Below is an excerpt from Chapter 10 of The Lost Language of Plants.
Enjoy! -Ben
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--bu
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 encount
the messages embedded within the natural world. Restoring biophili
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 foun
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 explori
the meanings we encounter. This reconnects us to everything around
us--to everything that generates those feelings. It reweaves us in
the fabric of life.
What follows are a series of exercises that I have used and taught
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 sin
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 pa
feel to you? Do some parts feel better than others? Can you tell
why? Overall--what is the primary feeling the store communicates t
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 abo
it.
Now. Look around the street. Pick another store, but this time pi
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 m
take some practice.)
Now go to a third store and repeat the exercise and compare it to t
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 aroun
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 abl
to say what those feelings are. It is possible, after much practic
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 goo
for this exercise--a place you can linger for a while and have some
coffee or tea. Choose something you especially like. Choose a tab
that has a good view of the room and perhaps the people entering th
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 obser
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 perso
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 sa
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? I
the person comfortable in their clothes? Are they comfortable in
their skin? Do their clothes match the feeling you have from looki
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 eve
gesture, intonation, movement of eye and hand, every piece of
clothing and stride of foot. It is possible, with practice, to lea
to perceive all of the elements of their epistemology, of their
world, to know what it is like to live within it. To understand ho
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 t
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, h
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
them is a plant. You can get up close if you want to, place your e
on a level plane, take an insect view. How is the plant shaped, ho
does it feel to your fingers, how does it smell? What emotions doe
it generate in you? Write everything down.
Now, go to another natural place, different from the first. Sit do
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 firs
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
think of a word make something up.
When you are finished, as you did last time, find something your ey
is drawn to and write down everything that you feel and perceive.
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
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 textured 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 th
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
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. D
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 thei
face look? Happy? Sad?
Are you happy to see them? Do they seem happy to see you? Will th
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 wi
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 th
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, yo
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 huma
beings does not respond well to ultimatums or threats, but will
sometimes respond to promises, especially if they are kept. (Usual
you will have to do something in exchange. It is very important th
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 sugges
that people do this exercise daily for at least a year. This part
yourself will tell you everything that you deeply need. It will al
tell you much about the world around you. It is possible to become
your own best friend. It is interesting that Luther Burbank, Georg
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 development
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 chil
naturally grows to forty and to eighty. It is possible to remain
filled with feeling and wonder and openness at any age. Each age h
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 t
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 h
or she feels. What part of the store feels best to them? What par
do they like most? Ask them to tell you everything they are willin
to tell you about this store. Spend as much time as they need you
spend. Are there any differences from when you went alone? What a
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? Whi
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 th
feel about this place? When you are seated and comfortable, begin
looking at more people. Pick one that your child is most intereste
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 yo
why. What is it about that person that is uncomfortable? Have you
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 te
you everything about it. Write it all down. Repeat this at the
second place you went before. When you are done, make sure you tha
your child for helping you before you stop.
Sometimes, later, it helps to go and look up things about that plan
in a book, perhaps a medicinal herb guide. The depth of informatio
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 see
before. They have described medicinal uses, craft uses, clothing a
building uses that are exceptionally sophisticated and are not
apparent from the exterior appearance of the plant. I have even pu
plants in a closed box and have heard a person's child describe the
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
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.
(DIR) BenCollver - Phlog
___________________________________________________________________
Gophered by Gophernicus/3.1.1 on OpenBSD/amd64 7.6