– Heartwood Path Waypoint 1.18 –

Follow Your Attraction

Meet Regularly With Attractive Natural Beings
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We will recommend repeatedly that you go outside to places that are not artificial.  You will be asked to do this to make sure that you are moving away from your everyday life that is, more than likely, conducted mostly indoors.

For the same reason there are retreats, you will be asked to move to unconventional spaces, places where an attractive natural being is located, so that you can conduct spiritual practices with a fresh and open perspective. Speaking of spiritual practices, Jesus was not significantly inspired by sitting inside. Instead, he spent forty days in the wilderness. Buddha did not gain enlightenment contemplating a house plant. He chose to sit outdoors for many days under the Bodhi Tree. Moses did not have his direct conversation with God next to an indoor fireplace. He communicated with God by way of a burning bush outside.  

I, like many others, feel something I need is lacking when I spend too much time indoors. So I tend to spend a lot of time outdoors, often near moving water and almost every night as I sleep beneath the stars. I feel best in certain dynamic places outdoors: on immense rivers, in sparkling streams, in ocean waves, and under waterfalls (both above and below ground), for example. 

It turns out that one of the things that may be giving me a boost in such places is the preponderance of negative ions that occurs when moving or falling water breaks up into droplets. When this happens, negative ions (electrically charges atoms)––and, specifically, negatively charged electrons–– “are knocked loose from the water molecules then combine with oxygen atoms in the air to create negative ions” (MacGregor, 2010, pp. 147-148). In each sugar cube-size bit of air in most outdoor places there are 1,200 to 4,000 negative ions (MacGregor, 2010, p. 148). This number can peak to 2000 for country air, 50,000 for mountain air, and to over 100,000 negative ions where ocean waves or waterfalls interact with the land. Compare these relatively high numbers to the following relatively low numbers of negative ions indoors: in smoky indoor air, 0-100; in sealed office buildings, 0-250; and in normal indoor air with the windows open, 250-500 (TotalWellnessWorldwide Website).  You may be wondering why these numbers are so important.
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“Once released into the atmosphere, negative air ions are easily inhaled into the lungs and absorbed into the bloodstream.  There, negative ions can have a significant positive effect on health. Negative ions have been found to alleviate depression and stress, and to boost energy.  They also produce biochemical reactions that increase levels of serotonin, creating feelings of elation and high spirits” (MacGregor, 2010, p. 148).

Indoor air that is surrounded by a grounded steel structure (like a typical modern skyscraper) draws off any negative ions. Central heating and air conditioning strips the air of negative ions.  Synthetic carpets, upholstery, and curtains absorb negative ions. These are some of the reasons why germs and viruses flourish in indoor dead air.

It is best to sleep, work, and live in outdoor country air. Mountain air is invigorating. At concentrations of 50,000 negative ions per cubic centimeter, the air is both stimulating and relaxing. Such concentrations also kill germs. 

For these reasons alone, it is a good idea to regularly sit by an outdoor being–– as we will be suggesting you to do during this course.  Here are some other reasons:

Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods and The Nature Principle identifies why you will be encouraged to commune with a natural being repeatedly in this series of courses.  He speaks of “the transformative powers of nature,” how it “can reshape our lives now and in the future,” and lists several  reasons for the “re-naturing” of everyday life, including:

1. To help balance for our high-tech lives.
2. To increase our intelligence, creative thinking, and productivity.
3. Make nature as important as human history.
4. Conserve and create natural habitat (Louv, 2012, p. 5).

​Writes Louv: 

“Simply living and working in a natural or re-natured environment… can have a profound impact on our mental health…

Nature-guided therapy is entering mainstream psychology as the combination of urban pressures and loss of natural habitat create psychological problems that other forms of treatment seem inadequate to fully address…

​The great work of the twenty-first century will be to reconnect to the natural world as a source of meaning…” (Louv, 2012, pp. 66-246).

