Welcome to Destiny.
Now, here's your host, Cliff Dunning.
Hey, we're getting down to it here on Destiny Slash Earth Ancients. And what that means is that we're going to be heading to Egypt in a couple of weeks. I leave on the twenty fourth. I'm going to go for a couple of days ahead of the crew, and I'm going to explore this new billion dollar museum. It's so big, five hundred thousand square feet that's five football fields. It's huge. And they're saying now that there's no way for you to see in one day, and I can
imagine why it's just too big. And the new suggestions and this is going to grow as more people experience this museum. You choose two to three sections. Now, I have not seen a program guide yet, and I'm kind of surprised by this because typically that's a real great marketing tool. In the past have purchased the museum catalog, which is filled with photographs, or the official guide or the book or whatever that has unique artifacts. I'd eat that thing up in a second if I had one.
So I'm gonna have to kind of go on my own and see what they have on the website. I definitely will stay in the lobby a good two hours. The lobby has a progression of exquisite statuary, and this is a big thing of mine. If you've been listening, I'm you know, I was a sculptor, and I was a I actually got a degree in illustration, but I you know, you have to take the different arts as a student, and I enjoyed sculpture, and so I'm gonna really spend a lot of time looking at these sculptures
up close and personal and my whole thing. And I'm finding this out more and more. The earlier you go, which would be Old Kingdom and pre Dynastic period and you follow it through to the New Kingdom or the Last Pharaoh Pharonic period. The earlier you go, for some reason, the carving style and the significance of the features is more defined. And the only way I can explain this is that the earlier periods have much more training, or they were much more selective in the artists who actually
reproduced pharaohs or people as sculptures in some cases. And I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. I used AI on the Ramsey's Too sculpture at Memphis, and it's partially broken. I mean the right leg is broken just below the knee. It's missing part of an arm. The headdress has been damaged. The back, although you don't see it,
it was laying in water, and so the back. You wrote it fairly significantly, and I ran it through a program on AI where I pieced together I actually laid out the actual pieces that were missing or broken, and I reconstructed it. It came out beautiful. But what I discovered is that my guess was that it had been
reproduced with machines. They had been cut with machines. AI corrected that for me, but did point out that whoever carved it was a very very unique artistic person persona, And I'm beginning to think that there may have been machinery that was so sophisticated that perhaps they could reproduce human like cuts carved carved carving and facial features that
maybe duplicated the human ability to carve stone. Now it does contradict that and say that the eyes are not quite the same, the nose, the nostrils are not quite the same. And one of the big tests that Chris Dunn developed is that you use a mirror effect. You put a mirror up down the middle of the nose and you take a photograph of the left side. You take a photograph of the mirror and the mirror image, and then you place it side by side, and if it looks the same, then it's likely to have been
carved by a machine. Now I have not gotten into the Ramsey two sculptures that are at Karnak and done that test with with AI to see if that is possible. But I have a feeling that AI is going to give me a hard time unless I write a prompt that says consider human elements in the carving as well as mechanical you know. And the big thing is that we can only judge technology by our own standards. And what that means is we don't have what We don't
have the technology that they had back then. How do they power if they did have tools, how did they power them? If they had chisels, how did they power them? If they had sanders? What was the technique? What was that? So all the because we can't stretch like that, AI is only going to be able to take the available data.
