2018-02-25 - Techniques For Restoring Biophilia =============================================== Earth pendulum The exercises come from chapter 10 of The Lost Language of Plants, reviewed in the log entry linked below. The Lost Language of Plants notes Techniques For Restoring Biophilia ================================== The restoration of our capacity for biophilia begins with restoring, and supporting, our capacity for feeling. And not just feeling in the grossest sense--feelings of anger or sadness or joy or fear--but the subtle feelings it is possible for us to perceive, if we desire to, in everything around us. We were born with a sophisticated capacity for detecting emotional nuances in the world around us. We feel them every time we encounter the messages embedded within the natural world. Restoring biophilia means exploring these nuances. It means "coming to our senses," especially the sense of feeling--of touch--of being touched by the world. The shadings of emotional color that we can sense come from the touch of the world upon us. And these shadings exist in a thousand colors and tones. It is only through exploring the territory of these feelings that what they mean can be understood. It is not an academic or rhetorical process. It has nothing to do with theory. Feeling comes first, thinking second; thinking in service of feeling. The experience cannot be written down nor found in books. It can only be developed by opening up to the sophisticated capacity for feelings that we possess, by allowing ourselves to be touched by the livingness in the world, and exploring the meanings we encounter. This reconnects us to everything around us--to everything that generates those feelings. It reweaves us into the fabric of life. What follows are a series of exercises that I have used and taught to people for the past twenty years. They may seem dumb or foolish or scary or stupid, even hard and difficult or deeply emotional. They are all of those things. Doing them often and for several years is helpful. So is writing your experiences in a journal. Exercise 1 ---------- Take a day or an afternoon and go to a part of your town that you like. Choose a part of town that is normally fun to you, that you feel happy visiting. You are just going to be walking and visiting stores. Begin by walking in the area that you enjoy most. Let yourself sink into the feeling of the place; let yourself relax. Now. Look around you and pick the store that you feel drawn to the most. Go stand in front of it. What feelings do you have? Let yourself explore them; allow yourself to not be in a hurry. Allow any feelings that arise to emerge; notice what they are. In the beginning this may be confusing. The multisensory nature of human perception and feeling is so commonly repressed that it is often confusing, or scary, or awkward when opening up to it again. Still, allow yourself to notice whatever you feel--don't make any judgments about it. Write everything down. Pay attention to the door(s). To the windows, to what is in the windows. To the sign or signs. To the walk in front of the store. To any plants or trees that may be growing there. How does each part feel to you? Do some parts feel better than others? Can you tell why? Overall--what is the primary feeling the store communicates to you? Is it prosperous? Comforting? Happy? Somber? Melancholy? Spend as much time as you need to feel like you have explored every aspect of the store with your feelings and come to a conclusion about it. Now. Look around the street. Pick another store, but this time pick one that, to your immediate emotions, feels significantly different than the first one. Go to it and repeat the exercises. Compare the two stores. What different kinds of feelings did they generate? Can you tell why? Can you put them into words? (This may take some practice.) Now go to a third store and repeat the exercise and compare it to the two you explored before. All of us unconsciously choose to go to stores or restaurants that meet emotional desires we have, that we feel most comfortable in, even though many other stores may sell the same things. This exercise is a process of beginning to consciously perceive and identify the embedded communications that come from the world around you and are felt in subtle emotions. The businesses that people create embody the world perspective, the underlying epistomologies, that their owners possess. The businesses, principles like the barn in John Gardner's exercise, convey to customers experience, though they may not normally be able to say what those feelings are. It is possible, after much practice, to identify these feelings, the nature of the organizational structure of a business, its level of psychological health, its impact on the public, its level of financial health, and so on. Exercise 2 ---------- Now go to a coffee house that you like--one with a bookstore is good for this exercise--a place you can linger for a while and have some coffee or tea. Choose something you especially like. Choose a table that has a good view of the room and perhaps the people entering the shop. Let your eye find whichever person you are drawn to most naturally. Observe them. Since you will be looking with some intensity you will have to be clever not to make them nervous or wonder what you are doing or why. This works best if you can observe them unobserved. What kinds of feelings do you get from this person? Happy? Sad? Nervous? Empty? Masculine? Feminine? Strong? Weak? Poverty? Comfort? Assurance? Indulgent wealth? Indulgent emotion? What thoughts come to you when you look at their face? Let yourself examine their face. How does their chin feel to you? Their nose? Their ears? Their eyes? What is communicated from their eyes? Faces are extraordinarily faithful to the internal world of a person, no matter how schooled someone is at "keeping face." Each part of their face, through the feelings you feel, will tell