PROJECT NATURECONNECT
The Natural
Systems Thinking Process (NSTP)
Online
courses, training, books, and degree programs.
Learn to master NSTP, a psychological, nature-reconnecting
tool. Backyard or backcountry,
it enables you to scientifically
reduce the
profound problems that result from the excessive
separation from
Nature of our consciousness, thinking and spirit.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please use the side panel or page-end links to
access, out of context, the topics listed there. The context
of these topics is found in the OVERVIEW below and on the pages
that follow. The Overview also contains links to these topics.
OVERVIEW
"You must nurture your felt love for nature. Never
deny it. It is your connection with the unifying essence that
organizes, preserves and regenerates life relationships at every
level. Its profound loss in our thinking produces our destructiveness
and imbalance.
Those of us who are not
scientifically filling the void in our life with our attractions
to nature have been brainwashed into producing the problems we
suffer personally, locally, and globally"
- Michael J. Cohen
Who are you?
People are part of nature. Nature's eons
of intelligence, perfection, and beauty are in us as they are
in all of Nature.*
In contemporary society we learn to spend,
on average, over 95% of our time and 99.9% of our thinking disconnected
from nature.
We, society, and the environment hurt from
our extreme loss of contact with our origins in nature. Whenever
a story or relationship reminds us of this loss, we feel the
hurt. This makes us fearful, defensive, and apathetic.
Significantly, the major problems we face
are seldom displayed or caused by natural systems or nature centered
people.
Who disconnected you?
As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.
Our formal education molds our natural
being and spirit to become our indoor, exploitive, cultural selves.
It "sentences" us to spend eighteen thousand formative
childhood hours indoors to gain a high school diploma. Our defining
family and recreational relationships mostly occur indoors. So
do our influential college years.
We learn to spend, on average, less than
12 hours of our total lifetime in conscious sensory contact with
nature. Our immeasureable loss of nature's intelligence, balance
and beauty in our thinking produces our madness.** It creates
a stressful, psychological void in us that keeps us wanting.
Nature's absence, leaves us feeling we don't have enough of anything.
Too often this feeling psychologically addicts us to emotionally
satisfying relationships and things that we know will eventually
hurt us, others and the environment..
To our loss, today, when we spend time
in nature, our mentality no longer consciously knows how to reconnect
and benefit from nature's restorative energies. However, even
a short visit to an attractive natural area "magically"
helps us find calm and fulfillment. The science of that magic
makes its benefits readily available. The science is a natural
systems thinking process. It honors and nurtures the innate part
of us that has defied conquest and still loves nature.**
Our underlying problem:
does it disrupt your life?
Contemporary society is in denial. On one
hand we can't stop engaging in environmentally and socially destructive
relationships that we know are harmful. On the other hand, we
deny that we are psychologically addicted to these relationships.
We consider this situation "normal' or "progress".
"It is difficult to
get people to understand something when their salary depends
upon them not understanding it."
- Upton Sinclair
Psychological addiction
problems demand psychological addiction solutions. How can we
apply such solutions if it is normal to deny our nature disconnected
addiction and therefore not seek or use appropriate help for
it? How much longer can we safely remain in our destructive social
and environmental rut? Every time we travel it don't we make
it deeper?
The NSTP opportunity:
a pyschological solution.
Since 1952 I have researched, applied,
and taught people to incorporate a readily available Natural
Systems Thinking Process into their personal and professional
lives. NSTP enables a child or adult to recognize our destructive,
nature-disconnection addictions. It empowers a person to counter
them by safely making emotional reconnections with nature that
recycle our destructive bonds, help us act responsibly and reap
the benefits thereof.
In our nature conquering society, for most
leaders NSTP is about as popular as admitting an person of color
into the KKK. However, the worthwhile effects of the process
are easily accessable to any individual. For this reason, NSTP
is included in several advanced University training and degree
programs.
The results of education
and counseling with nature. (From the 1997 NSTP Survey
)
"In 1959, Dr.
