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'			Project NatureConnect   Mental Islands of Nine Leg Thinking : How and Why Contemporary Society Destructively Blinds our Senses and Sensibility to Natural Systems and Nature   Hidden facts of life On average, society conditions contemporary people to spend over 95% of their time indoors, separated from nature. Over 99% of our thinking is separated from and out of tune with natural systems and how they produce their regenerative balance and beauty. Over 24,000 developmental childhood and adolescent hours are spent indoors in school learning to obtain a degree that helps us produce and enjoy the indoor, but excessively destructive nature-disconnected world we create. In order for contemporary society to insensitively exploit and conquer natural systems in places and people, it does not educate us to acknowledge, respect or register 48 natural senses that we inherit. We falsely learn that we only think, know and relate through only five senses. Society blinds us to our multitude of natural senses because they are of, by and from nature, and our strategy for survival is to conquer nature and turn it into the products of our economy. Our natural senses feelingly reject society's exploitation and conquest of them and nature. Hoever, their hurt or abandonment is suppressed by our ego, parents, teachers and leaders. It hides from us continuously feeling it by becoming subconscious. Our extreme disconnection from nature leaves a painful void within us, a frustrated 53 sense appetite in our psyche to regain and enjoy the rewarding benefitsof nature that we have lost. That unchecked desire produces our most challenging personal and global disorders Act now: books, courses, degrees, grants, recovery, self-help      Sensory loss Blinded to 48 of our natural senses, contemporary people today are no different than the blind Governing Council of an island society that consisted entirely of non-sighted people. Citizens on that island were content and adequate in their uniquely adapted ways, even though some disease was totally numbed each person blind by the age of two years. One day, Gulliver, a shipwrecked castaway, half-dead, washed up on the island. Compassionately, many community members of the blind society nurtured him to full recovery. Then he became the bane of their existence. He demanded things unknown to them in their blindness: windows, lights, books, television, painted colors and sunglasses. The Governing Council investigated and discovered Gulliver's trouble. Gulliver had organs that could see. The Council, in their wisdom, solved the problem; they took his sight away. They removed his sigth from their island community society by surgically numbing his optical nerves in the same way theirs were numbed by some unknown early childhood disease. Although he adjusted to his loss, Gulliver emotionally hurt whenever he thought about how this island community society made him lose his sense of sight. Gulliver discovered that when he visited natural areas many of his remaining 52 natural senses became stronger and energetically registered in his awareness, similar to the renewal provided by a simple walk in the park or along a beach. This invigorated him and improved his thinking. Soon, Gulliver invented a reinforcing science for this nature-reconnecting process. As he practiced his art, his connections to the restorative healing powers of natural systems within and around him strengthened. Slowly his eyesight un-numbed and returned. He told his blind friends about the resilience, energy and sensibility he had found through his new nature-reconnecting tool and his delight in improving his sight, life and health. They learned his art, thrilled to similar results and helped others do the same. In time, the society of the island community regained sightedness and increased their well being, pleasure and ability to think in whole ways. In the process, with gratitude and thoughtful passion they became protective of nature because they loved it. That made sense, felt right and further helped them heal. Act now: books, courses, degrees, grants, recovery, self-help   Restoration and recovery Although humanity is born part of nature, a seldom recognized disassociative process makes contemporary people as blind as Gulliver's sightless islanders to important values of the natural systems that flourish within and around us. We plant the seed of blindness-to-nature in a child by, as noted above, rewarding the youngster for living indoors, separated from nature, over 95% of the time and to perceive that people are different than nature. We nurture this seed by applauding the youngster for spending 24,000 hours of their developmental years being educated indoors, and learning to expertly think and relate through abstract words, stories and technologies that are foreign to nature and that often demean or conquer natural systems in and around us. What we produce is an adult whose mentality, 99.9% of the time, enjoys rewarded emotions, sensitivities and thinking that have been addictively disconnected from nature and are thereby unable to register, relate to, or benefit from cooperative ways and wisdom of nature's grace and regenerative powers. In our benighted, nature-desensitized state, we claim to be king of the global life community, an advanced form of intelligence and consciousness. Like a cancer we overrun, pollute and destroy natural systems in people and places while fully knowledgeable that these systems support our life and sanity. If somebody shows us how we are acting harmfully to the global life community, our society and ourselves, we deny it, for our senses can not tolerate such insensibility. Besides, we have been rewarded to be "normal." In our denial, we offer progress, God's will and economic growth as rationale for our injurious effects. Act now: books, courses, degrees, grants, recovery, self-help   A source of hope Thinking and relating with nine legs empowers contemporary society and people to recover from their blindness and its discontents as did Gulliver.   Help nature strengthen your hope and your personal and professional life: www ninelegs.com Act now: books, courses, degrees, grants, recovery, self-help       Read true stories that parallel Gulliver's demise and recovery.   Share this website with a friend: ,     INSTITUTE OF GLOBAL EDUCATION Special NGO consultant United Nations Economic and Social Council PROJECT NATURECONNECT Readily available, online, natural science tools for the health of person, planet and spirit P.O. Box 1605, Friday Harbor, WA 98250 360-378-6313 <email> www.ecopsych.com ORGANIC ADVANCED ECOPSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION The Natural Systems Thinking Process Dr. Michael J. Cohen, Director send email All programs start with the Orientation Course contained in the book The Web of Life Imperative. .