can trust my HP (Higher Power) if I choose to connect with him.
And I also learned that this is an ongoing process. Once I had played the game the healing power of it is doing its work day in day out, if I keep tuning into the feelings instead of my thoughts every now and then, if I take moments of silence and connect with that feeling, I am convinced that I will grow as a person and the healing process keeps going on.
Thank you Geoff for this great experience.
I love you and am so proud to call you my friend.
Lots of love, joy and laughter,
Yolanda
Oct 23 – Nov 22Wisdom, Healing, Initiation the symbol of eternity
This is a powerful totem, it is the symbol of transformation and healing.
The Snake is wisdom expressed through healing.
It is a protector and guardian totem,
along with its sister totems, the Dragon and the Serpent.
If a snake totem has come into your life, your creative forces are awakening.
Your intuition will sharpen and be more accurate.
Snake energy is the energy of wholeness, cosmic consciousness, and
the ability to experience anything willingly and without resistance.
It is the knowledge that all things are equal in creation.
It also signals a transition in your life.
New opportunities and/or changes.
Snake is fire medicine, the medicine of transmutation.
On a material level, it is vitality; on an emotional level, it is ambition and dreams;
on a mental level, it is intellect and power; on a spiritual level (the highest level),
it is wisdom, understanding and wholeness.
Snake magic is heavy magic.
Become the Magician and transmute the energy and accept the power of the fire.
I was drawn to look up and to my astonishment and total amazement I saw a Hoopoe Lark falling like a stone and tumbling on its way to the ground, having climbed to a great height, it was singing as it tumbled. I concluded that it was the larks singing being cast in all directions and as the song bounced of the sand dunes, this was clearly the sound of the flute.
On the way to college last week I was driving down the 361 from Barnstaple when a Buzzard took off some distance up ahead of me, it flew over the road and then banked left to fly back over the 361, suddenly another Buzzard that had been resting somewhere on the left verge took off right in front of my windscreen.
Some would consider the Sit-spot as forest bathing or tuning in, the name is not important what is important is that you go out and find yourself a Sit-spot and spend time with nature.
When I am in the swimming pool I like to see if I can get from one end of the pool to the other causing as few concentric rings as possible.
Wilderness Therapy is often considered to be referring to the external environment and there are many discussions about what that means.
Last weekend my friends Barry, Rob and I were running the first course in The Science and Art of Natural Awareness for the UK with a group of people from a London rehab.
Hi Geoffrey, Things are really good thanks! I miss my tree though!
Geoffrey: That’s true for everyone who really makes that connection between themselves and nature. I take it you are not going to a tree then?
I thought people might find me quite weird blindfolding myself in the local park and going on a wander. So I have yet to do it!
Geoffrey: You do not need to blindfold yourself. Also I find that when people call me weird I tend to thank them, because it means you are unique, you are being who you are and you are not conforming to how they see their world.
So how do I find my tree if I am not blindfolded? I thought the whole point was that you were spiritually drawn to it and not to find it by looking with your eyes?
Geoffrey: ell the idea with the blindfold is to show you that you can connect on a deeper level; you can still be drawn by your feelings when you connect with your heart. The blindfold helps me to show you how powerful you really are, by taking you away from your thoughts that tell you what to do every day and to help you see how you behave when they they manifest into the physical world and from this experience and the way you connect with your feelings in nature often comes that spiritual awakening if you like.
Oh right. Man I miss those sessions we used to do, but I guess the idea is that I can do that anywhere, whenever.
Geoffrey: Yes that is true, it is up to you if you want to move with it, I am powerless over your outcome, you can connect to your spirit and the spirit of the tree anywhere you choose. And it is not always about finding the tree it is about the journey of self discovery.
I may just try and do that this Sunday then!
Geoffrey: Sweet, you will be surprised at how well you do, remember it is about being in the heart and trusting. Do you remember how it affected you back then?
Yeah, it was weird but pretty amazing.
Geoffrey: Yes it is amazing, what was amazing about it for you?
I don’t know. I was ignoring all the logic and just letting go like it wasn't me, remembering that I went a certain way, because that actually didn't help, just connecting.