So what you have to do is you have to create prompt which are very sophisticated questions that say, if there were machines and they had this type of cutting ability, would they be able to re So you had to get into almost fabricating prompts these questions and kind of theorizing how this tool would cut or sand or polish. And this is what I fell into with Ramsey's too. This beautiful sculptures at Memphis, that's very elegant, and it was so well done that I immediately went, well, this
is a machine cut, which I kind of want. The child, I mean wants it, but it's we had to get real and say, no, it wasn't cut. It was cut by humans, but their techniques were off the scales, and I had to figure out how we identify that, how we it's not aliens, But it's a different mindset because what the AI did pick up was a technique that extracted the luminosity of the stone. And what that means is when the light hits that Ramsey two sculpture, it is,
it is on display, It's self reflective. It's just the work of genius, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So you're gonna see a lot of this in upcoming episodes and also on the Facebook page, and I'm also going to put some on the Earth Ancient's website as well. So lots to consider, lots to be excited about, and I just can't wait. We're coming up to it very soon and I'll be continue to announce it as we
get closer. Now, today's program is on intersecting and being in nature, and I was thinking about the upcoming tour. And when you're in the desert, it's warm, it's sandy, there's not a lot of foliage, there's not a lot of greenery. But you're also in a different part of the world. And so if you quiet yourself and you relax and don't get too charged, you can I have done this before, you can actually settle into that environment. Uh. But my mind is constantly racing because we're we're we're
going to places that are just amazing. And when you see these temples, it just you just stop. And they were able to plug in. They could take a temple, they plugged into the energy of the area. They built these pyramids, they plugged in to the Tulleric energy. Uh. And these statues and I'm I really think they're pre pre pheronic statues. They're plugged in. They're plugged in too to show what they're what stone can do with light,
which you can do with your mind, and it's amazing. So, uh, today this program is on connecting with nature and I've spoken about this a lot. It's really critical that we get out and we commune and that can be a twenty minute walk. You know. It's funny. I was at my doctors the other day and he's I changed my doctor. This new doctor is a do O doctor of ostio osteopath. He's an osteopath and it's more connective tissue and bone
and stuff like that. And he was reminding me and he had a post d on his wall thirty minutes a day to stay well walking, resistance training, but mostly walking. And that's what we were talking about in our interview today is getting out for a short walk thirty minutes minimum, longer if you can do it, and shutting down the monkey brain and releasing to nature. And that's really critical. And I was like, I'll do it once or fice a week, but it's it's really important to do it
at least once a day. And I'm like, okay, and the older you get the more you feel it. When you're younger, everything's firing, all your pistons are firing, and you're like, I don't need to do anything. I was
gonna sit and watch TV. But no. When you get older, your body's like reminding you get yourself up and do something for thirty minutes so that we you know, cleanse the blood, cleanse the liver, processed stuff, and if you have anxiety, depression, have emotional challenges, it really opens the brain and allows you to settle in a little bit. So today's program is Wisdom from the Woods and my guest is psychologist Mark Lengenfeld. It's coming to us from Minnesota.
So I hope you enjoy the program, as you guys know if you listen to Destiny each week. I am a big advocate of being in nature and we don't commune enough. And I'm here in northern California and I have access to some of the most beautiful places in the world, but I don't get out enough, and I think it's important to do that. My guest today is Mark Langenfeld, and he has written a book called Wisdom
from the Woods. A Year of gentle Guidance from Mother nature, And this is a great opportunity not only to connect with somebody who's very thoughtful about nature, but he has fifty two different sections of this book, which translates to the number of weeks in a year. And so we're going to learn all about this. So hey, Mark, welcome to Destiny. Great to have you on the program.
Thank you glad to be here.
Talk a little bit about this book. I mean I had a good chance to get into it a little bit. It seems that you're very connected to nature. But why a complimentary book towards a year? What was that all about?
It is intended to be a devotional book so that a person can read one chapter per week if they like. And because the chapters are not in consecutive order, you can jump around. You can pick any chapter you like and say, oh, well today I want to read about ravens or about wolves, are about trees? You can jump around. It doesn't matter. It's just a weakly devotional okay.
And as somebody who is very much connected with nature, which I believe you are, what does nature have to teach us those of us who were locked in our chair facing the computer and doing our daily chores. I would say obligations are daily obligations. But what does nature have to teach us?
