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GREEN SUSTAINABILITY DISTANCE EDUCATION UNIVERSITIES: Accredited Nature-Connecting Online Alternative and Natural Holistic Bachelors Masters and PhD Degrees, Sensory Courses, Jobs and Career Training Education, Includes certified life experience equivalence and prior instruction, hands-on sustainable environmental programs |
ECO
501 COURSE SYLLABUS AND PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Introduction To Educating and Counseling With Nature
An Outdoor Education Adventure and Course.
Introduction To Educating and Counseling With Nature
An Outdoor Education Adventure and Course.
Project NatureConnect
Friday Harbor, San Juan
Island, Washington, USA
Institute of Global Education
Holistic
Alternative Online Natural Health Wellness Spirituality
Special
NGO Consultant, United Nations Economic and Social Council
Green
Careers, Sustainable Jobs, Degrees Graduate Schools
Scholarships
| SYNOPSIS: The green, natural outdoor education course and university syllabus, below, describes a significant breakthrough: distance education sustainable counseling and therapy training that includes your prior learning, equivalence courses and life life experience, and that offers financial aid grants. It helps you remedy the excessive disconnection of our psyche from nature's flow that produces our disorders. Its applied ecopsychology helps you follow nature's path to Earth and humanity in peaceful balance. PROGRAM OVERVIEW:
Educating Counseling and Healing With Nature Degrees, Grants, Career Training Courses and Jobs Online. Individuals
who have enjoyed a refreshing visit in a natural area often report that
their sensory contact with nature's balance and beauty increased their
well-being in lasting ways. They say that the connection renewed their
psyche, cleared their mind and energized their spirit. To this end, the
remarkable process of Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature
(ECHN) empowers anyone, anytime, to increase personal, social and
environmental well-being, and to help others do the same.
ECHN students learn how to help nature's self-correcting ways interlace with their heart, mind and spirt. This enables them, along with their clients and friends, to increase health and wellness through a grant for thinking, feeling and relating like nature's perfection works. Educating Counseling and Healing With Nature offers critical nature connected distant education and university distance learning, graduate school scholarships and alternative careers degrees, and jobs. They are designed for outdoor educators who want to add sensory nature-contact methods to therapy, teaching or coaching practices. The environmental need is great for those who have the integrity and dedicated passion to master sustainable, green, health and wellness spirituality skills. They help individuals who need or seek a safe alternative to the destructive ways of society that block the restorative flow of nature in through and around us. We honor your desire to blend your life experience and training with your respect for nature, by providing special grants and equivalence credit for it. If you like, you may combine our certified accredited coursework with a Nature-Connected Degree or Certificate in most subjects, personal interests, or jobs. (see bottom of this page)
Outdoor Education and Adventure in Action ECO 501 Introduction to Educating and Counseling With Nature 3 Credits Note: viewing this course in sequence with links to additional information is highly recommended. SELECT HERE Dear Participant. Welcome to the Introductory Course in Educating and Counseling With Nature that starts on the date to be announced to you by email. The email will also contain the confidential list of addresses of your interact group members. REGISTRATION STATEMENT: Please complete and send to this mailing address Dear Course Members, Facilitators and Faculty, Please note that I have completed the prerequsite Elements of Global Citizenship Course, have a copy of the book Reconnecting With Nature, made an appropriate financial or other donation to support the course, and that I am prepared to become involved in it. Name Email address Postal Address Telephone A. Once you obtain the email addresses of the course participants make a list of all of the interact group members in your e-mail address book, or use whatever batch/group/alias mail system that works for your email program. All course-related e-mail should go to your entire interact group. B. If you have not done so, write a 1-2 paragraph letter of introduction to your interact group. Include a brief biographical sketch and the reasons you are taking this course. Save this statement and share it with your interact list on the starting date. Please verbalize in this statement the social contract that you are making with the remaining course members. Please assure them that they can trust you to supportively participate and complete the course with them. The rewards on this course come from learning how to build balanced relationships , not from grades or praise from a mentor. That is similar to how nature works. The course process is the same process learned and used in the Orientation Course that preceeds it (ECO 500). Set the addresses up as a group mailing list. If you want, you can use the addressed email letter as a form. Duplicate it, erase the previous messages and send it out. It will go to all. Usually, all you have to do is select "reply to all" on the messages you receive, as they will contain all the addresses. This group often has an