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Project NatureConnect | INDEX 27 |
SECTION ONE: PERSONAL OVERVIEW
Learn how to use nature locally to increase your effectiveness as an counselor, educator, healer or for self-help; strengthen personal and environmental well being.
Learning how to reconnect our thinking with nature improves our psyche, lives and health as well as our ability to protect natural systems around and within us. It enables us to find new solutions for our disorders and increases our contribution to saner living.
Explore your nature-connecting affinities and opportunities. Win a full or partial scholarship or a grant or special admission to Project NatureConnect training, certification or degree programs online.
"Have you ever enjoyed a good experience in nature, at a seashore, forest, brook or mountain? You can use that experience and its recuperative powers, other life experiences and your formal or equivalent education to further your personal hopes and professional goals. "
- Michael J. Cohen
This overview page introduces you to essentials of the NatureConnect program. If the Personal Affinity Inventory, below, is not of interest to you, simply select a topic to explore from the navigation column <--- on the left, or procede to the program overview at the bottom of this page.
The Personal Inventory
To learn more about nature-connected counseling, coaching, education and healing, complete this Affinity Inventory. It helps you match your thinking and potentials with people who have improved their personal and professional lives through nature-connected activities and training.How strongly you identify or agree with the statements by Project NatureConnect course participants and the facts that appear below?
INSTRUCTIONS
1. On a score page sheet of paper write the alphabet in a column from A to Z.
A-
B-
C-
etc.2. For each of the lettered statements in Part 1 and Part 2, A-Z, below, on the score page place an appropriate number that represents your thinking, from 1-10, about each of the lettered statements.
Additional instructions are found at the end of the Inventory.
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PART 1
To reduce stress and improve relationships, for forty-five years the Project NatureConnect program has strengthened individuals who have feelingly enjoyed attractive experiences in nature, backyard or back country .
With regard to their attractive experience in nature, these people have said:
A. They sensed a reduction in stress or dysfunction and/or an increase in belonging, peace, wholeness, spirit, well being or balance. What is your experience with feeling these things in nature?
1........2......3......4.......5.......6........7.......8.......9......10
This feels: foreign........,,,.... familiar...............,,very familiarB. They found a renewed openness or desire to improve their personal and professional relationships. What is your experience with feeling these things in nature?
1........2......3......4.......5.......6........7.......8.......9......10
This feels: foreign........,,,.... familiar...............,,very familiar
C. They noted that they did not need a book, course or instructor to teach them how to enjoy their attractive experience in nature; it was something they innately sensed or felt as part of their natural makeup.1........2......3......4.......5.......6........7.......8.......9......10
This feels: foreign........,,,.... familiar...............,,very familiar
D. They recognized that although they valued their attractive nature experience and its effects, they often took it for granted and thought of it more as a vacation or escape from the stress and responsibilities of normal life.1........2......3......4.......5.......6........7.......8.......9......10
This feels: foreign........,,,.... familiar...............,,very familiarE. In their daily lives they had not been able to obtain or sustain the rewards and benefits they enjoyed while connected to nature.
1........2......3......4.......5.......6........7.......8.......9......10
This feels: foreign........,,,.... familiar...............,,very familiarF. They would have liked to learn how to enjoy, at will, the restorative energies of their nature experience. They wanted it to help them reduce their everyday stress and dysfunction and improve their personal and professional health, happiness and relationships with people and the environment.
1........2......3......4.......5.......6........7.......8.......9......10
This feels: foreign........,,,.... familiar...............,,very familiar
G. They recognized that we only protect and preserve what we love.1........2......3......4.......5.......6........7.......8.......9......10
This feels: foreign........,,,.... familiar...............,,very familiar
PART 2.
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH HAS PRODUCED THESE NATURE-CONNECTED OBSERVATIONS. WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE TO THESE FINDINGS?
H. People are part of the whole of nature and have biological and sensory origins in nature.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,............ somewhat agree...,,,,,,,....fully agree
I. Since we are part of nature, it is neither unusual nor surprising that most people naturally have had at least one good experience in a natural area (a beach, park, clouds, sunset, flower, pet, garden, cloud, sanctuary, lake, aquarium, wilderness etc.).