you something about that person's internal world. Now. Look at their hands. Do their hands seem alive and aware or asleep and unlived in? Are their hands strong or weak, happy or sad? Businesslike or filled with feeling? How old do you think this person is emotionally? Just let a number come. (Have you known other people who seem that age? Are their hands similar?) How are their clothes? What do these communicate? Their shoes? Is the person comfortable in their clothes? Are they comfortable in their skin? Do their clothes match the feeling you have from looking at their face? Do this with as many people as you wish, but at least two. Compare the experiences you had of each. The epistemology within which a person lives is communicated in every gesture, intonation, movement of eye and hand, every piece of clothing and stride of foot. It is possible, with practice, to learn to perceive all of the elements of their epistemology, of their world, to know what it is like to live within it. To understand how people experience them. To understand the emotional tenor of their lives. Exercise 3 ---------- Go to a place in nature that you like. (Be sure and take a journal with you.) Choose a place you have been to before. Find the area you like most and relax. Sit if you want to; get comfortable. How does this place feel? Try to describe it in words. Be as specific as you can. Go on in your journal at length if you need to. Write down everything that comes to you no matter how silly it sounds. Even if you think it's crazy. When you are done, allow your eye to rove, to be drawn to whatever one thing is most interesting to you. Look at it. Let your eye explore it, noticing everything about it. The colors, the shape, how it rests or grows in the ground. Its relation to the air around it, to the plants, water, soil, and rocks around it. What feelings do you have? Write them down. Is there any part of what you are looking at that you like more? Less? Why? Can you tell? Do all parts of what you are looking at generate the same emotion? Different emotions? Write everything down in your journal. Do this with at least two other things you can see. Make sure one of them is a plant. You can get up close if you want to, place your eye on a level plane, take an insect view. How is the plant shaped, how does it feel to your fingers, how does it smell? What emotions does it generate in you? Write everything down. Now, go to another natural place, different from the first. Sit down and relax. Get comfortable. How does this place feel? Write down everything that you notice. Go on at length. Does this second place feel different from the first place you sat? How are the feelings different? Which place feels better--the first or the second? Is there a name you can give the feeling you had at the first pace? A name you can give the second? Names that will make clear the difference in feeling that you perceive? If you can't think of a word make something up. When you are finished, as you did last time, find something your eye is drawn to and write down everything that you feel and perceive. Do this as well with two other things, at least one of them a plant. Each place on Earth has unique feelings associated with it, as does each thing that grows or resides there. The numbers of shadings of their emotional nuances run into the thousands. Each can fit into a specific space within different human beings that need them. There is a richness in feeling, a companionability that comes from perceiving, the complex interweaving of emotional textures that reside in the life that surrounds us. Going Deeper ============ Exercise 4 ---------- (Sometimes it is helpful to make a tape recording of this exercise and play it back. Instead of the words "them" or "they" that I use in the exercise, use "him" or "her" and "she" or "he" and "his" or "hers"--whichever gender you are. If you practice you will find the perfect speed, pitch, and intonation for you to listen to.) Sit someplace comfortable. Someplace you won't be disturbed for a while. Someplace safe. Close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Fill up your lungs as if they were balloons; fill them to bursting. Hold it a minute, then... slowly... release. As you let out the air in your lungs, let any tension you feel inside you release and go out with your breath. Do this again... several times. Now. Imagine the floor or chair under you as two huge cupped hands that are holding you. Let yourself relax into them. There is no need to hold yourself up; let yourself be supported. Keep breathing and letting any tension in your body go. See, standing in front of you, the little child that you were. Notice everything about them. How are they dressed? How does their face look? Happy? Sad? Are you happy to see them? Do they seem happy to see you? Will they look you in the eye? Do you feel comfortable seeing them? Notice everything about your child. Now. (Just inside yourself), ask your child if there is anything they wish to tell you. Listen carefully. Is there anything you wish to tell your child? Talk and listen as much as necessary until everything has been said. Is there anything your child needs from you? Is there anything you need from your child? We are often taught in the Western world, especially in the United States, to divorce ourselves from this part of our self. It is a part of our self that feels very deeply and is very sensitive to the emotional nuances in the world. People often have difficulty in reclaiming this part of themselves. If you imagine a close friend whom you stood up three or four times in a row for a lunch date, you can imagine the level of feelings that might exist in a part of you closeted away for fifteen or twenty years. Sometimes it takes a great deal of work to reestablish communication. This part of human beings does not respond well to ultimatums or threats, but will sometimes respond to promises, especially if they are