assigned coach/facilitator. However, it is most educational with respect to how nature work when the group organizes and operates itself. In that option, its members assume, and thereby learn to assume, the responsibilities that the facilitator meets (see facilitate). I will be as active as I can, in this role, too. The course runs and teaches itself, as does nature, as long as each person cooperates and is attracted to follow the course instructions. Before the course begins, I would like participants to be very aware of the following letter: June 4, 1995 Dear Mike, Having finally completed the Reconnecting With Nature course, I consider it very valuable to me and I'm glad I did it. As you know, I had to do it twice because some participants in my first interact group had little respect for each others needs with regard to taking the course. Even though they had good intentions, they knew that some of us were taking the course for credit or needed it for professional or personal reasons, yet they did not hold up to their end of the bargain very well -some not at all. Some did not keep up with assignments, so it became difficult to continue because I did not receive reactions to my postings to the group, or their assignments were so late that they made things confusing. Two people just quit the course without saying anything, another never even started it, and one did not follow the guidelines and quoted authors all the time instead of sharing what happened when he did the activities, if he ever did them. Isn't there some way that you can screen those who say they want to take the course so that those that take it keep their participation commitment to the group? I think it was right for Erica, Dan and me to decide to start over with a new group. The second course was terrific, we all learned a lot and had a great time. We still write each other and Morgan actually visited me. I'm really happy things worked out for the best. Actually, I might have had to postpone my graduation if the course did not work out. It seems to me that you should emphasize that on the course, as in nature, each individual depends upon the cooperation of the others to sustain the E-mail group community. Our lives are usually so disconnected and out of our control that we often lose sight of the importance of what we can contribute and how much we gain from doing it. Thanks for offering the course. I'm looking forward to helping guide the next group and taking the second part of the program. Perhaps I'll send the new group a copy of this letter so they have some idea of what is needed to make the course work well. In Friendship, Ricki Forbes This course is an outreach program of the Institute of Global Education, Department of Integrated Ecology and is subsidized by Project NatureConnect, past course participants and myself. As an independent interact group you may, with the consent of all, arrange the schedule times faster or slower as suits your collective needs. For example, you could put 2 -4 days between the assignments instead of one, however this would lengthen the course time. Please note that, unless otherwise requested, we, on occasion, anonymously distribute occasional postings from the the course to the natureconnect List, our newsletter, and other interested parties. This helps the course serve its purpose: to have ecopsychology experiences help unify the natural world and people The distributions enable others to become familiar with the course and to people's potential when they are connected to nature. We welcome your support and suggestions for making this course available internationally. Owls and howls, Mike Cohen NOTE: This schedule is based on the course participants having completed the prerequisite Orientation Course and participants having a copy of the book Reconnecting With Nature. IGE Degree Program students will also need a copy of Well Mind, Well Earth COURSE ASSIGNMENT AND SEQUENCE SCHEDULE Complete or have completed the Course Prerequsite Orientation Course, ECO 500 OPTIONAL Before starting this course 1. Determine your GBT Score and Ecosensory IQ Score if you have not already done so. NOTE that on the course you re-evaluate your GBT score on Assignments 5, 10, 15, 20. It serves as a means to produce a new brain function that represents whole person growth. 2. Read the Forward material and Chapter 11 (don't do the activity there) in Reconnecting With Nature. They are a key to getting the most out of the course. 3. Write a reflective, 200 word maximum, paragraph or two that describes your experience about the Forward material and Chapter 11. Submit your paragraphs to the members of your interact group on the first day of the course. 4. Determine, set and abide by an assignment completion and posting day schedule that is consented to by all. Let people know if you must temporarily divert from it. By each posting day (4 above), Journal/Email/correspond your thoughts and feelings from the readings and activities, and from reacting to discussions with other course members or partners. To obtain the most from each activity, use the Part B check list below until it becomes a habit. COURSE ASSIGNMENTS Assignment 1: Part A (A review of course membership committments) *We commit to participating in a consensus based, interact group of two or more additional students and the course facilitator and/or mentor. *We commit to promoting, establishing, teaching and researching a webstring based Natural Systems Thinking Process class online and/or onsite using the self-guiding book, Reconnecting With Nature by Michael J. Cohen *Before