Embracing the healing power of nature

Getting outside helps us get grounded and centered. We go back to the basic form of healing in a time when there was anything but: natural healing.

Being in nature even for a short time has a calming effect on your mind and body reducing our levels of stress. 

  • Walk into nature with your emotional self (being mindful), not with your intellectual self. Try to walk barefoot so that you root your feet in the ground. Feel the richness of this world with its infinite forms. Feel its immensity, solidity, and how it interacts with you in supportive ways. Feel its texture, smells, colors, and sounds. What is the world that you are interacting with like? What is it that you want to grieve about? Grieve in whatever form you choose. For example, you could growl. GRRRR!
  • Express gratitude for being alive today, able to enjoy this world. Ask nature to support you today.
  • Open your heart so that you can become moist and drink deeply from the emotional echoes that you receive from the plants and branches.

 

TURN THIS EXPERIENCE IN NATURE INTO A COLLECTIVE JOURNEY

  • Every other month, go out as a collective and spend time in nature. Walk, sing, and dance. You could also write poetry, chant, rhyme, and share stories. Note that poetry and rituals evoke the world beyond words, the world of meaning that resides in its fullness, in nature. Feel the energy that comes from being together as a community and the sense of being intimately connected in nature. The intimate connection one has in a community cloaks the individual with love and acceptance, making her/him feel at home.
  • While in nature, take the time to shout as much as you want, yell, kick, to collectively release the pain stuck in the body and the organization.
  • Collectively reflect, using the analogy of a ‘tree of life’. Draw and show the parts of life that contribute to wellbeing: your foundation (roots), support system (trunk), skills/knowledge that contribute to wellbeing (leaves), hopes or dreams (flowers), things you feel gratitude for (fruits). You can do this in groups. After drawing, sit in a circle and share. Where do you need to put more focus? What is in your possession that you need to enhance?