Michael J. Cohen founded a program and school based on reconnecting
with nature. The National Audubon Society and many others called
it the most revolutionary school in America saying, 'It is on
the side of the angels.' School participants traveled and thrived
in 83 different natural habitats by keeping their commitments
to having open, honest relationships with the natural environment,
each other and with indigenous people(s), researchers, ecologists,
the Amish, organic farmers, anthropologists, folk musicians,
naturalists, shamans, administrators, historians and many others.
The experience deeply reconnected their inner nature to the whole
of nature.
As a result of the participants' romance
with educating themselves this way, in the school community:
Chemical dependencies, including alcohol
and tobacco, disappeared as did destructive social relationships.
Personality and eating disorders subsided.
Violence, crime and prejudice were unknown
in the group.
Academics improved because they were applicable,
hands-on and fun.
Loneliness, hostility and depression subsided.
Group interactions allowed for stress release and management;
each day was fulfilling and relatively peaceful.
Students using meditation found they no
longer needed to use it. They had learned how to sustain a nature-connected
community that helped them improve their resiliency to stress
and disease.
Participants knew each other better than
they knew their families or best friends.
Participants felt safe. They risked expressing
and acting from their deeper thoughts and feelings. A profound
sense of social and environmental responsibility guided their
decisions.
When vacation periods arrived, neither
staff nor student wanted to go home. Each person enjoyably worked
to build this supportive, balanced living and learning utopia.
They were home.
Students sought and entered right livelihood
professions upon graduation.
All this occurred simply because every
community member met their commitment to make sense of their
lives by establishing and sustaining sensory relationships that
helped restore the natural world within and around them. Students
and staff hunted, gathered and practiced such relationships;
they organized and preserved group living processes that reawakened
their natural wisdoms. They learned how to let nature help them
regenerate responsible relationships when they decayed.
The secret to each participant's success
was to learn how to learn directly from the natural world, the
living Earth within and about them. Through natural sensations
and feelings that arose through their newly grown sensory roots
in Earth, the global life community taught them how to trust
it, how to validate and incorporate its intelligence in their
thinking.
From 30 years of all-season travel and
study in over 260 national parks, forests and subcultures, Dr.
Cohen developed a repeatable learning process and psychology
that unleashes our natural attraction to grow and survive responsibly.
By documenting that the process works and can be taught, he earned
his doctoral degree and the school became a small graduate and
underegraduate degree program co-sponsored by a leading conservation
organization and several university degree programs.
From1985-92, Cohen translated the school's
operants into a publically available Natural Systems Thinking
Process (NSTP). Today, backyard or backcountry, people use and
teach NSTP at home, work or school via the internet."
The results of NSTP are described in the
Survey on this website and in
the work of the students in the Degree programs.
The critical contribution of NSTP is
that it empowers an
individual to create
moments that let Earth teach and that individuals can teach the world this skill via
the internet.
To learn and teach NSTP one must engage
in it. Intellectually understanding it is not enough, just as
reading a driving manual does not mean you can actually drive.
You may learn, use and and teach the essence
of NSTP, online and outdoors, in less than 45 hours of study,
(eight five hour sessions with a study group.) This is best accomplished
over four weeks time through our online Orientation Course "Psychological
Elements of Global Citizenship." It usually consists
of two sessions spread out over each week, about 90 minutes/day
or less. Credit is optionally available.
Reading the web links to these pages will
help you further understand how and why NSTP works. They also
shorten by 40% your reading requirements on the Orientation Course
since the Course includes some of this material.
Please be aware that without having NSTP
experiences, some material you read on this website may seem
unbelieveable. This is because it is based on restoring and experiencing
48 natural senses that your thinking has been trained to suppress.
Although you are in touch with many of these senses at this very
moment, you can not identify them due to your learned disconnectedness.
For example: What is your 12th or18th natural sense?
