Show Gratitude Toward Nature
Good Ways and Bad Ways
Typically, gratitude towards nature does not involve the offering of a return in kind—partly because this would likely be impossible (people cannot give nature the support of a solid earth, for example) but also because such a return would possibly be considered an inappropriate undercutting of the apparent magnanimity of nature’s offerings (nature gives to everyone, even the ungrateful).
There are pathological forms of gratitude to nature.
These include giving back too much to nature in an attempt to make it in one’s debt, giving a show of gratitude as a way to justify one’s own incessant demands on nature, or being exuberantly grateful as a way to improve one’s reputation or to increase one’s own status over others.
Beyond these missteps, appropriate gratitude toward nature is a time-tested way to induce the positive thinking that is a natural check against sadness.
Positive forms of gratitude to nature include sunrise ceremonies, making small non-lethal sacrificial offerings (as is the custom of many Native American tribes, sprinkling a small amount of tobacco on the forest floor, for example), celebrating astronomical or seasonal events such as the winter solstice, and maintaining a reverential attitude while engaging in earth-friendly buying choices and while engaging in recycling.
Such forms of gratitude may, to our modern technological way of thinking, seem trite, falsely magical, or misguided. Despite such protestations, participating in events such as those mentioned above does create a nature-supportive frame of mind and this condition in the person often yields benefits to the planet. Towards this end, we have work to do in both the inner world and the outer world. Writes George:
“What happens in the world and what happens in us are in constant relationship, whether we are aware of it or not. The microcosm and the macrocosm differ only in scale, and they are never separate” (1995, p.133).
One way to show this lack of separation is to consider who or what you owe a debt of gratitude. The following activity will illustrate the inseparability of all that surrounds you.