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,............ somewhat agree...,,,....fully agree
J. Nature (Mother Nature) demonstrates that she has the ability and power to produce her purity and perfection.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,............ somewhat agree...,,,....fully agree
K. Nature "knows" how to self-organize and produce its optimums of life, diversity, balance, transformation and cooperation.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,............ somewhat agree...,,,....fully agree
L. Nature produces its perfection in natural areas and natural systems without producing garbage or the excessive pollution, abusiveness, dysfunction and disorders all too common in contemporary society.
1.......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,....... somewhat agree...,,,..........fully agree
M. To sustain its perfection, nature has the power to heal, restore, purify or regenerate relationships or things that disrupt its balanced ways. For example, nature heals a scraped landscape so that the land recovers and nature also heals our scraped knee so that we recover.
1.......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,....... somewhat agree...,,,..........fully agree
N. Rather than be simply an escape from our problems, a feelingly attractive experience in nature helps us restore or revitalize our mentality and energy. This is because in a natural area we can genuinely connect our body mind and spirit with nature's beauty balance and regenerative powers.
1.......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,......... somewhat agree...,,,.....fully agree
O. Most of our present day dysfunctions and disorders are neither found in nor caused by the thinking of truly nature-connected people or cultures.
1.......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,.......somewhat agree...,,,..........fully agree
P. On average, 85% of our population agrees that we are part of, stewards of and preservers of nature, that we are not nature's rulers, and that we should treat the planet as a living system and return to a simpler way of living.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
Q. We suffer many personal, social and environmental troubles and we seldom benefit from nature's healing powers because we live excessively nature-disconnected lives.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
R. The habitual nature-disconnected way we learn to think removes our mentality from authentic nature's healing and restorative ways and wisdom.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
S. On average, over 95% of our time is spent indoors closeted from nature.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
T. On average, over 99% of our conscious thinking is separated from, and out of tune with nature.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
U. Over 18,000 hours of our formative years, kindergarten through high school, are spent indoors learning our culture's exploitive, nature conquering ways. These ways seldom include how to genuinely connect our thinking or spirit with nature's beneficial wisdom, cooperation and restorative powers.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
V. On average we spend less that 12 hours of our total life consciously thinking in tune with natural systems within and around us.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
W. When you separate or disconnect a healthy part of a natural system or organism from the whole system or organism, you hurt or deteriorate the system as well as the removed part.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
X. When you separate or disconnect part of a healthy natural system or organism, sensory connections that were originally fulfilled or satisfied in the natural system become hurt, frustrated and/or wanting.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
Y. When we want there is never enough so we can be driven or rewarded to addictively satisfy our wants in detrimental ways that don't make sense.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
Z. Our addicted nature-disconnected reasoning and thinking is shocked into denial of its hurtful and destructive personal, social and environmental effects.
1......2.......3.......4.......5........6........7.......8........9.......10.
disagree........,,,........ somewhat agree...,,,........fully agree
PERSONAL OVERVIEW INFORMATION SUMMARY
Because people are part of nature we inherently enjoy mental and spiritual support when we are connected to attractions in nature. However, we live extremely nature-disconnected lives
Our culture is in denial that it is addicted to nature-disconnected "progress" and "economics" that insensitively exploit us and the environment and estrange us from nature. We learn to daily separate our well being, thinking and feeling from nature's lasting perfection and restorative powers within and around us. Our unnecessary separation from nature produces stress, dysfunction and discontents in us that subside when we consciously reconnect our mentality with nature and its healing ways. Reconnecting to authentic nature helps us rewardingly think and relate with greater sensibility.
Further information
Information at the links, below, enable you to discover the personal and professional benefits of using and teaching a powerful nature-reconnecting tool and process.Outcomes
Articles
Application Process
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KEY: Online Information Guide for Application and Admission
FINAL INSTRUCTIONS
To receive advanced standing, CEU hours or credit, a full or partial scholarship and/or grant for certification training and/or a subsidized academic degree program in nature-connected counseling, education or healing:
1. Total the numbers you wrote on your score page.
2. Send us an email containing your total score and, by way of introduction, share a few paragraphs with us (less than 400 words) about an attractive or heartfelt experience that you have had with nature as a child or adult. Please express what you think, feel and sense about you good experience in nature and its importance to you, if any.
