Do not look for signs.
Do not look for experiences.
Do not be so complicated.
Become like a child.
See everything with awe.
- Robert Adams
Daily media assaults us with awful instead of awe. Even children today have to search for their play time in nature because of technology taunting at all hours.
How do we use nature's teachings?
Dr. Claude Arnett, a psychiatrist in Sacramento works with nature to cure children with mental health issues. Their nervous system and ability to handle stress require natural experiences in order to develop. He explains how at first children must learn to scan the landscape, then target something specific such as a moving beetle or butterfly. In this way children learn to move fluidly between the two skills of field and target focus. Television and video games only teach target-oriented attention and ignore the process.
When troubled children spend time in natural environments, their mental world brightens and they develop a greater elasticity and come to him more flexible and adaptive, he says.
If children watch animals at play, they also learn ways to enjoy simple toys. Feathers provide a variety of ways to play and write.
"It is the child who sees the primordial secret of Nature and it is the child of ourselves we return to" - Lao Tau
"It is the child who sees the primordial secret of Nature and it is the child of ourselves we return to" - Lao Tau
Write about discovering a simple pleasure in nature. How many ways could you use a feather?
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