New National Anthem Eco Petition: Nature Psychology Mental Health Degree

.

Introduction

The state of the land today displays the disturbing but unadulterated truth that, to our loss, we are at best placing short term band-aids on our environmental, social and personal problems. In this regard, we are destructively limiting and hurting ourselves simply because our efforts to stop these problems fail to acknowledge the mental illness that is causing them.

We are so disturbed that we don't recognize how the psychological state of our mind and spirit influences or warps how we think, feel and build relationships.

Our mental illness results from our thoughts and feelings not identifying or embracing the living land, embracing nature as the wise and loving dance of the eons that flows in, through and around us constantly. This estrangement of our psyche from nature's nurturing sanity is a powerful disconnection, one that prevents us from applying the readily available nature-reconnection antidote for it.

It is nothing but madness that at this late date the way we think and feel is increasingly deteriorating our planet and sensibility. We desperately need to change each crazy part of our lives that keeps us on this insane path. For this reason, we must become adept in using and teaching the mental health art of Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature (ECHN). Of course, we won't even begin to do this until we stop denying that we are mentally ill.

The revolutionary article Learning and Teaching as if the Universe, Earth and Humanity in Balance are Important, identifies the source of our challenging, never-ending dilemmas. Along with its Hallucinatory Fantasy synopsis, it notes that from birth on we are socialized to excessively disconnect our body, mind and spirit from our critically supportive origins in nature and the land

The two articles convey how we seldom are aware that we normally learn to spend, on average, over 95 percent of our physical time and 99 percent of our thinking, feeling and relating while in the confines of an imaginary nature-disconnecting story that our "advanced intelligence" has created. That fantasy detrimentally indoctrinates us. Who we become by age 6 is destructively out of tune with the reality of how nature produces and sustains its and our perfection, in and around us.

We grow up adulterated into our adulthood.

Our thinking and feeling are out of balance and accordingly we unbalance the environment, even while we know it is sheer lunacy to destroy our own life support system, that it is ethically and morally indefensible.

The result of our mental short circuit is that our society now needs an additional half-size Planet Earth to produce enough natural "resources" for us to function in equilibrium with nature's dance. This unconscionable demand on our planet is growing bigger, moment by moment, because of the crazy way we learn to think and feel.

The sensory science of ECHN gives us the ability to think, feel and act appropriately with respect to living harmoniously with the land and each other. It enables us to create authentic sensory moments that let nature teach us what we have omitted and what need to know. These contacts let natural areas, backyard or backcountry, energize into our consciousness what we have inherited from them to live in the purity of peaceful balance with the environment and ourselves, as do all other members of the web of life.

The New National Anthem

A significant yet simple step to help ourselves achieve the sanity of peace is to replace our national anthem with a song that plugs our consciousness into the balancing powers of the land and nature. The latter enables us to enjoy our innate wisdom, integrity and dignity in a good way, meaning to the benefit of all.

I have led adults in singing this song. It ignites the rational passion we desperately need and have sensed since birth.*

For the reasons, above, I have designed a petition whose signers respectfully request that the national anthem of the United States of America be changed from the present anthem. It petitions the President and First Lady to help the song "This Land is Your Land" become the new national anthem with its words being modified to "This land IS PART OF you and me" instead of "This land is made for you and me."

The change to "is part of" occurs wherever "was made for" appears in the first four verses of the song and its chorus.*

The petition explains that it makes this request for critical reasons:

1. Because we inherently sense as well as culturally learn that "the land and its nature dance" is vital for human life and survival, the strife of political, personal and spiritual divisions continually occurs over who the land belongs to and whose lives it should support. An underlying, selfish, premise of these disagreements is that the land was made for the life of humanity rather than the land actually being an attractively attached community of nature's plant, animal, mineral and energy kingdoms, including us.

2. Too often we overlook that the land is the eons-old dance of the web-of-life and that it universally has a self-correcting, healing. integrity and spirit of its own. All its members inherit and enjoy this integrity because they are it, no matter their kingdom, shape, size, continent or species. This integrity not only includes us, is part of us.

3. We have found that singing "This land is PART OF you and me" brings to mind the unifying, "for the good of all" essence of the land and its vitality, in and around us. The passion of this discovery in the song draws us together in new and lasting ways. It helps us replace the detrimental parts of our socialization that teach us to feel separate from what the web of life and we genetically, spiritually and beneficially hold in common.

The petition further requests that the United States of America ask other countries of the world to adapt the words of the song to accommodate their beloved landscapes. This will further help the sensible purifying and balancing powers of the land to bring the world together in a sane peace.

The petition is being submitted in honor of Woody Gutherie who wrote the song's words and whose good sense felt he should borrow its tune from a Carter Family hymn about the Rock of Ages embracing us.

Anybody who agrees with the rational passion of the petition is invited to sign it by selecting here.

This Land is Part of You and Me

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land is part of you and me.

CHORUS:
This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land is part of you and Me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land is part of you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land is part of you and me.

* [I first and the song with "is part of you and me" on November 7, 2012 at the San Juan Island Grange in Friday Harbor, Washington.. On that date the search engines found zero listings for "This land is part of you and me." MJC]

Peace on Earth through peace with Earth

Achieve a degree or certification that strengthens your contributions as a counselor, healer, teacher, environmentalist, coach, therapist, spiritualist, leader or health and wellness mentor.

You may obtain an Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature degree or certificate in conjunction with:

Explore further information about Educating, Counseling and Healing with Nature and the Applied Ecopsychology science of Natural Attraction Ecology:

Key Page Index http://www.ecopsych.com/annotatedpages.html

INSTITUTE OF GLOBAL EDUCATION
Special NGO consultant United Nations Economic and Social Council

PROJECT NATURECONNECT

Readily available, online, organic psychology tools
for the health of person, planet and spirit

P.O. Box 1605, Friday Harbor, WA 98250
360-378-6313 <nature@interisland.net> www.ecopsych.com

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.