proceeding, read the final paper and evaluation requirements for this course which appear near the bottom of this page (LAST ASSIGNMENT AND EVALUATION AND GRADING ASSIGNMENTS). Recognize and keep written track of them as you do the course so that they will be readily available to present in your paper and grading during evaluation. *Write a short introductory statement about yourself and your Natural Systems Thinking Process teaching and research goals and email them to your interact group on the starting day. Part B Follow the instructions you receive by letter. The activity, reading and reacting e-mail portion of the 4-week course starts with Chapter 4 of the book Reconnecting With Nature (RWN). Before the course starts participants are requested to: - write a 2 paragraph introduction to themselves stating who they are and why they are taking the course. These paragraphs will be posted to the group on opening day. -read the Forward material and Chapters 1-3, and Chapter 11 in Reconnecting With Nature. You need not do Activities 1 and 2. Be ready to post on the course first posting day, once we know everybody is ready to start, your responses to Activity 3. -Also please post a few paragraphswhat you found attractive in the above reading material and why. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS: *CHAPTER: Read/participate in the pages and activities in each Chapter of Reconnecting With Nature. Write and submit to the interact group, a statement concerning the attractions that were most important to you in the chapter and their significance. Do the ACTIVITY at the end of the Chapter. Write and submit to the interact group, a statement concerning the things that were most important to you in the activity and their significance. *COLLECT and store statements from the interact group that show responsible change occurring as they participate in the natural systems thinking process as follows: *CONSENT: Sensitively obtain permission from a natural area to visit it, be it a wilderness or home aquarium. *CONTACT: Let natural attractions lead you. Make a safe, non-verbal, sensory (old brain), contact with an attractive, consenting natural area or "thing." Identify the natural sensory attraction webstrings that were active in the activity. *FEEL: Recognize that this contact feels good. Thank the natural attraction you found AND the natural sensory attraction string(s) involved for the valuable feelings and information they have provided. *TRUST: Trust the thoughts and feelings arising from the contact. *VALIDATE: Write, in reasonable language (new brain), your thoughts and feelings from the old brain experience. *READ aloud what you wrote, note that your translation is intelligent, enjoyable and honest. *SHARE in writing your nature-connected experiences in this assignment with other consenting people, personally and via the internet to your interact group as per Appendix A RWN. *COLLECT significant anecdotal material that is posted by the group for use in your final paper and future communications. Send the following to you interact group: 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 this chapter and activity. 3. Three G/G statements. (See Chapter 11 and Appendix A, Reconnecting With Nature) 4. How would you feel having your ability to experience this G/G taken away? 5. Does this activity enhance your sense of self-worth? Your trustfulness of NIAL and NIALS? 6. Which authority or person, if any, does this activity identify or re-educate inside or outside you? 7. Post your response to A-F to your interact group. 8. Read the posted responses of other members of the interact group. 9. (optional) To attain your degree or certificate in Applied Ecopsychology and a specific topic, profession or discipline, please respond to this question as part of this activity and chapter: "My experience, thoughts and feelings from my interest in _______________ (insert profession/discipline, for example "Massage Therapy (MS)" suggest that Organic Psychology helps to strengthen ___MS____ and MS helps to strengthen Organic Psychology, as follows: Save these statements that you write for your final submission towards your degree or certificate. 10. Post and support what you find attractive in the posted responses 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. *OBSERVE that you may now feel less stressed, that your nature-connected story builds supportive contacts and closer relationships with people and the environment. *ACT to stop your discomfort from abusive or exploitive relationships with nature or your inner nature. Insist on receiving and giving permission to relate before interacting. *RECOGNIZE that you own this nature reconnecting activity; you may repeatedly use and teach it to benefit yourself, others and the environment. *ENJOY a minimum of one night's sleep (integrating dream time) before doing the next activity. OPTIONAL *REVIEW your GBT Score Summaries and change the scores on those that may have increased or strengthened due to this activity or other growth experiences. *WRITE one or two keywords that convey what important thing you learned from this assignment. *WRITE one or more complete, single, short, power sentence "quotes" that convey a significant contribution that this assignment makes to improving our relationships. ASSIGNMENTS #2 and #3 FOR STUDENTS WHO HAVE NOT COMPLETED THE ORIENTATION COURSE, ECO 500 ....All others proceed to Assignments #4 -Assignments #2 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 2, Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 (Part B of Assignment 1 