Bloom where you are planted.

Sanity and insanity--we play with these terms in our daily lives: "That drives me crazy!" "You're making me insane!" All of us at one time or another (some of us a little too often for our own good) feel like modern life's blows are too much and wonder if our mind or emotions will crack under the pressure. Some people feel the heaviness of our lives as despair, some as anger, some as fear or loss. This issue explores many aspects of the health of mind and spirit, offering holistic alternatives to conventional treatments for problems like anxiety, depression, and stress.

Theodore Roszak, author of The Voice of the Earth, says that the reason for these problems is that we're missing an essential piece of life. In the Sixties "it was a real struggle to get psychotherapists to realize people go crazy because they live in a crazy-making environment called the family, but now that's accepted. The next step is to include the natural environment. Relationships with the family can be dysfunctional, and relationships with the environment can be dysfunctional, too." He goes on to say that "If we don't bring up children with a healthy relationship with real nature--not television documentaries, not Disneyland--they will be brought up in conditions injurious to their sanity."

In The Science of Well-being, R.M. Nesse reports that modern westerners for the most part live in healthier and more comfortable conditions, but "vast numbers of them are deeply unhappy and ... the rest have lives that feel frantic, meaningless or both." Roszak and other ecopsychologists maintain that this state is a result of the loss of our inmate and critical connection with nature. Practitioners in this growing field offer a simple treatment: get outdoors. Prescriptions are walks in the park, gardening, and becoming more conscious about consumption. Deeper therapies can include "wilderness treatment"--spending days or weeks in the woods--and shamanic work like meditating or journeying to connect with animals or plants.

Although perhaps not trained in psychology, native elders teach prayers of gratitude to the world around us, teaching us to appreciate and honor nature to get right with our purpose and place in the world. Before the Industrial Revolution, and even more a few centuries before that, many of our people lived their lives on the land, receiving and giving back with gratefulness. Although our modern society doesn't go out of its way to encourage this type of reconnection, we can each choose to reclaim our sanity by enriching our day with a walk in the park or by planting a seed and watching it grow.

This is just one suggestion among the many great offerings. of this issue. Enjoy these articles with an open heart and mind!

References:

Lacey, Hester, "Barking Up a Different Tree," The Independent (London), Oct. 291995.

Burls, Ambra, "New Landscapes for Mental Health," The Mental Health Review, Mar 2005.

Erin Everett Editor/Publisher