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Episode 441 – Nature is Medicine

• Summer is here my friends – my favorite season
• Summer means more time outside than any other time of the year
• And I am lucky – I have it all
• The mountains, the beach, the desert and the deep dark redwood forests
• I have more nature within 1-3 hours of driving than I can ever visit
• Only when I moved to California did I rediscover my love for nature
• When I was a kid- I loved nature
• I always lived closed to a forest and would spend hours alone exploring
• My grandmothers huge garden was my favorite place for setting up tents
• As a teenager, I lost interest in nature
• My grandparents loved to go for hikes on Sundays, but I would only join them when there was a chance that we’d stop at the ice cream parlor afterwards
• Then – I was into boys, and clubs and clothes – I needed to find myself – and there was no time for nature
• Unless, of course, it was summer and I could find a place to swim somewhere
• Summer always drew me out
• Later, living in Texas, the extremely hot summers made it hard to withstand time outdoors
• But if there was water anywhere, I was outside
• But I never realized the healing effects of nature until I moved to California and spent more time skiing, hiking and for a year now, mountain climbing
• I didn’t even know I needed healing until I actually returned back home from a day in the wilderness
• Nature? Healing?
• I know you might not buy this
• But research has shown that as little as a plant in our rooms can have stress-reducing benefits
• I want to read you a few snippets from Rilke my favorite German poet, who, in his “Letters to a Young Poet” nicely contrast the shallowness of the city, in this case Pari, to the depth of nature

IN THE GREAT SILENCE OF THESE DISTANCES, I AM TOUCHED BY YOUR BEAUTIFUL ANXIETY ABOUT LIFE,

…EVEN MORE THAN I WAS IN PARIS, WHERE EVERYTHING ECHOES AND FADES AWAY DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE OF THE EXCESSIVE NOISE THAT MAKES THINGS TREMBLE.

HERE, WHERE I AM SURROUNDED BY AN ENORMOUS LANDSCAPE, WHICH THE WINDS MOVE ACROSS AS THEY COME FROM THE SEAS,

HERE I FEEL THAT THERE IS NO ONE ANYWHERE WHO CAN ANSWER FOR YOU THOSE QUESTIONS AND FEELINGS WHICH, IN THEIR DEPTHS, HAVE A LIFE OF THEIR OWN;

FOR EVEN THE MOST ARTICULATE PEOPLE ARE UNABLE TO HELP,

SINCE WHAT WORDS POINT TO IS SO VERY DELICATE, IS ALMOST UNSAYABLE.

BUT EVEN SO, I THINK THAT YOU WILL NOT HAVE TO REMAIN WITHOUT A SOLUTION IF YOU TRUST IN THINGS THAT ARE LIKE THE ONES MY EYES ARE NOW RESTING UPON.

IF YOU TRUST IN NATURE, IN THE SMALL THINGS THAT HARDLY ANYONE SEES AND THAT CAN SO SUDDENLY BECOME HUGE, IMMEASURABLE;

IF YOU HAVE THIS LOVE FOR WHAT IS HUMBLE

…AND TRY VERY SIMPLY, AS SOMEONE WHO SERVES, TO WIN THE CONFIDENCE OF WHAT SEEMS POOR:

THEN EVERYTHING WILL BECOME EASIER FOR YOU, MORE COHERENT AND SOMEHOW MORE RECONCILING,

NOT IN YOUR CONSCIOUS MIND PERHAPS, WHICH STAYS BEHIND, ASTONISHED,

BUT IN YOUR INNERMOST AWARENESS, AWAKENESS, AND KNOWLEDGE.

YOU ARE SO YOUNG, SO MUCH BEFORE ALL BEGINNING, AND I WOULD LIKE TO BEG YOU, DEAR SIR, AS WELL AS I CAN,

TO HAVE PATIENCE WITH EVERYTHING UNRESOLVED IN YOUR HEART AND TO TRY TO LOVE THE QUESTIONS THEMSELVES AS IF THEY WERE LOCKED ROOMS OR BOOKS WRITTEN IN A VERY FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

DON’T SEARCH FOR THE ANSWERS, WHICH COULD NOT BE GIVEN TO YOU NOW, BECAUSE YOU WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO LIVE THEM.

AND THE POINT IS, TO LIVE EVERYTHING.

LIVE THE QUESTIONS NOW.

PERHAPS THEN, SOMEDAY FAR IN THE FUTURE, YOU WILL GRADUALLY,

WITHOUT EVEN NOTICING IT, LIVE YOUR WAY INTO THE ANSWER.

PERHAPS YOU DO CARRY WITHIN YOU THE POSSIBILITY OF CREATING AND FORMING, AS AN ESPECIALLY BLESSED AND PURE WAY OF LIVING;

TRAIN YOURSELF FOR THAT — BUT TAKE WHATEVER COMES, WITH GREAT TRUST,

AND AS LONG AS IT COMES OUT OF YOUR WILL, OUT OF SOME NEED OF YOUR INNERMOST SELF, THEN TAKE IT UPON YOURSELF.