I am an eartHeart––formerly known as “environmentalist”—formerly known as a “conservationist.” That means I care as much about our relationship to place as I do about the place itself. I support a spiritual/political movement that delivers what the heart has always needed: a meaningful relationship to the diversity of life.  With such a movement, we can go beyond sustainability. I, for one, would not want only a sustainable environment any more than I would want only a sustainable intimate partnership. The place, the people, and the relationship needs to be sustainable, but it also needs to grow and transcend. Not fearful of the future, I want to be a good ancestor--one that has banished prejudice, not only between the races, but also between people and the land, and between the generations. There ought to be not only a botanical garden in every city but also a sustainable and creative town in every botanical garden. The Ecozoic Era the eartHearts of the Heartwood Path seek to promote is a time in the not-so-distant future when humans will enhance the earth rather than destroy its species. This Era can only dawn within the hearts of people, within those who are made more expansively loving through nature experiences. It will be a time of not only appropriate technology but also of green people, made verdant by systematic experiences with attractive natural objects, which are really beings who serve as emissaries from nature, beings who are intelligent, beings who can send us smart signals, if only we learn to listen. 

We will need to make new things and approaches expected and normal. Louv (2012) writes about the three aspects of a proposed expanded environmental movement: the First Ring of traditionally funded, direct-service, nonprofit, and conservation organizations; the Second Ring of individual docents and other volunteers; and a Third Ring of networked individuals, families, associations and communities using social networking to connect people to nature and each other. This Third Ring could help find the people the other Rings find too difficult to reach. The Third Ring could also expand political clout. Help add the Third Ring to the environmental movement by spreading the word about the Heartwood Path.

What is needed is an international network of HumaNature teachers and life coaches, people who understand the importance of nature experiences. I propose to call these Third Ring teachers and life coaches, at least the ones that go down the Heartwood Path, “eartHearts.” They will need to gain power, honor, connectivity, and identity. For these purposes, we offer the Heartwood Path and its website. 

EartHearts will need to develop their approach, complete with adequate theory, suggested activities, and well-stocked tool kits. They will need to raise funds. They will need to be able to articulate the benefits they will provide, the efficiencies they will put into place, and the specific problems they will address.   They ought to talk not only about outer world global climate change, for example, but also about inner heart climate change. 

The environmental movement needs to move, and this is the direction I see it needing to go: toward the Third Ring of social networking that encourages people to regularly get up from their computers, leave their mobile devices at home or turned off, immerse themselves in the informed, intelligent vibrations of attractive natural beings, and make sure there are and always will be enough beings and places for this immersion. In this effort, I encourage eartHearts to remember that degraded habitats will produce degraded people and vice versa.

Along with the three "rings," the environmental movement has three messages.  Each has its benefits. Despite these blessings (discussed next),  participating in all rings and delivering all messages can be dissipative.

EartHearts will not focus much on environmental movement’s First Message: the earth is facing an eco-catastrophe.  We all know that by now. The doom-sayers gave us a way to kick-start a much-needed movement, but claiming that the earth is or soon will be beyond re-naturing is depressing. True, untrue, or waiting to be proven, gloom and doom is not capturing the public’s imagination.

EartHearts will also not focus much on the environmental movement’s Second Message: green economic benefits. If we all buy natural shampoos and the like a lot of natural plants and many natural places will be pulverized. The main thing that will be saved is the Aveda Corporation. The corporate hijacking of the consumer’s ecological sensibilities has left the public too placated. This corporate hijacking has left consumers too brainwashed into thinking that buying green products is the only needed remedy. And this corporate hijacking has left the public too jaded by the false claims of corporate green-washing.  If the Second Message of green economic benefits is all that is needed then there would not be so many graduates of college environmental programs unemployed or looking so long for decent jobs. First Message claims of impending catastrophe and Second Message claims of green economic benefits, while both are true, are also both partial. They are not the whole story.      

