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Accredited Art of Nature-Connecting Holistic Degree Courses On Line: Natural Career Art Therapy and Art Therapist Education Books for Personal and Professional Whole Life Ecopsychology Training Careers and Jobs.
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| .Project NatureConnect introduces New Art and Nature .Therapy Book (scroll down for information) | |||||
 | Owl Winks and Forest Songs: Finding Wellness in Nature’s Wisdom - Theresa Sweeney, Ph.D. ...keleka@frontiernet.net ...www.callofthewilddesigns.com | ||||
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Project
NatureConnect (PNC)
Owl Winks and Forest Songs:
Finding wellness through Nature’s wisdom. Theresa Sweeney,
Ph.D.
Could the solution to most personal challenges and planetary woes have a common underlying cause--humanity’s disconnection from Nature? Could finding solutions begin with a simple walk in the park? Yes, says Ecopsychologist and artist, Dr. Theresa Sweeney in her new book Owl Winks and Forest Songs: Finding wellness in Nature’s wisdom. “Have you ever felt renewed by a fresh summer's rain, been cheered by the visit of a songbird, or found peace in the glistening of newly fallen snow?“ Sweeney, a Project NatureConnect graduate, asks readers. “Have you hugged a pet or a tree and felt loved? Do rainbows give you joy, mountains and forests charge your senses? Though people are part of Nature, we suffer many discomforts and problems that aren't seen in the rest of the natural world. Many of us look around at Nature's world and wonder why things seem to work so beautifully in it, but not so in our daily lives. The trouble is that we spend so much time indoors, we've disconnected ourselves from Nature's love, wisdom and balance,” she says. Owl Winks and Forest Songs offers a simple remedy. With child-friendly text, fun exercises, and wonderful drawings, Sweeney presents a dialoging with nature process that people of all ages, and in all walks of life, can use to let Nature teach. She re-introduces us to over 48 senses that we, as part of Nature, inherited from the natural world at birth, but learned to ignore. After illustrating how our dependency on abstract word-based thinking underlies our troubles and showing the importance of including these forgotten senses in our thought-processing, Dr. Sweeney invites readers to practice the art of thinking like Nature. With 16 of her wildlife drawings and fun prompts she engages children in back and forth dialog with the animals. Because though, there can be no substitute for the real thing, she then encourages them outside to use their nature language while in tangible contact with Nature. “Few books of such apparent simplicity can cause you to think so deeply,” says M.A. Educator, Allison Ewoldt. “What Columbus did for the flat earth theory, Dr. Sweeney does to the myth that humans have only 5 senses. This book makes you question many things about the way we live, the way we interact with Nature, and most of all, how much time we waste on things that don't matter. Learning to think like nature has rejuvenated my life. Dr. Sweeney makes a valuable contribution to the well-being of ourselves and the earth...for we do not save what we do not love, and we do not love what we do not know." Dr. Theresa Sweeney lives in Penfield, NY, and Boynton Beach, FL. She holds a M.S. and PhD. in Applied Ecopsychology, Akamai University, and is ECHN certified as an eco-art therapist. An avid nature enthusiast and wildlife artist, Theresa did not need a teacher, class, or book to discover her passions for art and nature. They were innate. Her first painting, and oil portrait of a kitten done when she was eight, foreshadowed what would become her life's pursuit - using art to reconnect people with Nature. "Art, simply put," says Sweeney "is a celebration of our connection to Nature. Nature inspires us because it reaches that non-verbal knowingness deep inside that we are part of something much larger and wiser than ourselves. I like to think of art as a porthole into that world." Sweeney’s artwork is exhibited in galleries and personal collections around the country. It was chosen by the television home shopping network, QVC as one of the top 20 products to represent the state of Florida. She has 30 paintings in the permanent collection of the Jack Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Dr. Sweeney offers online accredited certification in Eco-Art Therapy. She is Dean of Applied Ecopsychology at Akamai University. Contact: To order copies of Owl Winks and Forest Songs ($20 including shipping) ISBN: 978-0-578-04027-1 Dr. Theresa Sweeney (585) 385-9157 Keleka@frontiernet.net www.ecoarttherapy.com www.callofthewilddesigns.com
An Art
Therapist journal entry from a Project NatureConnect online program
participant:
"It is wonderful to be a part of this study group. Last night as I read all your posts, I had so many thoughts and so little brain power left to make them into any kind of readable response. Oddly enough, this seemed like more evidence to me of sensory and artistic understanding disconnected from abstract logical communication." "It is common knowledge that, with the exception of humanitiy, no member of the web of life relates, interacts or thinks though words. The web is a non-verbal "illiterate" experience consisting of in-the-moment direct attraction relationships (webstrings), not words, stories, videos or images. No plant, animal or mineral string of nature's ancient web consists of literary communication or attachments to it." I think of children and our child parts, as having so much intuitive, sensory knowing, without the language (or need) to express it and how sometimes, the limitations of using the language frame can impose. I connected with the use of art therapy presented in our discussions. Yesterday, a client I met with drew her "eating disordered part" as a way of disidentifying it from her true self. Another client, with more fragmented selves, presented as a young boy. Her healing did not come through talking, but taking a walk outside and nuturing this part of her through her physical and emotional senses. "Natural 'webstring' attractions feelingly register in our consciousness as sensations we call senses. We can feel and enjoy the organic connection; it is an attractive experience in nature". After honoring our sensory experience, including emotion, we are then able as human beings to "safely translate our sensory attraction feelings into verbal language and share them. This lets our sensory connections with the web feelingly validate themselves in words to the thinking and reasoning part of our psyche." The use of language allows us to access our left brains, our reasoning, to express our right brain experience, for a holistic knowing, a synthesis of knowledge, a deep wisdom. "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name". Without judgement, a sensory experience is just a sensory experience. A tingle is just a tingle, not an anxious feeling. We seem to want to protect ourselves from feeling frustrations, saddness, hurt, etc., and so we avoid or shut down that sensory experience instead of listening to what information it is trying to give us. "There's nothing either good or bad...but thinking makes it so!" If we create this space to honor these experiences without judgement, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in our bodies and natural world, we invite our translation to be true and wise. This seems to me to be holistic leg thinking. Are humans the only beings with this capacity? "There must be the generating force of love behind every effort that is to be successful!" - Anonymous
To order copies of Owl Winks and Forest Songs ($18 + shipping) ISBN: 978-0-578-04027-1 Dr. Theresa Sweeney (585) 385-9157 Keleka@frontiernet.net www.ecoarttherapy.com www.callofthewilddesigns.com Act
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