Well, my first thought is everything. However, I'll speak just for myself because I don't know what Mother Nature might have in store for teaching other people. For me, mother Nature teaches me common sense things that are right in front of me and right around me in my daily life, but I don't recognize them. Is as simple as notice how peacefully the clouds are going by. I too should let my mind be peaceful. The clouds are not in
a rush. I look at the trees and I say, Okay, they're all separate trees, but on a higher level, their branches interconnect. We too are interconnected. There's all these nature metaphors that can help us and promote our overall well being. So what mother Nature has for me is pointing out simple, common sense things that I may not notice because I'm so busy in the human life.
Yeah, I should mention to our listeners that you practice a blend of Paganism and Buddhism, Buddhist meditation. And I am a meditator. If I don't meditate once a day, I might I don't function very well. But when you're in nature. You call it a gentle guidance is brought forth? What is that gentle guidance? Is it just because for me, I tend to shift when I'm starting to walk on a nature path, and I'm shifting because my mind is
not occupied by the daily activities anymore. I'm kind of shifting towards the energy of nature, if you want to call it that. But what what is gentle guidance? I like that term.
It's suggestions. Mother nature doesn't just run you over and bark orders. You know. Mother nature is not a dictator. And so the gentle guidance is these lessons are here if you want to notice them. They can remind you,
They can teach you things if you're aware. And when you talk about going into nature and kind of, you know, forgetting about the technical world, I think of it as disappearing because when I go into nature, there's nobody else around to tell me whom I'm supposed to be, and I forget all these labels that society puts on me. Society labels me as a man, white, gay, middle age, on and on. They label me according to my profession. They label me all these things. And when I'm out
around other people. They see those things and they assess me, and I can see people's faces change when I tell them, oh, yes, I have a doctorate in clinical psychology, and they kind of take a step back, like, oh, have you been analyzing me this whole time?
Exactly?
It's like, please don't put labels on me. When I go out into the woods, all those labels disappear, and I feel as though temporarily my identity is disappearing, and beneficially I am then one with nature, not separate. I am absorbed into nature. All those labels fall away, and now I am one with mother Nature, and that's a wonderful feeling.
Tell us about your interactions with nature. For me, it's getting back to the roots of who I am in a way, because I think we're nature children in a way. We're from the earth. Oh yeah, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, right, And if we're not communing, if we're not connecting, we lose some of our humanity, don't we.
Oh sure? So image ahead, Excuse me for interrupting. We just get this distorted image that somehow humans are separate from nature or above nature. And when I was a child, I was raised to be Christian and was taught that humans were supposed to have headship lordship over nature, that somehow we are to rule over nature. I'm not saying that's every Christian point of view, but the Christianity that I grew up in believed that humans are here to
dominate and rule over nature. And as I felt my calling into Earth's spirituality and paganism, I realize that I'm not here to rule. I'm of equal with nature, not separate from it. So it can be very I think, damaging to a person's emotional wellbeing if they think of themselves as somehow detached from nature.
Can you give us your best explanation for what happens when we enter a natural setting and why it's critical to reconnect, especially those of us who live in the city who don't have access to the nearby forest. Why is it important as a human being to connect?