Another message, the one eartHearts will focus on, is, therefore, very much needed.  The Third Message of the environmental movement is about the importance of the natural world to our health, to our learning process, to our happiness, to our spirit.   As Louv (2012, p. 285) points out: “exposure to natural settings reduces stress, stimulates creativity and cognitive development, and tunes in all the senses.” This Message has with it a new, ever-emerging call to action. Begin by continuing this course, and by enjoying your time with your chosen natural beings and their attractive natural surroundings. If finding such places nearby is difficult, you have identified another action step.  

​We need not only equal protection from the bad stuff of society but also equal access to the good stuff. Some of this good stuff is green space and green jobs but some of it is also green rights that include access to nature. Additionally, we need green ethics and green philosophies that inform us of our inseparability from nature. We cannot allow nature to be plundered nor can we allow too much of it to be placed in protective house arrest.  We need to pursue more open access to the wild. We also need more happiness –– a grand gladness that comes from being made “whole” (known in the Bible as being made “perfect”) through the kinds of conversion experiences outlined in this series of courses.

To A Response To Your Attractions...

​HumaNatureConnect Activity
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If this is not a day when you prefer to spend time in nature without an agenda, do the following activity:
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Start-up Protocol
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• Read The Text — Use your literary sense, your mind sense, and your reason sense to move towards happiness and sustainability by reading the Heartwood Path text but also go outdoors to the backyard or to the backwoods, where the higher levels of negative ions in the air will improve your mood and well-being.
• Attention Restoration — With a pen and journal in hand, go to a natural area that is attractive, has a variety of plants and animals, and is tranquil enough to leave room for reflection.
• Source — Spend time wandering without an agenda in nature or, if you don’t have time to receive nature’s magic in this way, follow the instructions in the text at each learning station.
• Attractive Natural Being — Once you are in a natural area (the wilder, the better), look to find a natural being that is attractive to you and remain near that being until the end of the activity.
• Appreciation And Gratitude — While communing with your chosen natural being, appreciate it as you inhale and show it gratitude as you exhale.
• Consent — Once you find an aspect of nature that is attractive to you continuously for at least ten seconds, think of your continued attraction as your consent to have a connection experience that will help you function optimally; receive information, guidance, and healing; and establish in your mind a more helpful egalitarian relationship with the natural being.
• The Natural Senses — Beyond seeing, hearing, and the three other commonly recognized senses, use as many of the fifty-four Natural Senses as you see fit and prepare to document the ones that you use in your journal.
• Great Trustable Truth — Experience what is happening at the present moment in nature, paying particular attention to the role of both beauty and balance; remember that the impressions you form about attractive natural beings and natural areas, coming from your experiencing of them in the Now, are trustable; and recognize that the natural processes and features witnessed are a source of special, substantial, and irreplaceable truthfulness about both nature and yourself.
• Recall — Place the great trustable truth and any other insights that you discover in a mental lock-box so you can later record them in your journal.​

Following Your Attractions
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For this activity, use your relaxed, improved state of concentration, which you gained by communing with nature, to think about two gloomy reports about some impending environmental catastrophe (these are reports from the First Message of the environmental movement, as mentioned above).  In your Activity Journal, write down how you feel about learning of this peril.  Then, think of two environmental organizations and determine how you can support them (thus, participating in the First Ring of the environmental movement). Include your plans in your Activity Journal . Next, move to another natural being, focus on its attractiveness rather than on your own worries for at least ten seconds, and use the calmness and optimal functioning that results from your attraction to consider the Second Message of the environmental movement (by considering two changes in your purchasing to make your lifestyle more “green,”such as using reusable grocery bags and walking instead of using your car) and the Second Ring of the environmental movement (by considering how you can volunteer in some way to help wildlife or the environment). Enter a record of your impressions about the Second Message and the Second Ring in your Activity Log.  Lastly, move to another natural being, focus on its attractiveness rather than your common-place hassles and use the resulting improved functioning to consider the Third Message of the environmental movement (by recollecting the importance of a specific natural being or a specific part of the natural world to your health, to your ability to learn, to your happiness, and to your spirit) and the Third Ring (by determining how you can network with like minded environmentalists or eartHearts). Write down your notes about the Third Message and Third Ring in your Activity Journal.