above) -Assignments #3 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 3 and ACTIVITY 3 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #4 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 4 and ACTIVITY 4 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #5 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 5 and ACTIVITY 5 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1. Update your GBT Score and your GBT K and L scores. Inform your interact group as to how your Scores did, or did not, improve. -Assignments #6 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 6 and ACTIVITY 6 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #7 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 7 and ACTIVITY 7 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protocol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #8 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 8 and ACTIVITY 8 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #9 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 9 and ACTIVITY 9 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #10 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 10 and ACTIVITY 10 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER .Update your GBT Score and your GBT K and L scores. Inform your interact group as to how your Scores did, or did not, improve. -Assignments #11 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 11 and ACTIVITY 11 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #12 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 12 and ACTIVITY 12 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #13 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 13 and ACTIVITY 13 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #14 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 14 and ACTIVITY 14 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described underCHAPTER 1 -Assignments #15 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 15 and ACTIVITY 15 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER . Update your GBT Score and your GBT K and L scores. Inform your interact group as to how your Scores did, or did not, improve. -Assignments #16 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 16 and ACTIVITY 16 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #17 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 17 and ACTIVITY 17 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignments #18 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 18 and ACTIVITY 18 in Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1 -Assignment 19. *Read and evaluate the material in Appendix A then read and participate in the pages and activities in Appendix B, Reconnecting With Nature. Design, test and share an appropriate activity that you believe would contribute to the setting Appendix B describes. Alternatively, do an activity suggested by another student or one located by selecting here (http://www.ecopsych.com/eco5activ19.html). -Assignment 20. *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Appendix C, Reconnecting With Nature. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1. OPTIONAL: NOT RECOMMENDED if you plan to use this course actively at a later date: After you complete this assignment update your GBT Score and your GBT K and L scores. Inform your interact group as to how your Scores did, or did not, improve. Calculate and share your GBT Score with your interact group: its numerical, strength and diverse application changes since the beginning of the course. An additional assignment for most tudents is listed at the bottom of this page. REQUIRED: Write a 15 page paper that integrates the course and your directions as described in Section 31 below. OPTIONAL NON-DEGREE EVALUATION AND GRADING ASSIGNMENTS PRACTICUM: *write an attractive title and 30 word description for an introductory applied ecopsychology workshop that you could present. *write an attractive 5 word maximum title and 15 word encapsualization of the Orientation Course that they could submit as a WWW link to the course and/or themselves on the internet. *submit their titles and descriptions to their interact group. *appropriately consider and incorporate improvement suggestions from their interact group into their workshop title and description. *help other interact group members improve their titles and descriptions so they work well *successfully select, submit, and have their WWW link incorporated in 5 appropriate internet websites (including an appropriate topic in YAHOO) of their choice on the WWW checking to first see if a link already exists. SAMPLE Increase your marketability, credibility and effectiveness: Education and Counseling with Nature Ph.D or M.S. degrees include your prior experiences: inexpensive, dedicated, accredited. Transferable courses and internships improve careers, global consciousness and human-environmental relationships through a unique graduate student hands-on learning cooperative. By self-organizing and being their word, degree candidates learn how to consentually follow natural attractions and responsibly relate to nature in people and the environment. www.ecopsych.com The following is a shorter version of which all or part may be used. Educating and Counseling with Nature : Ph.D or M.S. degrees include your prior experiences: inexpensive, dedicated, accredited. *Help organize the interact group to create a shared set of evaluation and grade criteria that critically measure a student's growth and expertise in this course. Help group members apply these standards to