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........................................................ ......................................................... ...................................................................... ,NSTP helps us heal our stressed and injured natural senses and sensibilities by interlacing them with the healing and recycling energies inherent in natural systems. Because we are part of nature, when we make genuine sensory contact with nature we recover our natural intelligence and can think with it. We enjoy and benefit from nature's balanced ways of knowing and relating. This makes us more resistant to NADS and we build more responsible relationships at every level. In this Process we realize the priceless value of natural systems within and around us so we further respect and protect them. This Book's Key to Thinking and Relating ......,,,,,,,To understand how and why this NSTP book will work for you as it has for so many others, you must first consider the following key intelligence test question, one that ordinarily might help assess a person's mathematical aptitude: "If you count a dog's tail as one of its legs, how many legs does a dog have?" ......,,,,,,,"Five," of course, is the correct answer for a math test. Intelligent people say "five" because it is valid in mathematical systems and contemporary thinking and is highly regarded and rewarded by our society. However, we don't solely live our lives or think in mathematical systems. Our natural sense of reason can consider what we know from our actual contact with a real, normal dog, too. That's when our multitude of other natural senses come into play: senses of sight, touch, motion, color, texture, language, sound, smell, consciousness, community, trust, contrast, and love. They each provide further information and help our sense of reason make more sense and a more informed decision. They enable our thinking to register that a tail is different than a leg, that a dog has four legs, not five, no matter what might be correct in mathematical logic. ......,,,,,,,It is a grave mistake for anyone not to take seriously the difference between 4-leg and 5-leg ways of knowing and our learned prejudice for the latter. As this book shows, when they are not in balance the schism between their two different ways of registering the world is significant. ......,,,,,,, ......,,,,,,,Four-leg knowing is a magnificent psychological and physiological phenomenon with deep natural system roots into the eons, the heart of Earth and our psyche. It brings our widely diverse multiplicity of natural sensory experiences into our awareness. ......,,,,,,,Five-leg knowing produces important awareness through abstract imagination, labels and stories. However, when it does not also seek and contain 4-leg knowledge it results not only in our desensitization but in the separation of our thinking from the regenerative powers of Earth's natural systems within and around us. This profound loss produces many destructive side effects of our artificial world that we can not readily solve. ......,,,,,,,Four-leg versus 5-leg discord creates an entrenched conflict in our psyche between how we think and how nature works. This is a point source of the stress and contamination our society produces in people and the environment. It generates our many disorders and troubles that are seldom found in nature. ......,,,,,,,It is important to recognize is that by financially and socially rewarding us for getting "good grades" or for "making the grade" by using nature-isolated 5-leg thinking, our socialization habitually bonds, conditions, programs or addicts us to 5-leg thinking. In the process, 5-leg thinking often learns to demean 4-leg reasoning as childish, unscientific, or environmentalist (tree hugging, airy fairy, earth muffin). The result is that we become dependent on 5-leg knowing and relating. For example: "Aristotle thought there were eight legs on a fly and wrote it down. For centuries scholars were content to quote his authority. Apparently, not one of them was curious enough to impale a fly and count its six legs." -Stuart Chase   ,The Natural Systems Thinking Process reverses this psychological schism and its destructive personal and environmental effects by enabling us to reasonably gather information from both 4-leg and 5-leg sources. This lets us enjoy a whole, healing, 9-leg thinking process. The vital secret of NSTP is that by carefully following its instructions, we can enlist Nature's restorative powers to overcome our bonded conditioning to destructive 5-leg thinking. In time, 9-leg thinking becomes as ordinary and healthful as brushing your teeth. Disconnection From 4-leg Knowledge ......,,,,,,,Most of us recognize that we are biologically, psychologically and spiritually part of, and thereby lovingly attached to Nature. We usually just say we "love" nature. Because we all need nature's "resources" to survive, we have a compelling attraction for these resources; an inborn affinity or love for sunshine, food, water, the land, air and healthy, supportive, diverse community. ......,,,,,,,Our greatest error is to ignore that we live extremely nature-disconnected lives. On average, we spend over 95% of our time indoors. This almost completely detaches us from and desensitizes us to Nature. Over 99.99% of our thinking is 5-legged; it consists of stories that are separated from and out of touch and tune with nature. We normally learn to know nature from 5-leg, abstract, "as if," or "objective" observations about it. We seldom have or think with authentic, thoughtful, multiple-sense, 4-leg, natural systems contact. We substitute conjecture for empirical evidence. This produces many conflicts and very few satisfactions from wholeness. It becomes our destiny. ......,,,,,,,Our nature-estranged, 5-leg intelligence calls our extreme dismemberment of our psyche from its womb in Nature "normal," "progress," and "excellence in education." We seldom see this way of thinking as a desensitizing, intellectual, emotional and spiritual amputation. As we suffer psychologically from this separation, the earth suffers from the impact of our emotional pain, insensitivity and ignorance. ......,,,,,,,We seldom realize that in order to escape or tranquilize the pain our separation causes, we often insensitively trespass or invade the integrity of natural systems within and around us. This produces many of our seemingly unsolvable problems. There is a solution. People who use the Natural Systems Thinking Process have a tool that helps them more effectively participate in resolving our greatest challenges through 9-leg reasoning and relationships. The tool works because it helps us reattach our dismembered psyche to its origins in Nature in exactly the same way that a surgeon reattaches a dismembered arm to a person's body. The surgeon brings the arm and body together. This allows nature's attraction energies to biologically heal the separation as only they can. Observations from reconnecting ......,,,,,,,For the past 42 years Dr. Cohen has lived, taught and researched in natural areas, often camping and sleeping outdoors year round. From this 4-leg contact with nature he learned that nature is not something fearful to be conquered in the name of civilization, safety and economic growth. Instead, he learned to treat Nature's attractive peace with respect. He enjoyed Nature as a powerful friend, teacher and guide as do members of the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms. His admiration or reverence for nature helps him teach his students to seek and include 4-leg information in their reasoning. This increases their sensitivity, thoughtfulness and intelligence regarding our relationships with natural systems within and around us. Through NSTP, natural systems in your locale can help you enjoy the same benefits. ......,,,,,,,Significantly, the major problems our society faces seldom exist in intact natural systems or genuinely nature-connected people. As a twig is bent, so grows the tree. Contemporary people seldom grow up in a nature-connected, 9-leg way. Our nature-disconnected society rewards 5-leg thinking and relating; it exploits and demeans nature and 4-leg experiences. This habitual practice and its detrimental effects have led to the demise of the natural people and natural areas that thrived in North America before our culture arrived.   CONTINUE TO REMAINING INTRODUCTION PAGES