Celebrante: Que puedan crecer en su amor, en el asombro y en el gozo.
Todos: Que las temporadas de la vida los una.
Celebrante: Que su amor sea una aventura, de crecimiento y retos para convertirse en mejores individuos y pareja.
Todos: Que cada día encuentren el perdón y la risa ante los altibajos.
Celebrante: Que reciban las sorpresas de la vida con brazos abiertos. En este nuevo camino, el amor es su tótem.
Todos: Que la devoción que se tienen sea tan fuerte y bella como las montañas que tenemos enfrente.
Bendición elemental
Yo, agua, les deseo un estado permanente de flexibilidad. Sumando pueden incorporar la fuerza del río. Que puedan disfrutar del eterno fluir del néctar de la vida y sumergirse en las corrientes más dulces y refrescantes de esta vida.
Yo, fuego, les deseo que encuentren la divinidad en el consumo del fuego. Que el ardor los mueva a crear y rehacer siempre. Que puedan prender, contener y soltar la llama en todo momento.
Aire, el aliento que los manifieste. La expresión de voz y presencia, canto, risa y emoción. Aire como suspiro, como pausa, como vacío y espacio.
Yo, árbol, como representante de la comunidad de vida que los abraza en este momento, soy…
“El árbol de luz, nutrición del que sueña. Mi tiempo es el ahora. Mi lugar es el ecuador. Soy perpetuidad, constancia y felicidad. Mis ramas se menean dedicando gracia y sensibilidad a todos los seres. Mi follaje protege de los rayos del día. Mi sombra se extiende sobre cada uno que busca la contemplación. Los vientos-espíritus me soplan de todos lados, constantemente reajustando mis ramas. En esta exhibición se escucha cada melodía más hermosa, extasiando hasta el más intelectual.”
Nosotros venimos a hablar en nombre de todos los animales. Esperamos que el amor que comparten lo extiendan a todos nosotros.
The mass tourism complex is designed to make me a massive dickhead. What do I mean? As a dickhead, I can’t relate to others, my interactions are superficial and transactional. The contact with local nature offered me is a picture with a tied up monkey or “having an intimate moment” with a trained macaw on my arm. What ever scraps of the local culture and idiosincracy I can pick up, is inbetween tips and piña coladas with the waiter and Uber drivers from one party to the next. A feeling of local merengue and bachata gets mushed together with mindless reggaeton, foam guns and animators making me want to shoot myself. Am I the bigger dickhead for not going with the flow?
From Day 1 in the massive diner, the clinking of thousands of plates, the quick and abrupt waiters, the over abundance of French fries and donuts, has me eating quicker that I usually would. What would happen if all this food suddenly was no longer available to me — make haste, there’s still so much more to try. “I feel like a chubby kid in a candy store, its no good for my gluttony” – lets top it off with a purple cocktail, and now blue, coconut and tequila why not.
Soda fountains everywhere I look. Music and noise in every corner. On the beach its this tour and that, or this craft, this drug or that. It took an overhaul of my freewill to stop drinking and eating, to go sit in silence on the beach. I was feeling quite a bit like a goaded passenger on rails from the spaceship in Wall-E. God forbid there be a derailing of human touch – of sharing of human sentiment beyond merriment and drunken stupor. But after all that’s what we’re here for, a bachelor’s party, I should probably know better. How to partake?
It’s a well oiled machine, that I can appreciate. Food is quite good and served at every hour of the day. There’s never a lack of service, beer or water. Water slides, party zone and night club, shows and fitness. Kayaks and snorkels- these guys are masters at fun. But where is a discussion group, a chance to learn, a chance to help? Not a mention of sustainability, of culture, history or any kind of reminder of where were dazing. Could be any beautiful, turquoise Caribbean beach in the world.
Guavas are tropical, little and round. In the Dominican Republic they are larger and didn’t look very tasteful. In my region of Mexico the most coveted are pink- they are the sweetest. I assume there are pink guavas in Hawai, as I saw a movie in which a pink-guava mimosa was served, it looked delicious. Very high in vitamin C, you can find them in candy, with cheese as a desert, as juice, or even as my favorite flavor electrolyte.
