Draw Close To Nature And Count Your Blessings

Nature Intimacy Helps One See Into The Greater Self

This series of courses presents a way for people to develop and put to use a specific type of necessary but uncommon maturity. For the sake of finding solutions to our serious problems and for the sake of the happiness of humans we need to move people beyond the more typical arrested state of psycho-spiritual development—a condition I will describe subsequently. We need to instead return to “our species’ original intimacy with the natural world” (Plotkin, 2010, p. 11-12). As we shall see, Dr. Cohen’s methodology will be very helpful in this regard.

Draw close to nature and count your blessings.

Unless we ponder, discuss, and hone an ecological ethos, I feel the other instruments of change will not be enough.

We do not need more religiously imposed moralistic restrictions. We need a moral or spiritual heading. 

It will take the development of eco-centric elders (volunteers and coaches) to spread this way of being amongst us. And someone or some group will have to train the trainers of the eco-centric life coaches. That is where you, a participant in this series of courses, one of a cadre of so-called “eartHearts,” can serve a vital role.

We need to become intimate again with the natural world, we need more people concerned about others, and we need to have skills that help people grow into responsible adults.

There is not only an ecological crisis in the outer world. There is also a spiritual crisis in the inner world. Together, these crises are hitting us hard and just in time to wake us up so we can avoid answering T.S. Elliot’s question about which sound would accompany the end—a “whimper” or a “bang.” 

Despite the seriousness of these crises, there remains a continuous array of blessings for you to appreciate. While remembering that serious issues confront us all, let us begin our journey to Gladandgreen Junction by developing the useful habit of focusing on the positive.