themselves and present their self-evaluation and grade to the interact group. Help your interact members consentually modify their grade and evaluation based on input from the group until an consensus for their grade is reached by all. Involve them in helping others modify their grade and evaluation by consent. REQUIRED: To complete the course write a 15 page paper that integrates the course and your directions as described in Section 31 below. OPTIONAL NOTE: The student is evaluated by the extent and depth of change in their GTB Score and the quality of the scholarly paper. The course grade is also dependent upon the degree of responsibility and cooperation the student demonstrates in relating to teaching/facilitating their class/interact group and the grade recommendation of the student teacher's support group is also given consideration. The course grade is also influenced by the instructor's evaluation of the student's effort and expertise to integrate and convey the subject matter. COURSE GRADING DETERMINANTS *the scholarly paper ................................................................40% *the extent and depth of change in their GTB Score................10% *the grade received from the student's interact group................20% *the degree of responsibility and cooperation demonstrated ...10% *the instructor's impression of the student's expertise to use and convey the subject matter...................................................20% ) IGE Degree Program Students Assignment: The remainder of this course for Degree Program Students is in the book Well Mind, Well Earth and online as indicated here: The assignment is located http://www.ecopsych.com/eco501a.html There, do Assignments #21-#31 and write a short discussion of what was attractive/valuable about them for you. Obtain consent to post your reactions to the assignments to this interact group, or else post them to the natureconnect discussion list To complete this ECO 501 course, the Student will set up and co-facilitate online an ECO 500 course (Orientation Course) with the Mentor. -Assignments #21 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 18, from the book Well Mind, Well Earth. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1, Part B. http://www.ecopsych.com/eco501a18.html -Assignments #22 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 19, Well Mind, Well Earth. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1, Part B. http://www.ecopsych.com/eco501a19.html -Assignments #23 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 20, Well Mind, Well Earth. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1, Part B. http://www.ecopsych.com/eco501a20.html -Assignments #24 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 21, Well Mind, Well Earth. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1, Part B. http://www.ecopsych.com/eco501a21.html -Assignments #25 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 22, Well Mind, Well Earth. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1, Part B. -Assignments #26 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 23, Well Mind, Well Earth. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1, Part B. http://www.ecopsych.com/eco501a23.html -Assignments #27 *Read/participate in the pages and activities in Chapter 24, Well Mind, Well Earth. Follow the same protcol described under CHAPTER 1, Part B. http://www.ecopsych.com/eco501a24.html -Assignments #28 *write an attractive title and 30 word description for an introductory applied ecopsychology workshop that you could present. *write an attractive 5 word maximum title and 15 word encapsualization of the course that they could submit as a WWW link to the course and/or themselves on the internet. *submit their titles and descriptions to their interact group. *appropriately consider and incorporate improvement suggestions from their interact group into their workshop title and description. *help other interact group members improve their titles and descriptions so they work well *successfully select, submit, and have their WWW link incorporated in 5 appropriate internet websites of their choice on the WWW checking to first see if a link already exists. -Assignment 29 Help organize the interact group to create a shared set of evaluation and grade criteria that critically measure a student's growth and expertise in this course. Help group members apply these standards to themselves and present their self-evaluation and grade to the interact group. Help your interact members consentually modify their grade and evaluation based on input from the group until an consensus for their grade is reached by all. Involve them in helping others modify their grade and evaluation by consent. -Assignment 30 Help organize an online Orientation Course and co-facilitate it with the Mentor to its completion. -Assignment 31 **Write a 15 page scholarly paper relative to participating in this course in a manner that integrates, validates and contributes important concepts, ideas and experiences to the profession or general field of nature connected psychology. The paper must be in two parts: Part One: A. During, or at the end of your work in this course select magazines, newsletters, or other publications, online or otherwise that you think should be interested in your work with NSTP or in NSTP in general. B. Contact the editor of the publication by phone or write a letter of inquiry and introduce him/her to how a short article about some aspect of NSTP would benefit the publication and/or its readers. Show how your article ties in with