The town I live in proudly declares itself World Capital of the Guava. I have not found the official number, but every night trucks drive their loads to the highway where the boxes, or guacales are loaded on to semis to make their way to the central market in Mexico City. It’s a perilous affair. Risks include dirty traffic police and distributors’ arbitrary prices. I try not to bite the seeds because they’ll get stuck in my teeth for hours. Guavas don’t stay fresh for very long, so every day hundreds of tons get thrown out from la Central de Abastos. Juice manufacturers offer measly prices for third rate product – barely worth the gasoline to drive them the fruit.
We make jams, and while they’re successful amongst our guests we have a whole storage closet full of them. Some friends for a while made a craft-beer out of guava, but out here in rural Mexico there was not enough of a market to sustain their business. There are larger guacales to collect soursop, mangos, mamey, zapote and ciruela when they’re in season but 90% of the farmers have guava trees. They say the first ones came from Peru. One of the evidences used to theorize that the Purépechas from Central Michoacan are actually descendants of the Quechuas from South America. A south-north migration. Others say these theories are nonsense. And yet others have told me the elders say so themselves.
I work in tourism and take city-dwellers out into guava fields and talk about the life-cycle of the tree and colloquial beliefs about the harvesting even though I’m new to the scene. Hijo de la guayaba (son of a guava) is a national saying, and it refers to the harvesters being exposed to a certain pheromone when picking the fruit that incites baby-making mood when back home. I’ve fallen in love with the scenery – perhaps due to the hormones – perhaps due to the lively green scenery of this fertile land. Water springs and mild weather allow for growing just about anything.
The path from the hot springs to the waterfall was part new, part ancient. We were sitting by the waterfall the other day when out of the jungle three hunters materialized. By the look of their ragged clothes, ancient rifles and smudged faces, they were very poor. They were looking for iguanas. Just for fun? Or to feed their families? I have been appointed guardian for this space, and yet, this may be a millennial need I be confronting. How to ask them not to hunt on the property when it’s what they’ve been doing for generations? Only talking to them. I only got in a quick question as to were they were heading, before getting a grunted, ‘beyond this place’ to reassure ‘el güero’ they were leaving, but a longer conversation is needed.
A week later I was walking a group of elderly ladies down this same path. They were fascinated with every nook and flower. A solitary hibiscus found on the trail got tossed into a girl’s hair. Knowing we wouldn’t be able to hike for very far or long, we trudged slowly around the big garden, getting a close look at everything we crossed. I’d never realized before that what we call Red Flame, are really bracts- or specialized leaves- and the actual flowers spurting from the red are white. Littered along this trail are passion fruit, fallen from the overhanging vines, Granada flowers giving way to the fruit, and spectacular Golden Orb Spider cobwebs. This part of the trail is on private land. Once you cross the road, the path becomes a public walkway used by all the community to visit the waterfall.
Although less flowers were to be found on this section of the trail, butterflies were abundant. Giant White Morphs floating softly thru the air, Silkworms suspended in the air amassing their string as they crawled back up from the overhead branches, fluttering Sulphurs, Whites and Yellows, Swallowtails flashing their pink and yellow dots, Zebra Longwings dazzling their stripes. Perhaps a lack of iguanas?
I’ve never seen a lizard on this trail. We’ve seen MotMots, ringed-tailed cats, and fire-fly larvae on the stream banks. The passion fruit trail is lush and perhaps in danger. Every rain season rocks come a tumbling. Foam aggregations give a sense of human discharge and soap remains. Plastic and waste have to be fished out weekly. Perhaps, our trail is not in danger, and I am but a rookie conservation-enthusiast. Truth be told, I don’t have the slightest idea of tell-tale signs of erosion, water quality, and animal populations. But base markers have to be set.
If you’re ever chased by a crocodile on land, run in zig zags. That’s one of the lessons you learn growing up in a tropical country. Lush green and cloudy grey Panama. High-rise PTY, red diablos buses blasting raging plena. Spanglish spoken begrudgingly due to an American invasion in 1990 to protect its economic interests. A banana Republic that had severed its cultural and political ties with Colombia, because of foreign interests to build a canal – first French and then American.