​​​​Follow-up Protocol
Natural Systems Reflection Process
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     For best results, write down your impressions of this activity in your journal using as many of the following components as you see fit, afterwards, share your interpretations with others.
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Journal Components
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• Date — Write down the date of your outdoor nature-communing experience.
• Activity — Write down the waypoint title and number each time each you do an activity.
• Location — Write down the location of your outdoor nature-communing experience.
• Natural Being Indicator — Draw a picture or write down in your journal a nameless way to remember your chosen attractive Natural Being; for example, call it your “____  ____ Connection Experience.”
• The Natural Senses Used — Write down all of the Natural Senses you used for this activity.
• General Description — Write a general description of how you did the activity and what happened.
• Freeform — Write, in freeform, what you found attractive about your natural being.
• Three Qualities — Write down three qualities you found attractive about your natural being.
• Three Learnings — Write down three things you learned from this activity.
• Self-esteem & Trust — Write down how, if at all, this activity changed your self-esteem or trustfulness of NNIAAL (Namelessness, Now, Intelligence, Alive, Attraction, and Love).
• Changes To Self — Write down what aspects of your Self, if any, were changed by this activity.
• Honor Yourself — Praise yourself and your commitment to making another stop along the Heartwood Path good for yourself and the world.
• I’m A Person Who. . . — Write down three different so-called “G/G Statements” using the following format: “This connection experience tells me that I am a person who__________.”
• Feelings If Activity Taken — Write down a sentence about how you would feel if you lost your ability to experience this connection.
• Nature Compared To Self — Create a sentence that reads: “I love this (insert words that identify the attractive natural being) because it is (insert words that refer to the qualities you like about the natural being); then, create a parallel sentence that reads: “I love (insert the word “myself”) because I am (insert the same qualities as before).”​
• Integral Immersion — Improve your journal writing by addressing what is, what could be, and what ought to be.
• Love Letter — Write a letter of gratitude to and from a natural being.
• Two-word Summary — Write down two words that summarize your response to this activity.​

The Heartwood Path Exchange:
Swap Your Ideas, Impressions, Photos, And News With Others
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• Comment — Post your impressions and photos in the Comments section of this waypoint—the place for on-going discussion regarding this waypoint.
• Join — Engage with others in a Heartwood Path course or salon.
• Create — Start your own Heartwood Path salon that meets regularly online, by phone, or in person.
• Talk — Share your impressions with trusted family members and friends.
• Network — Post your impressions and photos on our EartHeart Networking Forum.
• Post — To see what conversations you can ignite, upload on social media your photos and impressions about anything pertaining to your journey down the Heartwood Path.
• Connect — Follow our account on Instagram, Like our Page on Facebook, Subscribe to our Channel on YouTube, and use hashtags such as “#heartwoodpath”, “#eartHeart”, and “#waypoint(insert course)(insert waypoint number) i.e.“#waypointkosmos5”).​

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Your input is vital. Enjoy sharing!

Heartwood Path Axioms:
Key Assertions From Waypoint 1.18

1.18.1.
For the same reason there are retreats, you will be asked to move to unconventional spaces, places where an attractive natural being is located, so that you can conduct spiritual practices with a fresh and open perspective.

1.18.2.
I am an eartHeart-formerly known as environmentalist formerly known as a conservationist, meaning that I care as much about our relationship to place as I do about the place itself.

1.18.3.
To reduce stress, stimulate creativity, develop cognitively, improve all the senses, and expose yourself to a natural setting. 

1.18.4.
Transcend to the Third Environmental Message and the Third Environmental Ring by thinking about First Message gloomy reports of some impending environmental catastrophe and how you will support First Ring environmental organizations; then consider the Second Message of the environmental movement by considering two changes in your purchasing to make your lifestyle more “green” and, in accordance with the Second Ring, consider how you can volunteer in some way to help the environment; but rest on the Third Message of the environmental movement by recollecting the importance of a specific natural being or a specific part of the natural world to your health, to your ability to learn, to your happiness, and to your spirit and rest on the Third Ring by determining how you can network with like minded environmentalists or eartHearts.