or extends a previous article, current news event, or the purpose of their publication. Get an OK to submit an article to the publication, its length, how to submit (email, postal mail etc.) and anything special the editor might suggest. (You can often just submit a letter to an editor and then call to find out if it is accepted for publication) C. Write 250-1000 words of your paper (or more if an editor requests more) as an article you submit to the editor of your choice that you have contacted. Part Two: As part of the remainder of your paper, using the APA Manual of Style Please address the following four paragraphs in a manner that integrates, validates and contributes important concepts and ideas to the profession or general field of nature connected psychology and the public. Show how these concepts support the points you have made in you article in Part One The concepts should include the following areas: 1. When you enrolled in the Degree program you stated you had certain needs and goals in mind. How has this course helped with respect to meeting them? How are you applying, or intend to apply what you have learned in the future? 2. Please identify what you think and feel are four or more most significant aspects of this course, state why they are significant, and show how, (document with examples, including quotes from the course participants and yourself) the course process contributes to personal, social and environmental wellness. 3. From this course describe and document (with examples, including quotes from the course participants and yourself) at least one example of each of the nine Natural System Thinking Process Basics (described below) that you experienced during the course and its value to yourself and society. 4. What challenges does the course subject present, how do you think you can help meet them. The following are a GSC group suggestions for determing a grade and/or organizing and evaluatiing Part Two of the final paper 1. Check for changes in confidence and values as noted on pp 21 and 22 in The Web of Life Imperative. 2. Review your introductory statement. Comment,for example, on how the course has helped you understand your original ideas about the course or how you have changed or would change that statement.15% 3. Check for the wrangler experience and how awareness of this force has effected activities and life. Also check assignments to see how your ability to skillfully reeducate of the wrangler. Find a few examples from postings.15% 4. Review your "I've learned from this experience statements" and comment how "journaling" these has strengthened you. 15% 5. Check to see how your connection with the group elicited new and / or enhanced behaviors and senses that contributed to our groups sense of community. Find a few examples from postings.15% 6. Check to see how this course has effected how you operate in your everyday life. How have certain lessons/assignments effected/changed the way you have experienced and responded to everyday life situations? Find a few examples from postings. 25% . ELEMENTS OF NSTP AND APPLIED ECOPSYCHOLOGY Do you recognize the nine basics of the Natural Systems Thinking Process that help people solve the personal, social and environmental problems that result from the difference between the disconnected way we learn to think and how nature works? They are also located at thesecretonlinekey.html Below are nine basics of the Natural Systems Thinking Process that help people solve the personal, social and environmental problems that result from the difference between the disconnected way we learn to think and how nature works. Please share how you would you edit, add to or modify them. Rationale: The heart of our unsolveable problems is psychological. We are in denial. We deny that we are addicted to a story that says for us to live we must conquer, exploit and subdue nature, including our inherent human nature. Every other part of nature survives in balance through attractions that unite build and sustain consensual, mutually supportive relationships. NSTP enables us to think and act this way by identifying and addressing our denial and addiction. 1. Nature can be seen as a unifying attraction process that organizes, preserves and regenerates itself to produce an optimum of life, diversity and balanced cooperation without producing garbage, madness or death as we know it. Nature's way of expressing love prohibits the pollution, abusiveness and stress that deteriorate life. 2..We are born part of and attached to nature but learn to spend 99.9% of our conscious time and thought detached/disconnected from nature. Our psyche is dismembered from its origins. It silently suffers its profound loss of contact with its nurturing sensory and sensibility roots in nature's ways and intelligence. However, any word or incident that reminds us of our psychological dismemberment breaks the silence. It triggers the emotional pain of it into consciousness and we feel it. As reflected by the state of the world, indoors or outdoors, our mentality is guarded, stressed, ill, wanting and destructive due to our painful deficiency of nature's peace, wisdom, and beauty (10, 16F). 3.When we provide material, social, or financial rewards for nature-disconnecting stories and technologies, we become psychologically bonded to them and their destructive effects. Things that experience these effects suffer. 