Of course, I didn’t really perceive all of this when we moved to Panama when I was eight. As a kid of an affluent family, we were choffered to school, to karate class, to check out cds at Arrocha. You don’t really walk much in a country this close to the equator. You move from one air-conditioned room to another via a closed-windowed car. My bubble was both environmental and social. Perhaps all those closed windows, shunning neighborhoods that had been bombed in the invasion, never really having to learn the language to get by, all contributed to my seeking refuge in books.
I did most of my reading in a hammock we had on the porch of a weekend house in the surrounding hills of the capital. Laid at the edge of a lake, surrounded by rainforest, we always joked about sweet water crocodiles and anacondas, but everyone once in a while we did hear packs of howler monkeys in the close distance. Swarms of ants and other exotic insects were a frequent part of our habitat. Dehumidifiers and fans did little for when the clouds rolled in – my favorite time to take one of the kayaks out for a spin on the lake. Absolutely no visibility beyond a couple of feet, a real challenge to the nerves, and a complete delivery of trust to the lake.
We attended an International School, with friends from India, Chile, Taiwan, Japan – mostly diplomat kids – all finding commonality in English, MTV, Harry Potter, and occasional introductions to Panamanian culture, like arroz con pollo , field trips to the jungle, and art projects about tropical birds, whales and dolphins. In Middle School I was befriended by the cool kids – the Panameños – kids of the most affluent domestic families. Entitled, mostly quite snug, often riskier or more prone to mischief, because of parental neglect.
A crew of four, me polishing my Spanish – decided to enter a long-standing canoe competition. Begun by Boy Scouts, this race ran the entire length of the canal- from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean over a span of three days. For this intense three-day travesy, crews trained for months in advance. After school we’d head to the hangers just below the Bridge of the Americas, hitch the trailer with our cayuco and navigate it into the water. There were days we practiced capsizing, other were’d we goof around with other crews, jumping off the buoys that marked the path for the cargo ships and cruiser transversing the canal any given day. But the real challenge was training for the lake stretch.
The Gatun Lake lies between the two oceans and the locks-systems that make up for the different elevations. 33 km was paddled in just under 3 hours by the best crews. The only real way to advance properly in a cayuco is to coordinate balance and pace with your other three paddlers. The pacer, or first position, sets the rhythm and switches. 12-16 strokes per side, before switching. Power strokes to overhaul another cayuco or for a home stretch. Second in the dugout canoe: power house, strongest paddler, never stops. We’d stick tubes through cut out holes in gallons of water, so as not to have to stop paddling to hydrate. Bailer, has to bail out the water if too much has swept over the sides. And finally, the navigator corrected direction. Tape for blisters, foot rests to adjust for back pain.
Finishing a lake run has to be one of the most satisfying feelings there is. A successful test of gliding endurance. Of a youthful milestone of joint effort. A sporty reenactment of how our ancestors travelled waterways. Young men confronting the wild, skirting crocodiles and manatees. Facing the boiling sun, the hardships of saltwater, and growing biceps starting as young as fourteen. To finish one of these sessions meant to crash exhausted in the afternoon, cold fruit and frozen chocolate bars being a special delight.
When we finally finished the race, as a team of all-fourteen year olds, we were the youngest crew to have ever accomplished this feat. At one point it felt like the entire crowd, both on the shore and in the surrounding motorboats were only cheering us on. 7 hrs and 32 minutes to cross that lake. To this day, I stretch my shoulders out in pride at the memory. *
I have never stopped reading, but after this, I began to go to parties, to ask out girls, entering debate clubs and student councils. My childhood bubble was burst one paddle stroke at a time. The foreign feel of a tropical backdrop became my watery playground. The exotic Spanish became part of my vernacular. To become a master paddler became the dream. A broken dream, whose story, is for another time.
Overflow of the river has moistened the banks, a turmoil of mud and branches, a haven of flies.
Expanded with the rain, can this pounding be cleansing? Or is it an escape valve for overburdened clouds?
Runoff, surplus, remnants of plants’ needs – off to feed the horizon.
Water is renovation, hope to continue purer, closer to my dreams.
How many others sit at the banks of this river as it curls its way down. How many ranches, how many towns does it transerve? How many more falls can be accounted for by the remaining 1300 meters to reach sea level?