Geoffrey: Yep you got it
nd you just knew there's something cool about it, being 'beyond all logical thought' and just trusting and feeling I quite like that I guess.
Geoffrey: Nice, good luck with your journey.
The underlying assumption of the modern world seems to be that the future will be a continuation of the past - only brighter, better, with even better technology, more virtual, faster, 3D and more of everything. For some, it’s enticing. For others, it’s despairing; we become increasingly detached from the living world as we give our attention, time and energy to the cyber realm. There is no doubt in my mind that the world around us, the world that nurtures and supports us is under severe threat on a number of fronts.
We do what we want with the world – a human centred cosmology. We do this because we believe the world around us is there for us (humans) to mine, cut, eat, burn, poison and trash. We have a cosmology based on a utilitarian ethic, one assuming that the world itself does not have a voice, is not alive, or if it is alive, that our human lives are more important.
At some point in our recent history, our species went from respecting nature to destroying it. We need a new cosmology.
David Abram’s new book Becoming Animal, is subtitled An Earthly Cosmology. It starts: “Owning up to being an animal, a creature of the earth. Turning our animal senses to the sensible terrain: blending our skin with the rain rippled surface of rivers, mingling our ears with the thunder and thrumming of frogs, and our eyes with the molten gray sky … Becoming earth. Becoming animal. Becoming, in this manner, fully human.”
Dominant cosmologies (both monotheistic religions and “new-age” spiritualities and others) often place us above and beyond nature. We think of the world around us as a derivative reality that can be understood only by reference to hidden realms (stars, disembodied spirits, microscopic domains of axons and dendrites, DNA). Direct experience, through our unaided senses, is not to be trusted. So we find ourselves in thrall to experts who mediate our experience.
Abram articulates a way of directly experiencing an alive and sensuous world, rather than seeking to represent it through abstract ways, or objectively studying it.
The earth is the very body of wonder – and demands respect and reciprocity - according to Abram. There is “ the upwelling creativity in the land itself”. In a chapter called Mood, Abram describes the interplay between our sensory bodies and the weather. He describes his play with whales and seals. There are chapters on the discourse of birds, and of his time with a shaman in Nepal. He covers shadows and depth as areas to practice our sensuous engagement with the world.
We can be altered by our engagement with our surroundings, if we attune to them through our senses. He says: “Our animal senses are neither deceptive nor untrustworthy; they are our access to the cosmos. Bodily perception provides our most intimate entry into a primary order of reality that can disparaged or dismissed only at our peril”.
"The late Edward Reed, an associate professor of psychology at Franklin and Marshall College, was one of the most articulate critics of the myth of the information age.
I often talk on my workshops about how Nature is our greatest teacher. I am at present reading a book called 'The Last Child in the Woods' by Richard Louv and in conjunction with other readings and from my my own past experiences I would like to share my thoughts with you on Nature and our creative child within...
Why?
When standing with your feet buried into the earth and as you tune into the Invisibles of the Tree you become aware of yourself and you begin to explore your relationship with yourself through the Earth Tree and the Invisibles.
Hi Everyone. I thought you might find this letter useful to read. This is why I do what I do... to have the honour and privilege to be a part of someone’s journey, to share in that and to learn from them.
I hope you enjoy it.
Geoffrey.
**********************************************************
Hey Geoff,
How are you? I really loved speaking with you last time… I promised you that I should write some of my experiences, I’ve had during the natural awareness games, down.
I am not much of a writer, when paper and pencils come in mostly I am out, he he he. But okay I have to learn, and I really do not know why it is that I don’t like to put my feelings or emotions on paper. I hope my experience could be helpful to you.
**********************************************************
My name is Yolanda and I am a 39 year old recovering addict from Holland. I am in the lucky position that I have joined the game of "find you’re tree" (Meet a Tree), that all happened almost 1.5 year earlier. I really did not know at that point what I could expect from it.
I just did what was asked me to do. Under the guidance of my partner I was brought to my tree. Blindfolded I felt my tree and connected with her. After a couple of minutes my partner brought me back to the beginning. Geoff asked me if I was ok. I was okay. I was now ready to go find my tree. For me then a miracle happened.
