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.PRESS RELEASE
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For Immediate Release
Ecological Psychology Connects Us to Nature's Peace. University Professional Journal Features Teaching Outdoor Love to an Indoor World A salute to the mission of Dr. Michael Cohen, a pioneer psychologist, educator, folksinger and eco-renegade is the feature article of the Spring Issue of Taproot, the SUNY Cortland Journal of the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors. Charles Yaple, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Coalition reports that the ecopsychology article by Janet Thomas, entitled "On All Nine Legs-Teaching Outdoor Love to an Indoor World," describes how Cohen's work helps people connect with the"intelligent nurturing power of Mother Earth." It includes Cohen's argument that "humans have to once again fall in love with the planet" before we can save it and ourselves. The Taproot Article says "Cohen demonstrates that although we are part of nature, most of us learn to spend, on average, over 95 percent of our time and 99 percent of our thinking separated from, and out of tune with, nature's beauty, balance, healing, sustainability and restorative powers." According to Cohen, our psyche suffers from its profound loss of nature's grace, beauty and renewing powers and this traumatizes us into denial of our replacement dependencies. "We deny that our daily indoor lives reward us for fearing and exploiting, rather than embracing and learning from nature. We deny that we are psychologically addicted to nature-disconnected ways whose side effects produce personal, social and environmental dysfunction." Thomas's article identifies Cohen's unusual roots in nature-connected psychology noting: "It was a teaching experience in the Grand Canyon in 1966, that taught him the profound lesson that shaped his life and his work. In the midst of a thunderstorm, with the red canyons running blood red with rain and the entire landscape pulsing with thirsty vigor and vitality, Cohen sensed the life in the planet. In an essay in "The Soul Unearthed" (Sentient 2002), Cohen writes about that experience: 'The living planet's biology, geology and chemistry are its metabolism; night-day, night-day, its heartbeat. Warm evaporating inland seas serve as kidneys; air and water are plasma. In congress, all aspects of Earth compose a planet-size intelligence, a wise gigantic self-regulating plant cell whose life approaches perfection. The cell knows how to organize, preserve and regenerate itself and how to peacefully create its diverse life and cooperation without pollution, war or insanity.' " The article notes that we are part of that cell's marvelous sensitivity and integrity. Cohen offers that we have disconnected our thinking from our planetary legacy which explains why our psyche, when reconnected to nature, benefits from nature's healing energies. "We are born in sensory communication with our living planet. Our extremely nature-separated lives remove our thinking from Earth's wisdom, so we and Earth unnecessarily suffer. My work enables folks to recover, to reconnect their mind, heart and spirit with nature's balanced ways and use them as thoughtful guides." Thomas says, "I asked him how education can have an impact on preserving environmental integrity into the future? 'We've got to start with natural systems thinking,' he said. 'When we learn to relate cooperatively and creatively with the community of natural systems around and within us, we reduce our personal stress and start to heal ourselves and our environment.'" To help us increase our love of planet and nature, Cohen provides online courses, jobs and degree programs in the science of nature-connected psychology. The Coalition for Education in the Outdoors, at the State University of New York, Cortland, is a non-profit network of environmental education centers, conservation and recreation organizations, schools, fish and wildlife agencies, and businesses to support outdoor education. www.outdooredcoalition.org Dr. Cohen can be contacted
at 360-378-6313, nature@interisland.net Taproot may be contacted at www.outdooredcoalition.org
Dr. Cohen
can be contacted at 360-378-6313, nature@interisland.net Continued discussion of Cohen may be found in Janet Thomas's book "Battle in Seattle" Janet Thomas is a free-lance writer and editor who lives in Friday Harbor, Washington |
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