How many lovers come to soothe their quarrels by the flow of the water? How many will enjoy the sound of bubbles and eruptions on this overcast Sunday afternoon?
To this spot I’ve brought those who don’t think twice about plunging into the water; those who’ve brought offerings and prayer; those who need reminding to pick up their trash; those who are reminded of better times; those who begun to meditate.
Like the brilliance of a fish, the memory of a dream can be seen with unmarred waters. Remember quickly were you have travelled at night – ask to visit before entering.
With an open heart
I present myself
As a gentle traveler with
Keen but hazy senses
I ask permission
To explore (and remember) the dream world
I dreamed of wordless messages and cat messengers (which scared me back to the Earthly realm).
I shall will myself to listen, to receive..
Who is this Holy Spirit that sings inside of me – that let’s me dance in response to music, paint in response to beauty, to serve in response to gratitude, to write in response to all that I feel?
Shedding space of contempt, anger, frustration and judgement there is this brilliant core (cave), a mystical want to help spread love.
The gifts of silence, of closing your eyes, of clarity of how to give back.
Vivo entre dos ríos… vienen de bajada, acariciando la topografía, a veces suspendidos en el aire, a veces solo un murmullo.
En donde vivo, se refuerza el río, tomando fuerza de los manantiales, agarrando vuelo del brotar de la Tierra.
Si uno se deja, todo revive aquí. Aislado entre los cerros, las ideas y las emociones se alientan en una bolsa de humedad, me deleito en un enclave tropical. Aquí los colores son más turbios, la vegetación más cerrada, el sonido del agua rebota en la densidad.
Las flores son reflejos de las mariposas. Este revoloteo inspirador de colores ayuda que cada momento en este bosque sea completamente único, cada pensamiento fresco y emoción renovada.
La inmersión a la cañada es un encuentro con las entrañas de la montaña, la mirada se alienta, va hacia adentro. La piel se extiende, el alma se reconoce, juega en las grutas, busca el flujo del agua, las copas de los árboles el pétalo de la flor, la cima del cerro.
How to put into words the trusting process of believing… of aligning oneself with instinct, when one simply knows, when one is aligned or synched with natural rhythms – with natural harmony – with values that support and enhance life. Passion has truth to it. Love has flow. Consciousness echoes truth further than any logical reasoning. Sound dreamy? That is what Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer and companions explore, following visions, dreams, or in their words: presence.
Learning and understanding depends not only on introspection but on our interaction and service to the whole. Outside of individualized living a plethora of possibilities abound.
NASA’s James Lovelock would say the Earth works as a self-regulating system. All living systems integrate feedback loops to learn from their environments and adapt. If we, as humans, are to fit into this natural logic, we need moments of reflection, and consciousness of belonging. What does change look like aligned to natural evolution?
Reactive learning could be described as “fight or flight” programming. Presencing is not to reenact the past but to manifest the emerging future. It comes after observing, at the deepest depth of a transformation model, fashioned after Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, designed after interviews with thousands of change makers.
Emerging from this U is a place of creativity, a place where head = heart = hands a shedding of judgement, cynicism and fear. “The longest road you will ever walk is the sacred journey from your head to your heart”.
From a mythopoetic point of view, this descent is a delving into an individual or organization’s wound or shadow. Connecting to source would be an enveloping in nature’s logic (eco-literacy) to then emerge into the consciousness of all living beings. To understand oneself as a biological niche in the web of life, as the entire universe enacting certain archetypes. No longer individual and separated, but systemic and integrated. The world coming into being through me.
“Soy el tejido y el tejedor. El sueño y el soñador” (I am the weaving and the weaver, the dream and the dreamer) – Traditional Mesoamerican Medicine Song
This interweaving of reality, occupies a different perspective of subject and object found in traditional science. A phenomenological approach is interested in the interrelation between the internal and the external. What ecobuddist Thich Nhat Han calls interbeing.
“Great scientists are distinguished not by their instruments but by their refined capacity to imaginatively examine the awareness their instruments enable…As my gaze sank deeper into the flames, the flames also seemed to sink into me…Every object well contemplated opens up a new organ within us.” – (Senge, et. al.)
