RESILIENCE

Living well requires the capacity to adapt. Being reslient is the capacity to rebound. When one has had a significant setback (which we all experience at certain times in our lives) one's capacity to learn to live again beyond the crisis determines how happy they will be. When the past pain holds on so tight that we can't breathe the fresh air of tomorrow we miss much of what life has to offer.

Michael Sperber, MD suggests that one's capacity for resliience is related to one's capacity to "being-in-the-world." (Psychiatric  Times, July 2, 2012). He believes that the capacity adapt is related to the person engaging in three different conversations. One is being dialogue with nature. That is, the ability to ground yourself in the present is related to your being embrace by that of which we are a part and which sustains us. 

Anne Frank put it this way. "The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles." (Diary of a Young Girl, 1986).

As spring invades the heart land, I am discovering again the healing quality of being in nature. Dialogue with the expanse of sky and the solid footing of ground helps heal my pain and nurtures my soul. Maybe it can become a solace for you as well.

OUT OF THE BOX

I loved it.  25 degrees--snow-covered trails, steel gray Indiana sky.  Usually few people travel the trails of Fort Harrison State Park on such a day.  But, as I parked, I saw a couple of yellow school busses.  Traveling down the trail I heard talking--young teens--not yelling and laughing--but talking and listening.  I approached and saw they huddled, looking, listening to a teacher.  As I walked by I heard her say, "If you close you mouth and open your ears, you can hear the water in the stream."  

Further down the path I saw another gaggle of middle-schoolers, their teacher telling them about the deer tracks, the clumps of leaves lying on top of the snow where animals were looking for food.  The apologized for filling the trail.

But, I loved it!

For here were school rooms learning "out of the box".  They were not reading.  They were freezing and smelling and feeling that which they were learning.  Some even seemed intrigued by what they were hearing and seeing.

I loved it not only because they students were leanring where life was lived, but they were in the wildest part of nature that you can find inside a modern city.  They are dealing with what Richard Louv called "nature deficit disorder".  In his book "Last Child in the Woods" he warns that children's fear of nature and their lack of exposure to the rural and wilderness parts of their landscape is leading to all kinds of personal and emotional disorders.  Whether this is true or not, I know nature to be a wonderful teacher of patience and flexibility.  I know it to be a place where, when we slow down and listen and experience, we discover ourselves part of an amazing system of life, energy, tension, death, birth, love and delight.

I loved it--kids out of the bos--learnig and laughing, tasting and seeing.