rELATING

Another way we could have stated the third one of our WAYS would have been to say we want to provide individuals with time to be alone in natural settings where they can reflect upon all life, including their own. In other words, we want to help our learners relate both with and to it individually on a cognitive level, then examine their own lives in light of both experiences. (Otherwise known as feeling the processes and processing the feelings.)

We use solitude experiences to help us accomplish this interplay between the understanding, the feeling, and the processing. And we often suggest that our participants may want to spend a portion of such time writing in a special journal or log or diary to help them sort out some of their thoughts and feelings about their own relationship with the earth. However, even though solitude experiences are an important "way" of processing things, we also want to make sure our learners don't spend all of their time out there locked in on some head trip either. I know that must sound confusing, especially in terms of what I just said about writing in a journal, but keep in mind the dual purpose of these experiences. To accomplish our goal of helping people relate with the natural world, we are going to have to help them get out of their heads (and into their surroundings) during some of their time out there. Let me explain what I mean. Stop right now and take just a moment to really listen to the sounds around you. C'mon, really do it.

Chances are good that there is this little voice in the back of your head trying to name the things making those sounds. I call it the little reprobate that lives in the attic of your mind. Oh, the psychologists have a fancy word for it, but the little reprobate will do for our purposes. I want to suggest that that little voice has the power to both illuminate life for you and to insulate it, and it can do both equally well.

What did it just do in this case? I said, stop and listen, really listen. But the little voice jumped in between you and the sounds and started trying to name the things making them. In a way it got in between you and the world. It insulated you from the actual sounds around you. If you want to get a handle on the little voice in situations like this, then force the little voice to take letters of the alphabet and put them together to duplicate the sounds you hear. That way you will have to really tune in to the sounds themselves. Why don't you try that technique out right now? Just stop reading, tune into a sound nearby, then force the little voice in your head to use letters of the alphabet to duplicate that sound. Go ahead, try it. I guarantee you will never hear things quite the same way again...

In summary, for the kind of "Relating" we are interested in here, there appears to be a regular, though unusual, progression of events. First of all, we have to help people get away from all the man-made static. It is our belief that a "natural" synthesis of individuals and communities partially emerges from intense immersion in a wild setting. Next, we have to help them get out of their heads, and there's that ironic part again, so they can get back in touch with themselves. We don't believe a person can achieve the clarity of perception we are after unless the little voice is stilled for a while. Finally, though, we have to guide the little voice into new pathways of reflection. Since experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you, we have to nudge people into assimilating their feelings for the earth and their new way of seeing it, by incorporating those into new patterns in their thoughts and actions. And that takes some forethought and planning....

Continue... Chapter Six: Earth Education... Building Your Own Program

Earth Education... A New Beginning Copyright © 1990 The Institute for Earth Education. All Rights Reserved.