NOTE: CONTINUED ON PAGES
TWO and THREE
Located there are
- FACTS TO CONSIDER
- SAVING WHAT WE LOVE
- USING THE PROCESS
- AN NSTP SYNOPSIS
- IMPLEMENTATION
- OUTCOMES
- DEGREE PROGRAMS
- ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL
CERTIFICATION
- PERSONALIZED DISCOVERY
MATERIALS
- ARTICLES
- LINKS
DEGREES COURSES INTERNSHIPS
ACTIVITIES
RESEARCH WORKSHOPS
DISCUSSION ARTICLES
ECO-IQ TEST EARTHSPEAK
* ABOUT NATURE'S PERFECTION:
Nature can scientifically be
seen as an attraction
process that organizes, preserves and regenerates itself
to produce an optimum of life, diversity, cooperation and peace.
It accomplishes this without producing pollution, excessive abusiveness
or garbage (nothing is left out, an attribute of unconditional
love.) Seldom do war, insanity or death, as we know them, exist
in natural systems.
** ABOUT BIOPHILIA:
According to Pulitzer-Prize winning
sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D., of Harvard, as part of
nature people have an inherent biological need to be in contact
with the out-of-doors. He calls it "biophilia", and
believes that nature may hold the key to our aesthetic, intellectual,
cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction. Wilson has found
much evidence for our basic affinity for nature and its instructive
and healing properties.
Writings of the noted authors
and scientific thinkers below, as well as many others, have recognized
the biophilia value of nature connected educating and counseling.
Pick your favorite author:
John Locke, Phillip Lubin, Joanna
Macy, Maraya Mannes, Don Marquis, Bill Mckibben, Marshal Mcluhan,
Margaret Mead, Malwida von Meysenbug, Henry Miller, Claude Monet,
Montaigne, Alfred Montepert, Maria Montessori, Thomas Moore,
John Muir, T.T. Munger, Caroline Myss, Navaho, Isaac Newton,
Odonahue, Jose Ortega, Osho, Thomas Paine, Pascal, William Penn,
Plato, Plutarch, Alexander Pope, Daniel Quinn,, Robert Redford,
Ranier Maria Ilke , Franklin Roosevelt., Theodore Roszak., Jean-Jaques
Rousseau, Jedaluddin Rumi, Bertrand Russell, George Santayana,
Susan Polis Schutz, Albert Schweitzer,
Seneca the Younger, William Shakespeare,
George Bernard Shaw, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sioux, Skinner, Sydney
Smith, Gary Snyder, Pete Catches, Benedict Spinoza, St. Basil,
Wallace Stegner, Saint Francis of Assisi,Clement Stone, Gary
Synder, Thomas Berry, Wendall Berry, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Lily
Tomlin, Stewart Udall., Hendrik Willem Van Loon, Voltaire, Mark
Twain, Neale Donald Walshe, H.G. Wells, Lynn White, Jr., Willis
Harmon, E.B.White, Alfred North Whitehead, Walt Whitman, Oscar
Wilde, E.O.Wilson, Samuel Adams, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius,
Jane Austin, Francis Bacon, Gregory Bateson, Charlotte Beck,
The Bible, William Blake, David Bohm, Hal Borland. William Cullen
Bryant,
Pearl S. Buck, Robert Burns,
John Burroughs, Lord Byron, Joseph Campbell, James Carol. Rachel
Carson, Deepak Chopra, Walter Christie, Chuang-tzu, Cicero, Norman
Cousins, Steven Covey, e. e. cummings, Leonardo da Vinci, John
Davy, Paul Devereux, Bernard Devoto, D. H.Lawrence, Charles Dickens,
Fyodor Dostoevski,, William O. Douglas Brooke Medicine Eagle,
