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Project NatureConnect |
ECO 400GREEN: Green Party Explorations of the Benefits of Nature-Connected Thinking
A free, one credit (optional), home study course that can be done alone or shared with others by email.
(NOTE: This course parallels portions of the more complete Orientation Course Psychological Elements of Global Citizenship which is available for students in formal degree, certification and personal growth programs. To save time and duplication, applicants here should be familiar with the scope of the Orientation Course before applying for this one as it may be more appropriate for their goals. Also explore the online course for personal balance)
"Our body, mind, spirit and ability to love come into the world through nature's biological systems. They and we are part of nature's perfection, wisdom and restorative powers. However, like tearing a leg from a live rabbit, the extreme, but normal, disconnection of contemporary thinking from nature's ways injures life, our sensory attachments to life and our ability to think clearly. Damaged and limited our fearful thinking deteriorates our wellness, our destiny and the environment.
Our great challenge is that our socialization rewards our disturbed and wanting psyche to become attached or addicted to artificial substitutes for nature, to our contemporary ways and materials along with their destructive impacts and competition. As an outcome, although the means is readily available, we learn to deny that we can cooperatively reconnect our thinking with nature's regenerative powers and co-create in consensus with nature a world in peaceful balance."
- Michael J. Cohen
DESCRIPTION: Let nature-connected readings and activities help you transform the destructive energies in your thinking into rejuvenated and balanced ways of knowing. Strengthen your resilience by learning how, via organic psychology, to counteract your education's omission of nature's balance and resorative powers. Discover how to cooperatively reconnect your reasoning and senses to their nurturing origins in nature's vigor, intelligence and peace.
Or-gan-ic Psy-chol-o-gy : 1. The peaceful art and science of building responsible relationships by thinking, feeling and interacting while in conscious, sensory contact with genuine natural systems and their unifying, restorative powers. 2. A nature-connected, non-polluting, counseling, education or healing process whose rewards simultaneously strengthen natural systems in people and the environment.
An optional $20 contribution to Project NatureConnect is suggested to help sustain the program and website. Other costs may include the purchase of the text, The Web of Life Imperative, that can be used with this and other courses. To avoid paying for it, use a local library edition if one is available.
Procedure:
Call the Faculty at Project NatureConnect, 360-378-6313 and get the OK to do this course by yourself or with other Greens by email.
Complete a simple application for the course
Join this course's naturequote discussion group by contacting the Faculty and getting on a mailing list of students who will do the course together.
Optionally obtain a copy of the text, The Web of Life Imperative, that goes with this and other courses.
COURSE ASSIGNMENTS
Assignment 1:
Since this course can contain a new way of thinking for some people, or maybe just a slightly different twist, it makes good sense for you to try this suggestion: Open up a new, fortressed, empty room somewhere in your mentality; in the place you daydream; on your screen of consciousness within your mind. Into that uncontaminated space carefully place the reasonable experiences, thoughts and feelings this course helps you discover. They are often 9-leg ways of knowing. There, they can remain intact and strong for your use at will. When you need them, simply open the door to the room and avail yourself of the attractive, reasonable integrity it will contain because you protected it. Otherwise, like the environment, that integrity becomes polluted by the nature-disconnected way of life and thinking that fuels so many of our problems.
Assignment 2:
Thoughtful Contemplation
Think about a good attractive experience in nature that you have had with nature as a child or adult. You may use the experience that you reported on the Application Form or you can use another attractive experience you have had in nature.
Think about where you were, how you felt, what you sensed, then ask yourself if you would want to repeat that experience.
Ask yourself these questions, and write down your thoughts and answers :
What was feelingly enjoyable or rewarding about the experience?
What sensory attractions were involved in the experience? Colors, sounds, feelings, aromas, sensations, moods, contrasts, textures, sizes, distance.
Were you taught to have this good experience in a class? From a book? A person? Or was it the working of your natural sensory attractions?
Share your experience with your online classmates and read their experiences that they send you. Write them and tell them what you liked and learned from reading their experiences.
Assignment 3:
Do the Secret of Natural Attractions Trail all the way through Station 22 Part 4.
http://www.ecopsych.com/trailattract.htmlThis Trail is also Chapter Six in the book The Web of Life Imperative
Post these guidlines with your online study group or other interested people who are familiar with this chapter.
1) A general description of how you did the activity and what happened. If you used the book include quotes you like from the readings there 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.)
8) Write one or two keywords that convey what important thing you learned from this assignment.
9)Write one or more complete, single, short, power sentence "quotes" that convey a significant contribution that this assignment improves our relationships.
10) Integrating Dream Time: Get a night's sleep before doing the next activity. While your 5-leg mind sleeps, your 4-leg mind rides the inroads to consciousness made by the activity and reading. Note, upon awakening, whether any changes have occurred with respect to your outlook or the way you feel.
11) Conclude by identifying what things you have put into the trustable, uncontaminated, thought and feeling room/space you built into your psyche during Assignment One. The use of these eleven Interact Catalysts will enhance your learning experience and that of the others in the course as well.
12) Remember: You will increase your learning from this activity by 75% if you teach this activity to another person. You may co-facilitate this course online, upon completing it.Share your experiences with your online classmates and read their experiences that they send you. Write them and tell them what you liked and learned from reading their experiences.
Assignment 4.
Read the article Stairway to Sanity online until you are sure you have a working knowledge of the difference between "4-leg" and "5-leg" thinking and knowing.
http://www.ecopsych.com/wholeness2a.htmlIf not done previously, be sure to do the Four-Leg Thinking and Knowing exercise at the bottom of the Stairway to Sanity page.
Assignment 5.
Using your thoughts and feelings from in the course write a short paper that describes important things you found attractive and worthwhile and that you placed in your "fortressed room" in you mind.
Share your paper with your online classmates and read their papers that they send you. Write them what you found attractive or learned from their papers.
NOTE: Additional courses from Project NatureConnect consist of doing additional activities, as above, and placing more information in your fortressed box. Certification and Degrees are obtained by showing what you place in your box and how you would sensibly apply it. The program starts with the Orientation Course (from which this free course for Greens has been taken.) You have completed 15% of that course here.
Receive inspiring nature-connection quotations by email weekly. Send a blank email to naturequote@aweber.com
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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 spiritP.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.
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