Regular logic is associated to reasoning and deduction, using preconceived concepts or a priori logic to understand what we perceive. From a phenomenological point of view, “seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees” (R. Irwin).
‘Presencing’ is not rushing to match observations with a preconceived notions, or named concepts. It is to confront confusion, frustration and adversity, to delve into and not suppress emotional responses. Open heart. Embracing uncertainty. “The less you pack, the more awaits you.” Letting go of end and expected results. Delaying gratification, seeing long term repercussions, quietness of mind, lifetime dedication, guidance by masters, letting go of appearance of control. Freedom is dancing with destiny, committed to serving. Winston Churchill said “Leadership is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm”.
Seeing from the whole. Connecting with larger purpose, intent becomes extremely clear. Mother Teresa said “You cannot do great things. You can only do small things with great love.” The National Dairy Association in India is comprised of 100k co-ops. When learning from “deep source”, seeds may take weeks, months or years to germinate. Self cultivation: study, meditate, serve.
Coming to the beach is difficult for me. The waves wash away all thoughts, but it is not a silent contemplation or a romantic reminiscence – there is no uniform drone, but a constant crash, a constant pull back to the now. You have no choice but to face what is stretching to be released – pain, poetry, disillusion.
There are wave patterns to the sea, a sense in the maritime ecosystem, but amongst this there is a storm of sand, a battering of noise, a randomness of crashes. So it is within me as I recognize my controlling side, my defenses twist and shout, lash out and look for another victim.
Dulled into the expansion of the ocean, and yet battered by the constant waves- am I awake? I am here. My soul has just begun to reveal itself in this new environment/form and already it is time to go.
Is there enough of me to fill this grand sky? Do I need to at all? Is it sheltering? Is it an invitation to wonder, to forget myself, to just be in presence, in admiration, in reception, devotion.
Corresponding, I can perhaps find the words, the color, the sentiment. Bring the turmoil in me down to a simmer, find a little of me that is able to respond, to recognize the awakening. Ah! To be barefoot for a week. To move around from lounge chair to hammock to bed. From book to sky to horizon. From sand to water. From food to yoga. From games to drinks.
Culminating Healing and Transition Ceremonies, Celebrant Institute
When I got an answer to my application from Elise, telling me she had studied the same year as you
The tears felt oh so right
As I learned of rituals and honoring grief,
I remembered you…
“Separation, liminal phase, and reintroduction…”
There you were again, welcoming folks into our sweat lodge
Finding the right introductory questions…
There you were again, designing my wedding ceremony.
Following in a parent’s footsteps can many times generate doubt.
Is this truly what I want?
A semester of fundamentals on ceremonies gave me the tools to express my grief, to mold my sorrow into something tangible.
Slowly the doubt began to diminish.
Another semester of poems, rituals and inspiration, delving into what could be called the business of hope. The crafting of narrative and the cultivation of hope.
Today I present myself to all you, not without doubt, full of insecurity, but brimming with hope. Quivering with conviction, that what we do is right and necessary.
Why? Because I’ve lived it myself, and so has everyone who has been touched by ceremony. Be they joyous, bereaving or anywhere in between.
A friend of mine questioned me the other day, how can you celebrate grief? I had to think about this one… and check up on the definition of celebration: acknowledgement, honoring, recognition. To truly live each moment of our lives to the fullest and with the most presence. That’s why our rituals allude to fire, water, earth, air, to bring us back to our fullest, natural selves. To remind us we are more than a bunch of ideas, that we are physical beings interacting constantly in a physical medium. Just so, as we recognize ourselves as part of an interweaving, our stories become each others stories.
So thank you dad, for your story, thank you to my teachers for their stories, to my colleagues for theirs, and for the stories told by the consuming fire, gushing river, the streaming wind and the enveloping mountains.
No one prepares you for the death of your father. I had always thought, talking about death was no taboo for us, but I had no idea.
I remember standing outside of the wake, looking in, not coming to grips. I would have liked to say some words, but there was no way I could bring myself to do so without breaking down completely. It was like standing by a river, and not hearing anything. Feeling completely overwhelmed. Something that has just until recently been a constant in the background.
