BUILDING DEVOTION TO YOUR HEALING JOURNEY
MARLOW SHAMI
Summer 2002

Greetings NaturalSense Readers--

As I sit at my computer writing this summer edition, I am struck by the brilliance of the golden sunflowers and gangly eight foot tall maroon flowered hollyhock stalks lining the curved walk to my front door. Gold finch, tiger swallow tails, grass hoppers, frogs, beetles, spiders, deer, ground hog, even a young rabbit live with this garden. These past few years the garden has been working with less human input so it has self seeded and designed itself into a wonderful mass of texture and color. I simply did a little watering and transplanting and now experience great joy each time I walk the path to and from my front door.

We are a lot like this garden. When we devote just the right amount of time and care we need to our healing journey we flower and grow, all the while attracting all forms of life that in turn enjoy our gifts. When we allow ourselves to experience our natural timing, as opposed to the rigid linear time that rules most of our daily life, we open ourselves to unexpected creativity, growth, wisdom and healing. It is radical to listen to your natural rhythm in this fast paced nature distanced society. Paying attention to our natural rhythm is what our world needs now.

We can't fix the problems we all experience personally and globally with the same thinking that created the problems to begin with. This newsletter offers tools and ideas you can use to help cultivate new ways of living and thinking that will contribute toward personal and global healing.

Best to you with Nature in heart and mind--

Marlow Shami

NaturalSense
SUMMER 2002 ISSUE
Volume 2 Issue 8


CONTENTS:

* Mission statement
* Essay: Building Devotion to Your Healing Journey
* Activity: Healing Devotion: following Nature's Call
* Resources 

Mission Statement: NaturalSense e-newsletter offers the opportunity to investigate how and why our relationship with nature can be a healing one. The nature of healing is rooted in our relationship with all of life. When we wake up to our authentic self as a part of nature, our thoughts, actions, and life reflect the innate compassion and creative change of the natural world. This newsletter provides an essay, activity, calendar, and resource list to inspire deepening your natural healing connections with Nature.

Marlow Shami is a Holistic Healing Practitioner, Teacher, and Writer. She has a private healing practice in Litchfield and New Haven counties, Connecticut. She conducts Nature As Healer workshops, Energy Healing/Meditation Circles, and publishes a quarterly e-newsletter, NaturalSense®. Her specialty is the healing connection between humans and the natural world.

As time went by, I realized that the particular place I'd chosen was less important than the fact that I'd chosen a place and focused my life around it...What makes a place special is the way it buries itself inside the heart, not whether it's flat or rugged, rich or austere, wet or arid, gentle or harsh, warm or cold, wild or tame. Every place, like every person, is elevated by love and respect shown toward it, and by the way in which its bounty is received. -- Richard K. Nelson

Essay: Building Devotion to Your Healing Journey --by Marlow Shami

What gets in the way of making healthy change? How often have you been distracted or lost enthusiasm for a project, practice, life changing behavior or belief? Certainly some were never meant to be, or maybe the timing was off...but what about those interests and attractions that still hover in the back of your mind, depleting your energy and leaving you with a sense of defeat?

I was making some herbal infusions last week. I walked by the stove at 6 pm and noticed the label on the lid of the leaf infusion had 6 pm written on it. For a moment I thought 6 was too early for it to be done, but then reassured myself seeing the notation of 6pm on the lid. I picked up the infusion and was surprised the jar was warm. After four hours the liquid should be close to room temperature. I disregarded the sensory information and strained the liquid into another jar. Moving on to some reading I quickly forgot about the mixed messages my mind and senses were communicating to me about the infusion.

Later that evening a big light bulb went off. I had forgotten to write the proper time down on the lid. It should have been 7:30pm not 6pm. An old time was left on the lid, a time that was correct two days ago but not this day. Had I listened to my senses, the warmth of the liquid would have told me this. I had listened to my rational mind which was only interested in the number.

What gets in the way of our healing? What dissipates our devotion to our healing path? The old stories, old beliefs and habits that may have served us once but no longer do, block the way. Auto pilot is a fine ability to have especially when it comes to some of the routines in life like making a sandwich, punching in a phone number and brushing teeth. But when it comes to noticing the sensory details that make up the moment, auto pilot hurts us. It often misinforms us. Ignoring our sensory input, allowing words and numbers to have more authority than the evidence of our experience dissolves our devotion and we are waylaid once again from our healing journey.

What to do? We intrinsically know and sense what to do. We are a part of a natural system that is designed to creativity support homeostasis, and yet, we forget about being a part of nature. What does this have to do with the infusion story? A lot.

Nature nurtures balance via sensory communication. We humans have a vast sensory potential that is now awakening in each of us. I didn't trust my sense of timing when I first approached the jar. I did not trust what my sense of touch communicated to me about the heat of the jar. I clung to the number on the lid, a number that was no longer accurate.