Because metaphorically it helps us walk with earthly feet, it helps us be grounded emotionally, it's good for our mental health. I can only speak for myself. It is good for my mental health. It's vitally crucial to remember who we are and where we came from. We did not just drop out of thin air. We came from nature, and biologically speaking, touching on a little bit of neural psychology, it's the prefrontal cortex behind the forehead here that really
separates us from other animals. And it's the prefrontal cortex that makes us plant for the future, gives us moral reasoning, helps us intellectualize, while the downside of all that intellectualizing is we kind of forget about our animal instincts. So when you talk about entering the woods, even for people who live in the city, just going into your yard, going into the city park, touching the earth, walking on the earth, touching the tree, hearing the birds, all of
those things reactivate our instincts. And again, if I can talk a little bit about psychophysiology, our instincts reside in the center of our brain called the amygdala, named after the almend because it's almond shaped. The amygdala is our primal self. And so when we reactivate our primal self in nature, we're remembering and that can go back all the way to our cellular memory. Our ancestors passed on
their knowledge, particular about survival, into our DNA. How do I know this because we have instincts One of the classes that I teach is intro to psych and we have a chapter on neuropsychology. We have a chapter on instincts and biology. Well, look up the definition of instincts. What does it mean? The literal definition of instinct is unlearned behavior. Whoa now hold on? How did we get unlearned behavior? Where did that come from? Well, clearly it
came from our genes. Where did we get our genes from? From our ancestors? Our ancestors passed down their knowledge, and it's emphasized that most of that instinct deals with survival. So the ancestors are passing down their instinctual knowledge about survival on a genetic level. When we inherited our genetic endullment from our mothers and fathers, we got their genes,
we got their instincts. And so when you go back and to nature, I've experienced it where mother Nature reactivates those instincts and then we're reminded of our primal self. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does, and you explained it very well. You said something about observing that I would like to emphasize, and you actually write about it. We move too fast in our daily lives and we're not slowing down to observe things as they happen. And I think the point you were making is that when we're in nature, we're forced to slow down to connect with the natural world. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of observing nature and why that is helpful and perhaps healing to the body.
Yeah, it is important and healing to observe nature because in my experience, and I acknowledge that other people might have different experiences, in my experience, nature doesn't shout, she whispers, and in order to hear Mother Nature whisper, you need to be quiet, and I need to be still. And usually, almost always, the metaphors that I receive from the Great Earth Mother come in the form of an animal or a plant, or a cloud or water or trees acting
in a certain way. And then they don't say things. For example, the owl is watchful, and she doesn't look at me and say you too should be watchful. Instead, she just demonstrates the behavior. All of these nature metaphors are simply ways that Mother Nature is showing demonstrating being a role model. And so I see, how huh? The owl is watching and observing, and the owl is a very good listener, and I think to myself, Okay, I've
worked as a counselor. What are counselors? They're listeners, And so the owl became a metaphor for me for counseling. That's why it's good to slow down so that you can notice what mother nature is modeling for you. It's not going to be a written message on the tree trunk. It's going to be do as I do. That's usually the message that I get from any of these animals and clients and whatnot. Do as I do? Is it a time to sit and take care of myself like perhaps an animal? Is Is it a time to grow
and blossom like a flower? Is it a time to let my waters be still like the morning lake. They're modeling things for us, and we need to be slow and still and quiet to receive those messages.
Yeah. I like that explanation. I try to get out at least three or four times a week to just walk and dump the stresses of the job. And if I don't do that, I find that my thoughts are backing up and then I'm having more headaches and other issues like that. So it's actually critically important to connect in some manner. And I like your reference to the
local parks. If you're in a big city someplace where there's a dirt and foliage, that's important, right, It's not necessarily I guess you could also walk in a sidewalk and pass your neighbors home and things like that that have foliage and things like that. But is there a great difference between a forest and a neighborhood garden in your walk in your I gotta call it a recovery.
Period, right, Well, yes, there are differences. However, either one can be very healing. Certainly, when I go into a forest, as I mentioned, I kind of disappear because all my labels drop away. I don't necessarily get that during the daytime in a city park, but I do when I go out from my nightly walks. I particularly like to walk in the full moonlight. And of course, depending on the crime rate in your neighborhood, you might or might
not want to walk out at night. But when I walk out at night, there's no one else around, and I have to acknowledge. It dawned on me as I was walking through the woods at night because one of the reasons why the cover of this book is Blue is because I mentioned to Llewellyn the publishers, I go into the woods a lot in the moonlight. Now here's something that dawned on me. I wouldn't feel safe doing that if I were a woman, So in a way I had to acknowledge, at least to myself, this is
an example of male privilege. I can go into the woods at night and not need to worry about being assaulted. I wouldn't do that if I were a woman, especially if I were going into the woods alone. So I mentioned at the very first couple of pages of my book a little disclaimer, Please be safe when you go into the woods, because I don't want people to get hurt,
you know, trying to connect with mother nature. But to your question, yes, there is a difference between just being in the city park and being deep in the woods. And the difference is the level of distractions. When I'm in a city park, I hear the airplanes overhead, the traffic going by, the buses, people, perhaps you know, children
at play making noise. When I'm in the woods, I hear the water running from the creek or the lake, the waves, the birds, and so I'm more absorbed by nature when I'm in the woods.