4.The web of life is a global ecosystem of which people are part. To be part of a system one must in some way be in communication with the system. The Natural Systems Thinking Process enables a person to restore their inherent 53-sense ability to consciously register, enjoy, and respond to communication with nature. It accomplishes this by helping us bring into our awareness the webstring attraction loves that we share with the web of life and make sensory contact with them in nature, backyard or backcountry. 5. People experience webstrings as sensory attractions, uncomfortable sensations are webstrings that attract us to seek additional webstrings and continue to participate. 6. Attractiveness is conscious of itself. When people think in consent and connection with webstrings they experience an attractive global consciousness that leads to unity at every level of endeavor. 7. There is an age old purpose and non-verbal process that sustains nature's web of life and its members, including people. That attractive purpose and process is to support life in balance. In this regard there are no known substitutes for the real thing. People must connect with genuine nature or suffer from the imperfections of the substitutes we create for it. Since in this model there is no substitute for the real thing, if a person is not in conscious connection with webstring attractions, they are probably playing God in some way without the wisdom to do so. 8. Because we are nature renegades, to reconnect with nature, relationships must be entered by gaining consent and measured by their long term effects on global life in balance. 9. To reverse our imbalance and its discontents, continuing, thoughtful, shared, sensory contacts with webstring attractions in natural areas reconnect our thinking with nature's ways. This produces more sensitive and responsible personal, social and environmental relationships. A person can learn to trust and use nature connected experiences to help produce unity and balance. INDIVIDUALIZATION OF STUDENT ASSIGNMENTS Through the written assignments and the application of sensory activities, participants will have opportunities to integrate ecopsychology solutions to issues and problems within their personal, work, or community environment. COURSE EVALUATION The student is evaluated by the extent and depth of change in their GTB Score and the quality of the scholarly paper. The course grade is also dependent upon the degree of responsibility and cooperation the student demonstrates in relating to teaching/facilitating their class/interact group and the grade recommendation of the student teacher's support group is also given consideration. The course grade is also influenced by the instructor's evaluation of the student's effort and expertise to integrate and convey the subject matter. COURSE GRADING DETERMINANTS *the scholarly paper 40% *the process described below 60% The following are GWSC group suggestions for determining a grade and/or organizing and evaluating the final paper. 1. Check for changes in you GBT and/or Eco-Sensory IQ score. 15% 2. Review your introductory statement. Comment, for example, on how the course has helped you understand your original ideas about the course or how you have changed or would change that statement.15% 3. Check for the wrangler experience and how awareness of this force has effected activities and life. Also check assignments to see how your ability to skillfully reeducate of the wrangler. Find a few examples from postings.15% 4. Review your "I've learned from this experience statements" and comment how "journaling" these has strengthened you. 15% 5. Check to see how your connection with the group elicited new and / or enhanced behaviors and senses that contributed to our groups sense of community. Find a few examples from postings.15% 6. Check to see how this course has effected how you operate in your everyday life. How have certain lessons/assignments effected/changed the way you have experienced and responded to everyday life situations? Find a few examples from postings. 25% COURSE GRADING DETERMINANTS USED BEFORE JUNE 2001 (for your information) *the extent and depth of change in their GTB Score 10% *the grade received from the student teacher's support group 20% *the degree of responsibility and cooperation demonstrated 10% *the instructor's impression of the student's expertise to use and convey the subject matter 20% . Contact:
Michael J. Cohen, Ph.D.
Telephone 360-378-6313 Read the Ecopsychology Journal interview with Dr. Cohen: http://www.ecopsych.com/ecopsychologyjournal.html Email: nature@interisland.net. Website: www.ecopsych.com Personal page: http://www.ecopsych.com/mjcohen.html RESOURCES Overview Article<http://www.ecopsych.com/hallucinatearticle.html> Process Synopsis<http://www.ecopsych.com/transformation.html> Fundamentals <http://www.ecopsych.com/mjcohen22.html> Outcomes<http://www.ecopsych.com/survey.html> Interview<http://www.ecopsych.com/ecopsychologyjournal.html> Research<http://www.ecopsych.com/2004ecoheal.html> Identity<http://www.ecopsych.com/thesisquote6.html> Petition<http://www.ecopsych.com/petition2.html> Articles<http://www.ecopsych.com/2004artnews.html> Book<http://www.ecopsych.com/ksanity.html> Film<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1357054/> NAE<http://www.NaturalAttractionEcology.com> Journal quotes from students who are doing natural attraction activities: "For this activity I went down to Muskcrat Creek Park. It’s a cool, grey day with light cold rain off and on. I bundled up more than I have yet this year and followed my attraction to the creek, which lovingly accepted my grateful offer to interact by appearing to clear so that I could see into the deep part, which was most appealing to me. At the same time