I had about 7 months of mourning before my dad’s death, coming to terms, seeking medical alternatives. Always thinking, maybe if only I had followed one more piece of well intended, but annoying advice from a friend or extended family.
I remember… towards the end, sitting on the floor below my dad’s bed, looking for signs of communication. Not knowing how to help, venting frustration, drinking too much. Going for long runs. Screaming at hillsides.
During the process, writing down all my resentment, trying to manifest feeling into the physical realm, and then… allowing space for gratitude.
After September 2nd 2020, the coping began… the remaining family went on a trip to the beach. Worst trip of my life.
A friend of mine helped with therapy. She spoke of how our family unit, our family project and business required a new metaphor. A pillar of the table was missing and we required a new table, a new structure. I’d think to myself… what would he do? What is expected from me? What is it that I want? Should I stay with the family business? Visiting the river and having the water wash all the feeling away.
And then… not too long ago, another teacher made me see the river in a new light. Every rain season the river that passes through our property creates a little bit of havoc and finds a slightly different path. Taking over a family business, losing a father, is like living at the edge of chaos, constantly. My teacher suggested I offer the river a flower. And so I did, and I learned the tremendous force of the river to be an inspiration. And I took up a vow that I am up for the challenge to be a guardian.
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” Franz Kafka
“My once perfect body has become a story turned by time and weather.”
Siento tremendo orgullo por quien ereas. Profunda admiración y te traigo adentro.
Te siento en todas partes: en mi complexión, en el aire como inspiración, en mis fortalezas y flaquezas.
Tú voluntad era una llama firme, un ejemplo de sueños realizados.
Thank you…
For traveling down dirt paths.
For seeking friendship with elders.
For having a Geschichtenfisch.
For showing me the meaning of perspective and compassion.
How to spice life up with intrigue and humor.
How to put meaning into symbols and remembering to honor them.
For making art out of one’s surroundings.
For asking me difficult questions, to which answers sometimes took a while.
Te deseo nuevos caminos llenos de sorpresas, retos y asombro. En las que cada pisada se haga con ligereza. Que estés acompañado de una memoria lírica que mantenga erguida tu alma.
“20 minutos de contacto con la naturaleza tiene el mismo efecto que una dosis de Ritalina” dice Dr. Louv autor de ‘El último niño en los bosques’.
El concepto de síndrome de déficit de naturaleza fue acuñado por el periodista y pedagogo Richard Louv en el 2005, para describir la situación actual de desasosiego y desapego que existe entre la juventud y la naturaleza.
Hoy en día, la naturaliza se presenta como un elemento a dominar o temer. Los parques delimitados y estilizados simbolizan perfectamente nuestra concepción de dónde y cómo queremos tratar con lo natural. Desde la conceptualización de lo natural, o el medio ambiente, envisionamos algo externo a nosotros, algo allá afuera.Los árboles no son más que adorno del paisaje, y los alimentos quién sabe de dónde vengan. Ya las personas que saben nombrar los árboles y flores de nuestro entorno son escasas. Los beneficios de hacer un té de cierta hierba se restringen al dominio de las abuelas, los curanderos o los hippies. Esta desapego a la realidades ecológicas tiene, sostiene Richard Louve, repercusiones en la salud mental.
En el año 2003 el número de niños de kínder diagnosticado con déficit de atención aumentó en un 380%. Louv presenta cómo este padecimiento, engloba toda una serie de nuevos reacciones en la juventud ante el enajenamiento de la naturaleza.
En ‘El último niño de los bosques’ se describe cómo a los niños hay que darles la oportunidad de jugar y explorar libremente la naturaleza, como lo hacían generaciones pasadas. Se critica los padres sobre-protectores, los curricula de escuelas muy enfocadas a la teoría o estilos de vida demasiado organizados que no permiten la espontaneidad y libertad que brinda jugar en un bosque, en un arroyo o en un baldío.
