Note: This is one of a series of four free nature connecting webstring activities for
Earthday 2000. Select Here to obtain the other three.
PROJECT NATURECONNECT
Institute of Global Education
A special NGO consultant to the
United Nations Social and Economic Council.
Webstrings: Nature
Sensitivity Training
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Strengthen Your Webstrings Rationale: The web of life can be seen, in story, as a webstring common
ground that has an integrity of its own, even though it is produced
by, and in turn supports, a wide diversity of plants, animals,
minerals and webstrings. It is similar to luke warm water resulting
from a mixture of very hot and very cold water. No matter its
temperature, however, hot, medium, or cold, it is all water,
that is an integrity held in common. Do this temperature-webstring activity: 1. Get three bowls. Place hot water in one, ice cold water in the second, and medium temperature water in the third. The hot and cold water should not reach the range of being painful. 2. Connect with diversity. Place one hand in the cold water, the other hand in the hot water and leave them there for a minute or more. Then plunge both hands into the medium temperature water at the same time. What happens? Let us now apply this phenomenon to how we know nature and webstrings:
The Mind in Nature Activity:
Study the image for a few moments. What do you think he or
she had in mind with this drawing? Part of you full well knows the answer. Biologically this Mimbres person was identical to you, you could have had children together (medium temperature water.) The biological part of you, your inner nature, operates through
webstrings and may understand the nature connected pottery design.
However, today, we and Earth are in hot water. We have ignited
a flaming assault on most natural things to the point that we
call their integrity and the web of life a "resource."
Nature is the place we too often dump our garbage. Along with
the environment, the webstring part of you has also been burnt:
subdued and deteriorated by inflammatory contemporary ways. No
longer in your awareness, many webstrings now lie buried alive,
smothered within you, overlayed by the sizzling conquer-nature,
fired up technological and material way of thinking that excessively
produces our nature separated indoor ways. On average, over 99.9% of our lifetime is spent thinking and
living in our "hot" nature separated lifestyles, consciously
disconnected from webstrings. Through
the hot story of contemporary ways of knowing, although we are
biologically and psychologically born in nature's supportive
mild water, you mostly know yourself and the world as hot. However,
it is nature's mild way of knowing and relating that creates
and sustains the natural world's diverse balance and beauty,
including pure water. Archeologists report that Mimbres thinking was not in contact with the horse, gun or metal for Contemporary Thinking had not yet come to America. Mimbres people, and those who preceded them, evidently knew little of the way we, today, meet the callings of survival. Foreign to Mimbres were the "hot " background of our familiar cultural objects such as electric power, indoor plumbing, cars, air conditioners, airplanes, radio, TV, computers, shopping malls, photography, newspapers, pencils, books, etc. There was no telephone, no written language, no metal. Without them, they knew and touched the supportive, warm, womb of nature. Today, when I ask contemporary people to draw a picture of what is in their head, be they Native Americans or not, the picture usually contains money, conflict, cultural loves, technologies, sex, tranquilizers, and professional skills. Rarely does the picture look like the Mimbres drawing. However, those of us who have had even one good experience in nature, know the difference between how it feels to have our psyche in nature versus the stress of a shopping mall, school, workplace, or, too often, family. Perhaps the pottery design reflects what we have forgotten
due to our separation from long term conscious contact with webstrings
in nature. A millennium ago, this ancient person seems to depict To see the results of the nature disconnected "hot"
way we are taught to think while estranged from sensory contact
with nature's mild reality, select
here. We can choose to be sensible. We can let our webstring of reason help us enjoy the integrity and benefits of our inherent natural way of knowing and thereby improve our relationships with self, society and the environment. To this end, try this activity: 1. Print out a picture of the Mimbres Design. 2. Go to a natural area that attracts you, backyard, park, or sanctuary. 3. Gain consent from this area to help you draw a picture of your webstring way of knowing, as of old. 4. Locate immediate attractions in this natural area, shapes, sounds, odors, colors, motions, feelings that you like. Each is a webstring. Try doing this with your eyes closed, too. Each time you find a webstring attraction, in your imagination replace the bird in the Mimbres design with that natural attraction, for example webstrings energized by a leaf, brook, tree, flower, star, mountain, or the wind. Draw in webstrings of gravity, temperature, nurturing, trust, beauty. 5. Notice that in this activity nature itself is helping you locate and register in your awareness your webstring attraction connections . Through this and 124 other nature reconnecting activities, webstrings can become alive and well in your psyche. You can rely on them to trigger good feelings and help your thinking and relationships come into balance. 6. People often lastingly feel more relaxed, centered and grounded upon completing this activity. When they share the experience, they find it builds unifying webstring relationships with people and places in new ways. That is one of the special qualities of mild water, it is comfortable to hot or cold alike. 7. Write a paragraph or two about what was attractive to you in doing this activity. 8. Email the paragraph to webstrings
(and your interact group if you are on the Orientation
Course.) Also send a self-addressed stamped envelope for
obtaining your free, small, lapel button that 9. Wear the button for 3 days as a lapel button at work, school and home. Report back to the group what kind of responses you received from doing it and whether it helped you and others gain more benefits from webstrings. You may occasionally pin the button to your sleeve, and use it to repeat the activity and gain its benefits whenever you want. You can look at the button and thereby help your webstring of time revive some of the webstrings you enjoyed during the activity. You can pin the button on your shirt as a conversation piece to encourage others to better know you and your webstring connections with nature. 10. Acts are facts. If you are on the Orientation Course, obtaining and experimenting with the button is an act generated by your webstring of reason. It also signifies that you have completed the course core material and may now proceed to the Evaluation portion of the program. (return to the Course Index Page for instructions)
Website Visitor: If you have enjoyed this activity, you and the environment will benefit from your participation in our online Orientation Course.
PROJECT NATURECONNECT
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