Albert Einstein,. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Euripides,, Henry Fielding,,
Michael Fox, George Fox, Anne Frank, Sigmund Freud, Robert Frost.html,
Mohandas K.Gandhi, China Garland, Kahil Gibran, Ralph Ginsberg,
Chellis Glendinning, Albert Gore, Steven Jay Gould, Robert Greenway,
Dick Gregory, William Thackeray, Thich
Nhat Thanh, Martin Heidegger, Hippocrates,
Lewis Thomas, William Irwin Thompson, Robert Hook, Henry David
Thoreau, Elbert Hubbard, Victor Hugo,. Aldous Huxley, I Ching,
Ralph Ingersoll,Thomas Jefferson, Jesus, Samuel Johnson, Jovenel,
Carl Jung, Viliyat Kahn, Immanual Kant, John Keats, Helen Keller,
R. D. Laing, Lao-Tzu, John Lennon, Aldo Leopold, Thomas Wolfe,
William Wordsworth, Frank Lloyd Wright, William butler Yeats,
Zeno, Samuel Adams, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Jane Austin,
Francis Bacon, Gregory Bateson, Charlotte Beck, The Bible, William
Blake, David Bohm, Hal Borland. William Cullen Bryant, Pearl
S. Buck, Robert Burns, John Burroughs, Lord Byron, Joseph Campbell,
James Carol. Rachel Carson, Deepak Chopra, Walter Christie, Chuang-tzu,
Cicero, Norman Cousins, Steven
Covey, e. e. cummings, Leonardo da Vinci, John Davy, Paul Devereux,
Bernard Devoto, D. H.Lawrence, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevski,,
William O. Douglas Brooke Medicine Eagle, Albert Einstein,. Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Euripides,, Henry Fielding,, Michael Fox, George
Fox, Anne Frank, Sigmund Freud, Robert Frost, Mohandas K.Gandhi,
China Garland, Kahil Gibran, Ralph Ginsberg, Chellis Glendinning,
Albert Gore, Steven Jay Gould, Robert Greenway, Dick Gregory,
William Thackeray, Thich
Nhat Thanh, Martin Heidegger,
Hippocrates, Lewis Thomas, William Irwin Thompson, Robert Hook,
Henry David Thoreau, Elbert Hubbard, Victor Hugo,. Aldous Huxley,
I Ching, Ralph Ingersoll,Thomas Jefferson, Jesus, Samuel Johnson,
Jovenel, Carl Jung, Viliyat Kahn, Immanual Kant, John Keats,
Helen Keller, R. D. Laing, Lao-Tzu, John Lennon,
Aldo Leopold, John Locke, Phillip
Lubin, Joanna Macy, Maraya Mannes, Don Marquis, Bill Mckibben,
Marshal Mcluhan, Margaret Mead, Malwida von Meysenbug, Henry
Miller, Claude Monet, Montaigne, Alfred Montepert, Maria Montessori,
Thomas Moore, John Muir, T.T. Munger, Caroline Myss, Navaho,
Isaac Newton, Odonahue, Jose Ortega, Osho, Thomas Paine, Pascal,
William Penn, Plato, Plutarch, Alexander Pope, Daniel Quinn,,
Robert Redford, Ranier Maria Ilke , Franklin Roosevelt., Theodore
Roszak., Jean-Jaques Rousseau, Jedaluddin Rumi, Bertrand Russell,
George Santayana, Susan Polis Schutz, Albert Schweitzer, Seneca
the Younger, William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw,
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sioux,
Skinner, Sydney Smith, Gary Snyder, Pete Catches, Benedict Spinoza,
St. Basil, Wallace Stegner, Saint Francis of Assisi, Clement
Stone, Gary Synder, Thomas Berry, Wendall Berry, Alfred Lord
Tennyson, Lily Tomlin, Stewart Udall., Hendrik Willem Van Loon,
Voltaire, Mark Twain, Neale Donald Walshe, H.G. Wells, Lynn White,
Jr., Willis Harmon, E.B.White, Alfred North Whitehead, Walt Whitman,
Oscar Wilde, E.O.Wilson, Thomas Wolfe, William Wordsworth, Frank
Lloyd Wright, William butler Yeats, Zeno,