In one straight way I walked to my tree and without any hesitation I said “this is her; this is my tree” My partner with very big eyes at that point said ........”Yes it is” Off course I was happy that I found my tree. I felt proud, happy, peaceful and special.
At that point I had really no idea what so ever that this game was a life changing experience for me. That would work down in every level of my life, and most important for me, in my recovery.
During the week after the came, I felt at peace and experienced a feeling of being useful. The feeling of being useful I haven’t experienced for more then 24 years at that point. So that was a major feeling to have for me. It gave me hope and faith that there was deep down, inside of me a good person. Through the year after that, I have to admit, that I never thought about finding my tree that day very often anymore.
Although I talked to Geoff a couple of times there were other thing we discussed. A couple of weeks ago two friends of mine were going to visit Geoff in the UK. They asked me if I would join them. They made my day asking me to join them.
A strange feeling came over me just a couple of days before we were leaving Holland. I told another friend about it. I told him that I had a feeling deep inside of me that something important for me was going to happen there. I could not tell him what off course. It was just a feeling that I noticed.
The first days in the UK were good. I felt good, was happy to be with my dear friends and enjoyed the surroundings. I had a really good time. The third day Geoff asked us if we would like to assist with the game that day. Off course we would. I, to be honest was a little excited inside.
When we arrived in the woods, Geoff started to explain the game to the non addict group, the group of addicts and my friends. All the people were listening, but I felt a little restlessness in the group of addicts. They reminded me of the time I did the game for the very first time. Although I did not play the game this time, I guided a person, I was excited again. There was a smile on my face and a warm feeling in my stomach.
I guided the lady around for the first game, (tunnel vision). I watched how she connected with her tree. And noticed that the restlessness slowly disappeared. After several minutes I guided the woman back to the beginning. Geoff asked her if she was okay. She was okay. So now she could go and find her tree.
I think I was more excited then her at the moment. I hoped so much for her to find her tree and experience the benefits of it all in the future. I was in a distance from her and not paying to much attention to her anymore. I really enjoyed the surroundings, the other people looking for there tree, the sounds of birds, the smell of the woods.
I was having a great time and was feeling so happy. My eyes started to get wet at some point I guess it were tears of joy. The lady was still looking for her tree, and in one split second she turned around and pointed in a direction and walked over and found her tree.
I looked at her and said yes that is you’re tree. And immediately started to cry, (as I am doing now). I gave her a hug and apologised for being so emotional. I noticed that the woman, (just like me when I did the game my first time) was not realising how important this experience could become for her in her future live. The thoughts of that made me feel so happy inside.
I watched all the other people and my eyes stayed wet for the rest of the day. I realised that through guiding another person, the power of the game I played 1.5 year ago kicked in my inner soul again. I realised that I could with some exercise, tune in to that inner soul whenever I want to. What a lucky person I am that I had the chance to experience such a powerful tool.
After years of denying my feelings, did’t want to feel them. Hiding my emotions behind a poker face, and realising that because of that I did not even know anymore what I was feeling or in what kind of emotion I was.
Today I learn to recognise my feelings and emotions. I do not have to hide from them anymore. The find you’re tree game was for me a very important event in my road of recovery. Because of the game I learned how to tune into my deepest inner soul. I learned that my thinking is not always telling me the truth; I learned that I can trust my HP (Higher Power) if I choose to connect with him.
And I also learned that this is an ongoing process. Once I had played the game the healing power of it is doing its work day in day out, if I keep tuning into the feelings instead of my thoughts every now and then, if I take moments of silence and connect with that feeling, I am convinced that I will grow as a person and the healing process keeps going on.
Yolanda
I have posted the introduction to this report as I believe it has far reaching implications for the future of Nature Therapy within the UK, you can read the full report on my articles page…
The Value of the Natural Environment
This report, commissioned by the RSPB, looks at the evidence linking wildlife-rich areas and green space with mental health. Past generations have intuitively understood this relationship, perhaps better than we do, yet the evidence needed to quantify the health value of the natural environment is still evolving.