Dreaming Time Activity

For best results, write down your impressions of each night’s dreams in your journal, a vital part of your EartHeart Chronicles. Make your Dream Tending elaborate (so you get the most out of it) but do not make it cumbersome (as this could prevent you from continuing). Use as many of the following components as you see fit. Afterwards, where appropriate, share your Dream Tending with others.
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Before Dreaming Protocol​​

• Dream Prep — Prepare yourself for productive dreaming by decluttering your mind before sleeping. ​
• Journal Ready — Prepare to record your dream impressions by placing your journal so that you can make initial recordings in it without changing your dreamtime sleeping position.

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Dreaming Protocol​

• Remember This — Look to your dreams to tell you what you need to remember.​
• Open To Dream — Be receptive, fluid, interactive, and grounded as you dream.
• Wake-Back-To-Bed — Wake up after six hours of sleep, staying awake for twenty minutes, then go back to sleep.
• Shape-shifters — Watch characters that change in your dream to see into the possibilities of your own transformation.

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Nocturnal Pilgrimage 1.18

You can’t get the most from the Heartwood Path by remaining in your favorite chair. Go outside and follow your attractions. And then watch for them to recur in your dreams. If you do not think that you are dreaming about your natural attractions perhaps you are having difficulty remembering your dreams. A solution to this problem is listed subsequently. As stated in the component of our After Dreaming Protocol titled “First-Off,” remain in your sleeping position as you wake up. Doing so will give you a chance to revisit your dreams. Lying motionless in your sleeping position with your dream journal close by will help you to determine what can be learned from your dreams, including what guidance you can receive from your chosen attractive natural beings.

​With your dream journal in or next to your bed, sleep. Dream about good things. To get to all these good things in your waking time will require the adoption of some sort of spiritual endeavor.  

After Dreaming Protocol​

• First Off — Recall your dream by staying in your sleeping position as you make your first attempt to remember your dream.
• Book Of Dreams — Create an entry in your dream journal using the following linguistic tools: 1) talking in the present tense, 2) using verbs ending in “ing,” 3) removing articles such as “an” or “the,” and 4) using capital letters when naming the Dream Characters—which can be any notable people, places, or things that show up in your dream.
• Title — Give your dream a memorable title. 
• Date — Write down the date of your dream. 
• Description — Write down a short, general summary of your dream.
• Mood — Write down how the dream affected your mood upon waking.
• Life Event Affecting Dream — Write down any events in your life that may have influenced your dream.
• Setting — Describe the location of your dream.
• Statement Of Problem — Write down the complication, challenge, predicament, situation, obstacle, plight, quandary, or misadventure presented in your dream. 
• Culmination Or Response To The Problem — Describe what you or another Dream Character did in your dream to respond to the problem presented in the dream.
• Conclusion — Describe how your dream ended.
• Beings Revealed — Write down how your dream seemed to be, if at all, linked in some way to your chosen attractive natural beings.
• Freud’s Approach —  Associate the actions of your Dream Characters with latent, infantile, repressed, or sexual drives.
• Jung’s Approach — Amplify your Dream Characters into Archetypes that are global in scale, symbolic, pervasive, positive, and helpful.
• Hillman’s Approach — Recognize your Dream Characters as animated, living beings by honoring their presence, place, and body.
• Right Information — Ask yourself the two main questions for Dream Tending: “Who is visiting now?” And “What is happening here?”
• The Richest Treasures — Do not force narrow interpretations upon the natural being impressions that reappear in your dream by condensing them into limited signs when it is more fruitful to simply engage with them as living beings that reside in your dream, possibly with infinite symbolic value.
• Privacy — Store your dream journal in a safe place and, where appropriate, share your dream with others.​​​

Finding a sense of the whole is the topic of the next waypoint for this course: “Spiritual Practice.”  You are making great progress. Keep going.

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