Nos hemos dejado secuestrar por la ansiedad. Asaltados por los medios y películas de horror, la naturaleza se ha vuelta ajena y oscura. Los espacios y momentos en la naturaleza que nos re-conectan con cierta armonía y paz natural son casi nulos. A cambio, llevamos a los niños a parques de diversión o al juego de futbol. Pero el juego estructurado y controlado en espacios reducidos o diseñados no aporta lo mismo. El darle la oportunidad a un niño de enfrentarse a la vida silvestre, de mojarse los pies y ensuciarse las manos aporta mucho más a su confianza, a su creatividad y espiritualidad. ¿Qué pasa con los niños que no tienen estas oportunidades?
El entretenimiento principal de los niños hoy en día proviene de una pantalla: experiencia distorsionada y secundaria de la realidad que únicamente ejerce dos de los sentidos. Existe una fe ilusoria y un fanatismo por la tecnología que no permite el acercamiento al mundo natural.
“Evidentemente existe un problema en una sociedad que invierte tanto dinero y tiempo en hacer disponible hasta el último rasgo de información procesada pero no facilita la oportunidad de explorar el mundo en sí mismo” Edward Reed (‘The Neccesity of Experience’).
“Los niños viven a través de sus sentidos. Las experiencias sensoriales conectan la vida exterior con el mundo interior, escondido y emotivo. Para el desarrollo emocional es esencial la libertad de jugar y explorar el mundo natural: la fuente principal de todo estímulo sensorial. Los niños se ponen a prueba interactuando con su entorno, activando su potencial y reconstruyendo la cultura.” Robin Moore (National Learning Initiative)
La naturaleza es un lienzo en blanco en el que los niños pueden reproducir y digerir sus sentimientos. La naturaleza es inmensamente estimulante, pero no impone sobre la imaginación. A diferencia de una ciudad tapizada de anuncios y espectaculares, la naturaleza no te intenta convencer o juzgar. No hay necesidad de conformarse o adecuarse a un concepto o imagen social. Los niños son libres de ser, de expresar su creatividad y de procesar estímulos creados socialmente.
Los poetas y shamanes llevan cientos de años describiendo el efecto de la naturaleza no estructurada sobre la salud y el desarrollo humano. Richard Louv ahora presenta los beneficios del contacto con bosques, invernaderos, plantas y otros seres vivos evidenciados por académicos, pedagogos y activistas ambientales.
Para mencionar solo algunas:
Recuperación de eventos estresantes como traumas físicos o emocionales (Universidad de Cornell).
Mejora en las habilidades sensoriales, de observación, categorización, identificación de patrones, conciencia de sistemas interconectados, procesos evolutivos y cíclicos de la vida.
Recuperación de la fatiga de atención dirigida. En un mundo de incontables estímulos, constantemente tenemos que discriminar y enfocar la atención, cansando al cerebro. Los estímulos de la naturaleza no requieren de esfuerzo, y la reacción a ellos es fácil e instintiva. Los síntomas de agitación, irritación e impulsividad en un entorno urbano se convierten en fascinación y humildad en la naturaleza.
Aumento de confianza por ser retado pero no cuestionado. El juego y tiempo libre promueve la independencia, el auto-conocimiento, el empoderamiento y el auto-control.
Promulgación del sentido de apego, de responsabilidad y de conciencia. Al identificar más de los seres vivos que nos rodean, aprendemos una apreciación por ellos, y se crean vínculos emotivos.
Conciencia cívica y salud pública (conceptos de diseño del Central Park de Nueva York).
La eco-espiritualidad
“Como padre no promueves que tus hijos vivan la naturaleza porque es bonita, sino porque son expuestos a algo más grande y que lleva más tiempo que su existencia inmediata” Ricard Louv
La Teoría de Biophilia describe lo que sentimos al enfrentamos a un espacio abierto muy grande o una vista imponente: nos nace instintivamente un enlace emocional con otros sistemas vivos. La fascinación con la naturaleza y la humildad que nos provee es terapéutica y espiritual.
Close up Bare Hand of a Man Covering Small Flowers at the Garden with Sunlight Between Fingers.
El medio ambiente no juzga, ni nos permite juzgar. Lo aceptamos como es, y así nos aceptamos como somos. Nos aterriza en el momento y desecha preocupaciones por el pasado o futuro. El entrar en contacto con la naturaleza es meditar, y meditar es aceptar; aceptar amar.
