PROJECT NATURECONNECT
Greenwich University
Applied Ecopsycology/Integrated Ecology
ORIENTATION COURSE
©Copyright 1996 Michael J. Cohen
Elements of Global Citizenship:
The Science of Connecting With the Web of Life
The Art of Thinking With Nature
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| Part One A: (Second of two Part One segments,) |
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Part 1 Segment B: NOTE: This section takes a full 7 days to do well. Note that you post half of it 3 days from now and the remainder in 7 days.
Underlying Principles of Relationships: How enculturalization manipulates our webstrings.
Read ten short Sensory Ecology sections and identify their most important points.
Summary Option: You are encouraged to do the following evaluation activity: Below is a summary statement about this page 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 Q2: Because I am mostly rewarded by people and society I tend to habitually know and think about the world through the perceptual filter of our nature conquering society.
B. Supportive Reading: Carefully read the Nature Disconnection Article and consider the questions it raises. BOOK OPTION: If you have the book Reconnecting With Nature, read Chapter 6 for a stronger understanding about the Reconnecting With Nature process.
C) Thoughtful verbalization: Start your post to the group with the Subject (GROUP NAME OR NUMBER)_________: PART 1, YOUR NAME, so that other course members and readers can identify it, read it, and share their thoughts and feelings about your experiences with this page and vice versa. Submit your experiences, thoughts and feelings from the material on this page to the group along with the following Six Interact Catalysts:
D) Thoughtful verbalization: Start your post to the group with the Subject (GROUP NAME OR NUMBER)_________: PART 1, YOUR NAME, so that other course members and readers can identify it, read it, and share their thoughts and feelings about your experiences with this page and vice versa. Submit your experiences, thoughts and feelings from the material 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 experience. 2) the three most important things you learned from the chapter 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 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 in the final paper for this course. 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.
Facilitation: Rather than only have evaluations at the end of the course, the facilitator and participants are encouraged to ask each other, throughout the course, how they can best help each other meet their course goals. The facilitator's role is to help people learn as much as they can from contacts with webstrings in nature and each other. Application: Do you recognize that through the psychological operants found in the Sensory Ecology sections, we have each been conditioned/programmed to ideas and stories of how we and nature operate? The process of Applied Ecopsychology is a different story. It says it is reasonable to seek and trust non verbal sensory experiences with the web of life. This gives Earth the opportunity to speak to us in its sensory ways. It helps the webstring sense of language convey in words what you sense and feel when in contact with webstrings in natural areas. This is similar to passing the talking stick to Earth in a talking stick discussion circle. Our conditioned tendency is to drag ingrained stories into the nonverbal process, attachments that do not emanate from our immediate experiences in nature. As in the Section activities, the stories often color our explanations or interpretations of our nature experiences. When course members do this, they and their stories, not their immediate relationship with Earth, tend to become the teacher. Group time is spent relating to their stories, rather than learning to trust our mutual webstring experiences and meaning we find in them. Often our stories emanate from different cultural settings, environments, times, places, outlooks, knowledge bases and problems that may detract from what we need to learn about how to relate in balance with nature and our challenges today. The state of the environment and people suggests that stories from the past have not been enough to produce life in balance today. Even "appropriate" stories have not been convincing enough to make people adhere to them, or cross cultural lines. The right story can best be measured by its long term supportive effects on bringing Earth and its people into balance. Each webstring serves as a connection in the moment as well as a trigger that brings past contacts with the webstring into our awareness. Please share these memories in ways that do not replace or interfere with what we may learn from webstrings in the present. Can you help course members who excessively bring their "stories" into conversations become aware of this tendency and help them instead relate to what they experience in the present? Are they simply relating stories or are they caught in story attachments that pull them and the group out of more fully connecting with nature through new brain awareness of webstring experiences? Because we are story dependent, developing trust and integrity with people and nature largely depends upon our ability to have our words accurately convey our experiences, feelings and intentions. Optional Strengthening: Dreamtime:
NEXT STEP: Take me to the Orientation Course Part Two
Link out of order? Use the Index or the link sequence below. Course Sequence Links: INDEX | PROJECT | DESCRIPTION | GROUP PROCESS | PREREQUISITES | PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | SUMMARY | EVALUATION | ACTIVITIES | POST COURSE | RESOURCES |
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