We live in a society that thrives on our not being in touch with our authentic needs, our natural timing, or our authentic nature. In a consumer based culture, the more out of touch one is, the easier it is to be distracted from devoting focus to this healing journey we call life. There are all sorts of stories we are fed from the very start of our lives. Eat dinner at 6, this kind of car tells everyone you have "made it," depressed feelings are bad, happy feelings are good, the strongest survive, extroverts are healthy, introverts are odd, we must conquer nature to survive, you are what you have ... and the list could go on for miles.

The bottom line is this: Our senses are the lifeline in maintaining devotion to our healing journey. The outdoor natural world is our kin and role model. We can learn a lot through the simple practice of resonating with the natural world. One tool I have found to be very effective in teaching how to connect with nature's healing ways is called the Natural Systems Thinking Process. To learn more about this process see the workshop listings in this newsletter.

People who get in touch with a sense of place/home with nature and people who know the natural world as kin (and listen to nature's wisdom through their senses) are healing themselves and this world. Building devotion to your healing path is an act of natural love. We came to this life to heal and become whole. You wouldn't be reading this newsletter if you weren't already devoted to your healing path. So do what comes naturally, learn how to resurrect your multi-sensory abilities and use them with nature in heart and mind. See my resource list and workshop dates for tools and experiences you can use to build devotion to your healing journey.

ACTIVITY: Healing Devotion: following Nature’s Call

Step 1-- GROUND YOURSELF: Go outdoors and find a comfortable place to do the following sensory grounding process. Notice how your body feels right now. Just notice, don’t judge. Focus on your feet. Imagine your feet are connected to a global root system. This system provides life energy. Finish your grounding by taking a deep breath and exhale slowly. Allow your rational mind to relax and take a back seat on this nature meditation.

Step 2-- USE YOUR NATURALSENSE-ABILITIES WITH DEVOTION: Follow your positive attractions to a live plant or tree. Note that whatever catches your attention is an attraction, nature’s form of nonverbal communication. When you pay attention to nature’s attractions you are acting with devotion. You are engaging in a wordless dialogue with the natural world! Make sure you follow only positive attractions. 

Step 3-- BUILD DEVOTION ON YOUR HEALING PATH WITH NATURE: Once you feel you have found the plant or tree partner, spend 30 seconds listening (with all your senses). Does the plant still feel welcoming? If so, you have gained consent to meditate with this plant. If you do not feel welcomed, this is important information, nature is redirecting you to another plant/tree. Go through the same process with another plant attraction. You build your devotion each time you pay attention to your sensory attractions.

Step 4-- FOCUS YOUR DEVOTION ON NATURE’S WISDOM: Touch a branch, leaf or blade of grass. Don’t break any part of the live plant off, simply hold it. This plant makes the oxygen you breath. This plant gives you life. You make the carbon dioxide the plant needs to live; your breath gives this plant life. We share our breath in order to live and love. Focus your attention on breathing in relationship with this plant. Spend 5 minutes breathing with the plant. If your mind wanders say the word “devotion” to yourself as a way to bring your attention back to your connection with the plant or tree.

Step 4-- HOW DO YOU FEEL AFTER BREATHING WITH PLANT OR TREE? Notice how your body, mind, and senses feel now. Has anything shifted or changed? How do you feel about the plant? How do you feel about yourself?

Step 5--THANK YOUR INNER AND OUTER NATURE FOR THE CONNECTION: Once you feel you have come to a completion, thank your green partner. Gratitude amplifies good feelings. Gratitude cultivates your natural senses, and builds devotion on your healing path.

RESOURCES  

Project NatureConnect-- Here you can learn all about the Natural Systems Thinking Process. This organization provides many different opportunities to learn about Applied Ecopsychology and the NSTP. You will find free on-line courses as well as links to learn about full degree programs (BA, MS, Ph.D.) check the home page out...http://www.ecopsych.com. Read more about the root of many of our modern day human problems when you read Dr.Cohen's paper (founder of PNC and creator of the NSTP) at this address....http://www.ecopsych.com/wholeness67.html

The Center for a New American Dream is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Americans change the way they consume to improve quality of life, protect the environment, and promote social justice. Check out and think about participating in some of this organizations very doable programs. http://www.newdream.org/

READERS WRITE COLUMN
NaturalSense™ from time to time publishes a Reader's Write column. Please don't be shy, email any questions or comments and I'll do my best to respond to them in a future column.
MShami@aol.com
Marlow Shami
P.O. Box 186
Bloomfield, Connecticut 06002 USA

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Copyright © 2002, all rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce, copy or distribute NaturalSense™ Newsletter as long as this copyright notice and full information about contacting the author is attached. The author of this article is: Marlow D. J. Shami. Contact her by email at: MShami@aol.com, or by phone at (203) 720-0302

Create balance and healing by deepening your relationship with Nature.

Marlow Shami
NaturalSense ®
PO Box 33
Goshen, CT 06756
TEL: (860) 491-2067
Email: MShami@aol.com
www.naturalsense.org