It is a paradox that as a society we find it unacceptable to take wild animals to be kept in captivity, yet older people in residential care homes can stay indoors for years with no access to the stimulation of the outside world. We spend millions to create ideal conditions for our garden plants balancing the right soil with the correct amount of shade and the right moisture, yet we allow our children to grow up in a hostile urban wilderness with concrete walkways, heavy traffic and no contact with nature.
Logic would suggest that after 10,000 generations having to survive in a natural environment, human evolution would have programmed our genes to perform best in a favoured natural environment of water, shelter, food and safety. By the same logic, it would be surprising if the rapid disconnection of humans from nature in just a few generations did not cause some difficulty to adapt to this new environment. EO Wilson, who proposes the Biophilia hypothesis, says that ‘beauty is in the eye of the gene’; a deep genetic sequence may be hard to erase despite our efforts to be technically independent from nature and the natural environment.
Humans are a species with as much need for the natural environment as any other. However, we are also a social species that thrives in towns and cities and has prospered with the use of technology. But neither technology nor cities can replace our need for the natural environment. We have to keep a balance. By disconnecting from our natural environment, we have become strangers to the natural world: our own world. This has challenged our sense of identity and in some more subtle ways has had a significant affect on our mental health.
This report is one step to bring together the evidence in this area of mental health. It is a start, but much more rigorous data is required if we are to quantify the strength of this effect and measure which aspects of mental health are benefited. It suggests that contact with the natural environment may offer considerable mental health benefits and have a positive effect on communities. In essence, this means that the natural environment has a quantifiable health value.
With a dearth of solutions for major problems such as obesity, inactivity, stress and antisocial behaviour, which governments are struggling to solve, the value of the natural environment needs to be understood, quantified and then acted upon. To ignore these findings may result in further loss of natural green space that will never be recovered and so deprive future generations of a “natural health service”.
Dr William Bird, June 2007
To access this report follow this link Wilderness Therapy Articles
"Mycobacterium vaccae is a natural soil bacterium which people likely ingest or breath in when they spend time in nature," says Dorothy Matthews of The Sage Colleges in Troy, New York, who conducted the research with her colleague Susan Jenks.
Previous research studies on M. vaccae showed that heat-killed bacteria injected into mice stimulated growth of some neurons in the brain that resulted in increased levels of serotonin and decreased anxiety.
"Since serotonin plays a role in learning we wondered if live M. vaccae could improve learning in mice," says Matthews.
Matthews and Jenks fed live bacteria to mice and assessed their ability to navigate a maze compared to control mice that were not fed the bacteria.
"We found that mice that were fed live M. vaccae navigated the maze twice as fast and with less demonstrated anxiety behaviors as control mice," says Matthews.
In a second experiment the bacteria were removed from the diet of the experimental mice and they were retested. While the mice ran the maze slower than they did when they were ingesting the bacteria, on average they were still faster than the controls.
A final test was given to the mice after three weeks' rest. While the experimental mice continued to navigate the maze faster than the controls, the results were no longer statistically significant, suggesting the effect is temporary.
"This research suggests that M. vaccae may play a role in anxiety and learning in mammals," says Matthews. "It is interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time in the outdoors where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks."
Friday, May 2, 2008For stressed-out workers, this may someday be a doctor's prescription: Walk around in the woods. Scientists in Japan have been learning a lot in recent years about the relaxing effects of forests and trees on mental and physical health. Based on their findings, some local governments are promoting "forest therapy."
Experience shows that the scents of trees, the sounds of brooks and the feel of sunshine through forest leaves can have a calming effect, and the conventional wisdom is right, said Yoshifumi Miyazaki, director of the Center for Environment Health and Field Sciences at Chiba University.
Japan's leading scholar on forest medicine has been conducting physiological experiments to examine whether forests can make people feel at ease.
One study he conducted on 260 people at 24 sites in 2005 and 2006 found that the average concentration of salivary cortisol, a stress hormone, in people who gazed on forest scenery for 20 minutes was 13.4 percent lower than that of people in urban settings, Miyazaki said.