3. Tell us briefly why you want to participate in our program, your goals or hopes, your past work and personal experiences.
4. Share with us the letters and scores of the three A-Z statements, above, to which you gave your lowest scores and the three to which you gave your higest scores. In your email, ask any questions you have about them, if necessary (If while visiting our website you decide to change your answers, you may send us an email with the changes.)
5. Within five days you will receive notification of your success in this application.
End of Section One
SECTION TWO: PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The Nature Of It All. How Do We Belong?
by Janet Thomas
"Ishi, (the last hunter-gather Native American) was sure he knew the cause of our discontent. It stemmed from an excessive amount of indoor time. 'It is not a man's nature to be too much indoors.'"
......- Theodora Kroeber"All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the children of the earth."
.......-Chief Sealth
........(Ecclesiastes 3:19, Ted Perry, John Muir)
It is our personal and collective relationship with nature that often determines our sanity, our future and the future of the earth.
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Much has been written about how we need to save the planet but the deeper truth is that it is essential if we are to save ourselves.
How conscious are we about our interactions with the natural world? How do we passionately incorporate nature's intrinsic health into our own healthy sense of self, other and livelihood? Do we acknowledge this deep and penetrating partnership in a renewable way that serves both people and planet?
These are compelling questions for us as we face a most precarious future.
We Lose What We Most Love
As nature's resources are diminished so is the quality of our lives. As the quality of our lives diminish, we lose touch with our natural ability to connect to the web of life within which we are so intricately bound. It becomes a cycle of loss. The nurturing link between our human lives and our earthly home gets broken. We are driven to seek more and more satisfaction in the material world, which means we consume more and more of the very resources we need to sustain natural world and our love for it. We get further and further away from our innate sense of meaning and being. We lose what we most love-about ourselves, the world to which we belong and our sense of the sacred in everyday life.Nature's Saving Grace
In these difficult times, we are virtually on the edge of losing our ability to save both ourselves-and our earthly home. Yet the saving grace is simple: We will save what we love. And when we stop long enough everyday to reconnect to thenurturing sustenance of nature, we emotionally reconnect to what is most deeply satisfying in our human experience-belonging. We re-learn to love the very essence of who we are as living breathing perfect beings on a living breathing perfect planet. It is a generative partnership that happens when we enliven all our senses with the awareness of nature's energies, intelligence and sustenance. We find and feel that we, too, are part of the things we celebrate in nature.
Restoring Our Sensory Connections To Nature's Intelligence.
Project NatureConnect is first of all committed to helping us-as individuals-restore our connection to our place in nature. Then, through NatureConnect activities, we learn how to genuinely connect our thinking to the web of life that is always around us, always nurturing us, always waiting for us to wake up. We are bonded to living in awareness and equilibrium with nature, in hope and in love. Living in that awareness we create a future for our loved ones and our extended human family, a future that makes personal and professional sense
The Science of Nature's Regenerative Powers.
This website is special because it is doable. It offers a web of possibilities-for everything from personal growth to professional gain. It is based on the NatureConnect work developed by Michael Cohen over a span of 40 years of studying, teaching, writing about and experiencing the regenerative power of our natural experience in the natural world. His work is a science and an art, the result of decades of practice working with communities of people in natural areas, all culminating in a process that helps us recover what it is we have lost.Healing Our Relationships
It is time for us to come out from behind the addictive socializing and economic forces that keep us disconnected from the Earth and each other. It is time to re-learn how to let the wisdom and renewing energies of nature transform destructive patterns into balanced and loving relationships that can help restore both personal worth and global harmony.
"The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature-of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter-such health, such cheer, they afford forever!"
....-Henry David Thoreau, Walden
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Next: What We Do
After you obtain information about the Project NatureConnect program from the web site by using the Navigation guide (left column), a free, helpful 15-minute discussion by phone with a faculty member is the most efficient way to customize the program to your goals.
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.comORGANIC 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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