that the deep part cleared for me, a breeze came through and individual leaves framing the creek began to dance and wave up and down at me. What a welcome! Lovely welcome, indeed! I was first attracted to the pearly blue-grey of the water where it was deeper with less surface activity. I had to move farther away to catch just the right quality, the one which had grabbed me. It was the distance at which I could see into the depths, at which I felt I was looking into a spiritual mirror of sorts. I found the note connected to it and felt communion with the stream and also the entire surround, the trees, the plants, the rocks…the feeling of communion which changes the experience from ordinary to spiritual in the blink of an eye. The grey cold day and falling leaves built out these senses. I know this experience: it's resonating! I then felt attracted to sing with the rush of the water, and that was also so lovely and drew in attractions to other senses- sense of community, sense of texture, sense of spiritual oneness, sense of purpose and meaning. Then I was drawn to the grassy pathway strewn with fallen leaves. I connected to the wet green, sense of moisture, of light, then sense of smell as the earthy scent of the rotting leaves filled out my senses…then I was drawn to the rush of the creek as filling up the space of the pathway, sense of community again, sense of joy, sense of fulfillment and completion, sense of the cycle of life and death which provides all and fulfills all. This is a wonderful experience. A direct pathway to Spirit! The reason the consensus process works so well is that it is precisely the same process by which NIAL operates, and from which NIAL got its name. It is how NIAL created us. People who learn to resonate with Earth lose a big load placed on the old brain by the new brain. Each time we resonate with a natural attraction through a different sense, we get to know the attraction and ourselves in a new, more fulfilling and holistic way. This holds true for the natural attractions we sense in people as well as in places. Connecting through multiple senses creates a strong feeling of communion and spiritual meaning. Daily activity in nature is a vital food which I need to be well. I can increase my feeling of peace and unity by bringing more sense(s) into an experience that does not feel good to me. My experience in nature shows me that I am a person who gets good feelings from deep pools of water and from experiencing through many senses all at once. I get good feelings from the cycle of life. I love the person I am. I would feel stressed and isolated if I lost this ability. It gave me a feeling of trust and confidence in nature’s ability to sustain, inform and be with me. It identifies my Higher Self." ^^^ I ventured off into the back 40 and snuggled up next to a pile of granite. I asked the granite if it would be my teacher. . A mountain ash was close by. I asked it to be my teacher, along with a variation of ferns, and other assorted greenage, I asked to be my teacher. I closed my eyes sensing the attractions. The rock seemed inviting as it was warm from the sun. I also recalled a story from my youth: the story went ,'if you really want to know something, ask a rock, because rocks have been here longer than anything'.. I said,"Hello NIAL what would you like to teach me today". "Please grant me permission to be here". "Please help me with this activity". The answer was 'yes'.. inviting , yet firm and grounded. I sense the essence of the granite as it had a blend of crystal quartz and some volcanic glass strewn within it. I sensed warmth. I sensed strength, I sensed the Isness of it all, just being there. The rock said," I Am". I sensed time. I sensed the unseen...molecules containing atoms whirling around in perfect order that make the rock alive.... I sensed the name I would offer this teachable moment ,' Rocketed in the 4th dimension'. The 4th dimension is time and space. This moment this time, and simply is NOW. The answer to my question,'what would you like to teach me', was, "I want to teach you that you are enough just as you are, your needs are met, you are safe', everything you need is in this moment"....I thanked the essence of the Rocks for being my earth teacher. I learned that not only Einstein can detect an oddness between our stories and the nameless and to celebrate being a student of nature's essence. I am learning to indulge in Nature as a quality stimulant... a natural party animal My experience in nature catalyzes my need for renewal and allows me to sense I am your brother. It celebrates a masterpiece of spirit and wellness. I trust it like a rock I am a witness to great examples daily, of nature's essence in action.. from the humble baker.. to the selfless servants of hard won wisdoms... to old men and woman who are about to go where newborns just came from.. ......... I believe that's why grandparents have such a wonderful sense/ bond with their grandchildren, because they intrinsically know they will be going to the same place the child just came from................talk about recycling..wow ^^^ For an extensive collection of Journal quotes from students doing natural attraction activities: Visit http://www.ecopsych.com/survey.html .................................................................................. Achieve a Degree or Certificate to strengthen your professional interests, or your hobbies or pastimes, by connecting them with nature. Implement your strongest hopes as you increase personal and global well being. 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