This means that forests can lower stress and make people feel at ease, he said, noting that findings in other physiological experiments, including fluctuations in heart beats and blood pressure, support this conclusion.
"Humans had lived in nature for 5 million years. We were made to fit a natural environment. So we feel stress in an urban area," Miyazaki said. "When we are exposed to nature, our bodies go back to how they should be."
Taking a walk in a forest, or "forest bathing" as it is sometimes called, can strengthen the immune system, according to Li Qing, a senior assistant professor of forest medicine at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo.
Li conducted experiments to see whether spending time in a forest increases the activity of people's natural killer (NK) cells, a component of the immune system that fights cancer.
In one, 12 men took a two-night trip to a forest in Nagano Prefecture in 2006, during which they went on three leisurely strolls and stayed in a hotel in the woods. Thirteen female nurses made a similar trip to another forest in the prefecture in 2007.
NK activity was boosted in the subjects in both groups, and the increase was observed as long as 30 days later, Li said.
"When NK activity increases, immune strength is enhanced, which boosts resistance against stress," Li said, adding that forest therapy for immune-compromised patients may be developed within a few years.
Li said the increase in NK activity can be attributed partly to inhaling air containing phytoncide, or essential wood oils given off by plants.
Miyazaki of Chiba University said forests gratify the five senses by providing the sounds of birds, cool air, green leaves, the touch of trees, wild plants and grasses.
"The atmosphere of forests makes people calm," he said.
Based on studies on the effects of forests, the public and private sectors are now promoting forest therapy.
The Forest Therapy Executive Committee, a group of researchers, other intellectuals and the government-affiliated National Land Afforestation Promotion Organization, started officially recognizing certain forests by granting the designations of Forest Therapy Base and Forest Therapy Road in 2006. The titles are given to forests that have been found by researchers through scientific evidence to have relaxing effects.
Officials from the Forest Agency and the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry participate in the group as observers.
A forest therapy base comprises a forest and walking paths typically managed by local governments.
So far, 31 bases and four roads nationwide have gained such recognition.
Visitors to some of the therapy bases and roads have the option of taking part in various health programs, including medical checkups, breathing and aromatherapy classes, and guided walks with experts on forests and health care.
At the Akazawa Natural Recreation Forest in Agematsu, Nagano Prefecture, which was recognized as a forest therapy base in 2006, visitors can get free medical checkups among Japanese cypress trees on Thursdays. The forest is known as the Japanese birthplace of the concept of forest bathing in 1982.
Some companies have come to use forest therapy for their employees' health care.
The Shinano Municipal Government in Nagano Prefecture, which manages the Iyashi no Mori (Healing Forests) forest therapy base, has contracts with four companies, a town official said.
Visitors to the forest therapy base can take part in various programs, including dietary management, hydrotherapy and aromatherapy.
The formal designations have drawn more people to such towns.
The Oguni Municipal Government in Yamagata Prefecture said 1,280 people visited the Nukumidaira beech forest there in fiscal 2007, including some 100 people who took part in forest walking tours with "matagi" traditional hunters.
"Before we got the recognition (in 2006), there were not so many visitors to the woods. Now we can see some people in the forest even on weekdays," said Juro Watanabe, a town official in charge of forest therapy.
Recognition as a forest therapy base can be a big help, said Shigetaka Harashima, manager of the forest therapy project for the Okutama Municipal Government in Tokyo.
The town received official recognition in April 2008 and is now cooperating with experts to draw up therapy programs that will be available next year.
Chiba University's Miyazaki said he hopes the number of forest therapy bases and roads will reach 100 nationwide over the next decade so people will have plenty of choices when they look for different types of forests.
"Some people like broadleaf forests and others prefer forests of conifer trees like hinoki cypress that give off a strong aroma," Miyazaki said. "I hope people try to find a forest that suits their tastes and visit them from time to time."
The term 'loose parts' was first described by Nicholson he was referring to toys and how children use these tools to be creative, as previously stated with the Tonka Toy vs the Cardboard Box.Why?
I have been dipping in and out of Richard Louv's book, which I am finding really interesting and as I read it, I am reminded of my childhood and other life experiences which I would like to share with you over the coming weeks...