kept. (Usually you will have to do something in exchange. It is very important that you do it if you agree to.) It is worth the work it entails. Opening the door to this part of you opens the door to reconnection to the world and all the subtle meanings within it. I often suggest that people do this exercise daily for at least a year. This part of yourself will tell you everything that you deeply need. It will also tell you much about the world around you. It is possible to become your own best friend. It is interesting that Luther Burbank, George Washington Carver, Helen Keller, and a great many indigenous plant peoples were all said to be like children. Exercise 5 ---------- You can repeat the last exercise, if you wish, with any developmental age you have lived through, from infancy on. Each has its own intelligence, its own special connections with the world. Developmental stages do not stop at age twelve or sixteen; the child naturally grows to forty and to eighty. It is possible to remain filled with feeling and wonder and openness at any age. Each age has its own teachings. Each is a unique developmental stage of a human being's growth through life. Each has unique perceptions and capacities that aid in the experience of the human condition--at least they do when allowed to bloom, to grow unstunted and unrepressed. The early infant part of ourselves has the capacity to perceive everything simultaneously as it happens. Infants have no words (they perceive in gestalts), but that is all right; the child knows lots of words. And they are often willing to act as interpreter. Exercise 6 ---------- Repeat Exercise 1. Go to the same places. Ask your child to be present with you, perhaps standing beside you and invisibly holding your hand. Let yourself relax and really begin to see and feel the store you are looking at once again. How does it feel to you today? Remember everything you know about it. Now. Ask your child what he or she feels. What part of the store feels best to them? What part do they like most? Ask them to tell you everything they are willing to tell you about this store. Spend as much time as they need you to spend. Are there any differences from when you went alone? What are they? Is there any pattern to the differences? Go to at least one more place you went to the first time and repeat the exercise. What are your child's feelings and perceptions? Which place do they like better? Why? When you are ready to stop, make sure that before you do you thank your child for helping you. Exercise 7 ---------- Now, repeat Exercise 2. Take your child with you again. How do they feel about this place? When you are seated and comfortable, begin looking at more people. Pick one that your child is most interested in. Have them tell you everything they perceive about that person. When you are done, have your child pick someone else. If they are willing to, someone they are uncomfortable with. Have them tell you why. What is it about that person that is uncomfortable? Have your child go into as much detail as possible. Exercise 8 ---------- Repeat Exercise 3. Go to the same place in nature you went before. Remember to take a journal. Find and sit in the same place. Let yourself relax. Imagine the Earth upon which you are sitting to be huge hands holding and supporting you. Take some deep breaths. Now. Ask your child to come and sit with you. Have them tell you everything about this place. Go to the plant you sat with before. Touch it, smell it. Have your child touch and smell it. Have them tell you everything they know about it. Write it all down. Now. Let them choose another one they feel drawn to. Have them tell you everything about it. Write it all down. Repeat this at the second place you went before. When you are done, make sure you thank your child for helping you before you stop. Sometimes, later, it helps to go and look up things about that plant in a book, perhaps a medicinal herb guide. The depth of information that the child can often gather from plants is amazing. People who have done these exercises with me over the years have described in detail information about plants they do not know and have never seen before. They have described medicinal uses, craft uses, clothing and building uses that are exceptionally sophisticated and are not apparent from the exterior appearance of the plant. I have even put plants in a closed box and have heard a person's child describe them in detail when the person, themself, could not do so earlier. It seems amazing, but it is not. It is just the way things are. Exercise 9 ---------- Do these exercises often (you may even discover others of your own). The more you do them, the more connected you will be to your self, the more your capacity for perceiving and responding to subtle emotions will increase, and the more you will be connected to the world around you. After a while it becomes instinctual; this part of you integrates, is no longer separated out (either internally or as an exercise). It can take a long time. As you develop this experience there will be a constant flow of information and complex feeling between you and the world in which you live. Smells may become vivid, colors enhanced. You may begin to take on a childlike demeanor, to spend hours sitting under trees talking with flowers. You may find yourself wearing bright colors and having a tendency to hum off tunes. You may find yourself laughing for no reason or even gathering knowledge that you cannot explain with your rational mind. If you do this long enough and often enough you will start to have unusual adventures, you begin living in a world where biophilia is commonplace. You begin reinhabiting your interbeing with the world. You will start moving into biognosis. If you go on with it even longer you might even realize that you are here to do something in particular, that you were born for a reason. tags: biophilia,outdoor,spirit Tags ==== biophilia outdoor spirit