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........................................................ ......................................................... ...................................................................... ,Cohen's forty years in natural systems have taught him that we do not have just five senses, as Aristotle said, but over fifty inborn natural senses. Cohen identified and published these senses in 1990 and again in his 1997 book Reconnecting With Nature. Each of these senses is a natural love and intelligence. Each registers in our awareness as an attractive 4-leg connection with natural systems through which we can relate sensibly and sensitively to the environment and each other. Each helps our thinking and relationships make more sense. ......,,,,,,,Since 1952 Cohen has researched, applied, and taught people how to incorporate parts of the Natural Systems Thinking Process into their personal and professional lives. NSTP enables us to rejuvenate our 53 natural senses and restore these senses in our mentality and interactions. ......,,,,,,,NSTP is presently part of several accredited, University training courses as well as degree programs. It has been reviewed and published in professional science and technology, psychology and education journals. It is available to anybody through books, workshops and the Internet. Cohen has written four other books that explore various aspects of it. In this book, we update what you need to know in order to use or teach it on an introductory level. The history of NSTP. ......,,,,,,,In 1959, Dr. Cohen founded a camp and school program based on reconnecting with nature. The National Audubon Society and many others called it the most revolutionary school in America. They said it was on the side of the angels. Participants traveled and thrived by camping out in 83 different natural habitats throughout the seasons. They learned to be aware of their thoughts and feelings. They learned to live out their commitment to have 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 close to the land. The experience deeply reconnected their 53 senses to their natural origins. They reconnected their thinking and selves to the whole of nature.The students loved to educate themselves this way and its effectiveness shows in its results: -Chemical dependencies, including alcohol and tobacco, disappeared. -Destructive social relationships were challenged and healed. -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. -Some students using meditation found they no longer needed to use it. They learned how to sustain a nature-connected community that more effectively helped them increase their resiliency to stress and disease. Others found the experience increased the benefits of meditation by attaching it to the peace in global natural systems. -Participants said they felt they knew each other better than they knew their families or best friends and knew themselves better than they ever had before. -Participants felt safe. They risked expressing and acting from their deeper thoughts and feelings. A profound, inborn sense of social and environmental responsibility guided their decisions. When vacation periods arrived, neither staff nor student wanted to go home. Each person enjoyed working to build this supportive, balanced living and learning utopia. They were home. Students sought and entered right livelihood professions. ......,,,,,,,   ......,,,,,,,All this occurred simply because community members made sense of their life by developing supportive, multiple-sensory relationships that restored their contact with the attractive callings of the natural world within and around them. ......,,,,,,,The 9-leg secret to each participant's success was to learn how to thoughtfully learn through 4-leg natural sensations and feelings that arose from their newly regrown sensory roots in ecosystems within and around them. These sensations acted as Nature's guiding voice. The value and rewards of doing this freed the participants' 53 senses from their bonds to questionable 5-leg stories. It re-bonded them to their 4-leg sense of reason in congress with 52 other rejuvenated natural senses while these senses were connected to their origins and home in nature. This resulted in consensus based 9-leg thinking, literacy and relating that included information from, and the regenerative, healing powers of, natural systems. To many 5-leg thinkers, this sounds crazy, but year after year the beneficial results still speak for themselves. ...........From 30 years of travel and study in over 260 national parks, forests and subcultures, Cohen developed a replicable learning process and psychology that anyone can use at home, work or school today. It unleashes our suppressed 4-leg ability to grow and survive responsibly with natural systems in ourselves, others and the environment. By documenting that it worked and could be taught, he earned his doctoral degree and the school became a nationally recognized graduate and undergraduate degree program. ......,,,,,,,From 1985-92, Cohen translated his nature-connected psychology program into Project NatureConnect and the Natural Systems Thinking Process for public use, backyard or backcountry, via the internet or in conjunction with local community members in real time. ......,,,,,,,Through NSTP courses, people recover their natural senses and integrity by sharing their attractions to hands-on, sensory, nature reconnections at home, work or school. This is done individually and is then contributed to small study groups either over the Internet or in person. Students also respond to 5-leg readings. An example of NSTP in action is reported by a student in the next section this Introduction. ......,,,,,,,The beneficial results and outcomes of NSTP are located in the this book's Prerequisites: Survey of Participants section and the unedited journal entries of participants found in Einstein's World and links from the Survey and www.ecopsych.com. ......,,,,,,,Any sane person understands full well that we can't resolve our unsolvable problems using the same, nature-disconnected, 5-leg thinking that produces them. The critical contribution of NSTP is that it empowers individuals to create moments that let Earth teach in its sensory voice. It helps us responsibly unify 5-leg and 4-leg thinking. This 9-leg unification is a healthy, natural, superintelligent way of knowing and relating. It provides us with the missing essence of sustainable living and peace that we can enjoy personally, socially and globally. ......,,,,,,,NOTE: We have published the essence of this Introduction's description of NSTP and 9-leg thinking as a single page located in Appendix E. With permission, it may be copied and used from that page as an introduction to methods and materials you may want to distribute in sharing or teaching NSTP. In the essay that follows a Doctoral graduate student, Sarah Edwards, who learned this book's chapters in Cohen's online Orientation Course, describes NSTP from her initial, experiences with it. What she describes is normal for this course that has been given over 125 times since its inception in 1995. Please continue to SECTION TWO CONTINUE TO REMAINING INTRODUCTION PAGES .   Share this website with a friend: ,