• I love this
• I love it because it highlights what nature offers for us:
• a Return to basics
• an appreciation of the small and simple things
• and a confrontation with nothing but ourselves
• no outside fake noise
• no distractions
• but a place to ask questions
• to be with ourselves
• with our questions
• and to just be
• to live
• and I realize that this is exactly what I do
• When I am in nature – hiking, skiing, climbing – I just am
• I am present with myself
• I don’t need anything
• Especially no device to make me feel I am needed
• Every time I am in a place where I have absolutely no cell phone signal – this becomes clear again for me – we don’t need to be available 24/7
• Everything I need I have
• The basics – my gear, water, some snacks
• It all fits into a backpack
• For an entire day, sometimes more, that’s all I need
• Nature provides the rest
• Nature provides the challenges and obstacles to overcome
• Nature provide the communication through its beauty, its sounds, its views
• Nature simply is and it teaches me to simply be
•  
• I have a wonderful new friend who wrote about the ancient practice of shabbat
• Her name is Marilyn Paul and we met through my speaking program
• In the near future I am planning on interviewing people on this podcast and she will be amongst the first because she has a wonderful way of making clear to us how much we need a day of rest
• And it wasn’t clear to me that my weekly climbing trips are such a day of rest
• Yes I love climbing, but I love everything else that comes with it
• Being in nature and being disconnected is not something that immediately came to mind but here are a few signs on how I realized the healing effects of nature:
  • It begins when I leave town
    • Usually very early morning, when its still dark and everyone is asleep
    • It’s a weekend day so the freeway that I am normally stuck on to get to work is now free
    • I breeze, usually to some good music
    • But as soon as I leave the city and hit the country, my chest expands and I take a deep breath
    • By that time sun has usually risen
    • I am somewhere out in the middle of nowhere
    • Farmland, trees, wide open spaces – no houses, no concrete structure
    • You can ask My climbing partner – he has heard my big deep exhale when the city lies behind us
  • Another sign is my disappointment when we get to the place where want to climb and there are a lot of people
    • In some places I know to expect people because the area is popular
    • Sadly those areas are usually loud
    • People yell and scream which takes away from the experience I seek when I am out in nature
    • I don’t mind meeting new people
    • Its not uncommon to meet interesting fellow climbers, most of them are friendly and really easy going
    • But when the noise from people downs out the peace and solitude nature offers, I am not happy
  • The strongest sign that nature is good for my heart, my soul and my mind is my level of happiness at the end of the day
    • Its hard to express how I feel after having finished a long hike or a strenuous climb
    • When nothing mattered except the next step
    • It’s a mix of accomplishment but also pure relaxation
    • At the end of a such a day I feel restored, reenergized and ready to return back to all the noise and distraction of daily life
    • For an entire day I was living only in this very moment
      • My steps, my breath, my interaction with nature, challenging my body and my mind
      • Nothing was calling for me, taking me away, distracting me, stressing me
      • Only me and my body and nature
    • And this positive mood carries me throughout the week
    • It’s a charge that lasts – for a while
    • But not forever
    • I noticed it over the winter – my last sign of how much I have actually come to depend on nature as my physician, my spa, and my silent retreat
  • I miss it – badly
  • Like a person I have come to love and that’s not there
  • I would listen to songs that I played all summer when driving to the mountains and I would yearn for those road trips again
  • On the weekends I was at home, I was anxious and restless
  • I wanted to be out of the city and away
    • Smell fresh air, have piece and solitude and hear only the sounds created by nature
  • That’s how much I miss nature
  • I had nature withdrawal symptoms
  • A clear indication that nature is good for me
  • For all of us
  • The problem is that we are so used to noisier and flashier distractions
    • Fancy meals in expensive restaurant
    • Clubs with loud music
    • Spas with soothing music and creative massages
  • With enough money, we can have it all
  • Nature is free
  • But it also is less flashy
  • It doesn’t offer any distraction
  • Instead it offers us an opportunity to face ourselves
  • And opportunity we rarely accept, and actually probably rather avoid
  • We come out into nature and we don’t even know what to do with ourselves
  • Last weekend I was climbing in a national park and as I am reaching the summit of a smaller mountain I hear rap music in the distance
  • Sad, I know
  • People cannot handle the sounds of nature, they need to bring the sounds of man with them
  •  
  • If you are not spending time in nature regularly, you are missing out
  • I read an article on National Geographic that called our absence from nature the
  • The epidemic dislocation from the outdoors,
    • According to this article, both Children and adults are spending less amounts of time outside than they used to.
    • For example, 70 percent of today’s mothers in the U.S. recalled playing outdoors every day as children but only 26 percent of them say their kids play outside daily.
    • You might even remember it like I do – after school, we would come home, meet up with our friends, and go run around the neighborhood.
    • Now kids activities are scheduled with very little exploratory play time
    • And, I feel the same occurs for us adults
    • When we go out into nature, its usually a planned trip with everything scheduled out in detail
    • I encourage you
  • Include nature back into your life
  • It inspired the great writers and artists of our past whose works we now admire
  • Early civilizations understood that nature was a sacred presence and honored it as such
  •  
  • Its healing power has been studied widely
  • People who have direct interactions with nature live longer, are healthier and happier, and find more fulfillment in life.
  • a recent study in Stanford, California, compared psychological test results of participants who spent time in nature with those who spent time in urban areas.
    • Those who were in nature had fewer negative thoughts, were less anxious, and had improved working memory.
  • I cannot agree more
  • Its not a cliché expression when I say that nature is my happy place
  • It is truly the one place where I am happiest
    • No TV show, no meal or drink or house can offer the same feeling
    •  
  • and if you don’t believe it, all you need to do is try it for yourself
    • Simply get in your car and drive out into nature
    • Park somewhere and then get out
    • Explore
    • Take a hike or rent a kayak or ride a horse
    • Engage with nature
    • Smell the fresh air, admire your surroundings and leave behind your to-do’s for a few hours
  • You have the time for it
  • You have to have the time for it because it’s the time your body and your mind needs to heal from the constant stress from our man-made environment
  • Go an experience therapeutic effects of nature.
  • In nature, we all can experience unity with life, a deeper connection with ourselves, and profound physical, emotional, and spiritual healing
  • It’s a must for all of us who are tied to chairs, cement buildings, asphalt roads and artificial noise for most of the time
  • Its what we need to get back into equilibrium

Much love’