Yeah, and so the healing isn't as profound, I think, is what you're suggesting. If it's a city walk over a forest walk. We're gonna take a short commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and we will return shortly with my guest today, Mark Langenfeld, discussing his new release Wisdom from the Woods, will be right back with you. My guess today is Mark Langenfeld. He is a pagan and also studies Buddhist meditation, and he's written
a new book called Wisdom from the Woods. This is a look at how to interact with Mother Nature. It's not really easy to define, but can you I think you give us a part of a scenario of healing. If you don't have a forest close by and you're close to open fields, is that a good substitute.
It Candy, Yes, I've mentioned this. I think I even mentioned it in my book that even if you are home bound, let's say you have some physical restrictions that limit your mobility, you can still stand in front of the window and let grandfather's son shine on you. Or if it's nighttime, you can stand in front of the window on a clear night and let Grandmother Moon shine on you. Personally, I have done that.
Now.
I live in a neighborhood where there's nobody directly in my backyard. There's no houses that can see me. I have stood skyclad in front of the moonlight in my house and let the moonbeams wash over me and spiritually bathe me. And you talk about healing. I didn't need to leave the house. I didn't need to go outside. I didn't need to venture deep into the woods. I was in my house and allowing Grandmother Moon to cleanse
me spiritually speaking. And yeah, you can have a real healing experience that way, even if you're homebound.
I love that example. I think you were saying that you were you were nude bathing. Is that what you're referring.
To ki clad?
Yeah, in the nude, Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, you have to shift your mind a little bit when you're doing that. You know you're receiving the energies. And so maybe you're doing a little ceremony. Can you talk briefly about performing ceremonies as a form of a worship of nature and it doesn't have to be And I think you can address this. It doesn't have to be some drawn out candle lights and things like that. But talk about ceremony and nature.
It is what you are calling and what nature is calling you to do. So it's very spontaneous, yes, inspired by nature. For example, this, Oh, this is a funny story. I'll try to make it short. Sometimes at night I will go through graveyards and it's not because it's a graveyard. It's because I'm away from traffic, I'm away from city lights. And by the way, if you ever want to enjoy the northern lights, go to a graveyard because the city lights are not there. You don't get that light pollution.
So I was in this graveyard and enjoying the northern lights and the darkness, and I saw somebody else in the graveyard holding up his hands like this, and it was a large man, and I thought, okay, I'm not the only pagan in the wood. Someone else is doing a ritual. And I walked up to him and then I laughed at myself. It was a statue of Jesus.
Oh, part of a gravesite.
Yes, it was one of the stone statues of Jesus in the graveyard. And I was like, and I thought it was a pagan. But to your point, the ritual or the ceremony that you perform in the woods is up to you, and I let nature influence me. If I decide to draw a sacred circle around me, I look around, Oh, that stick will do, and then I
draw a circle around me. If there is no stick, I can just use my fingers representing an anthem, and I can in my mind imagine a circle being drawn around me, creating sacred place space, and I can call upon whatever deity is, including ancestors that I want to,
and they can respond. I've sat in circle in the woods on a moss covered rock in the middle of the day when normally daytime creatures are out, and suddenly a great horned owl comes and lands on a branch no more than maybe three four yards away, and I'm like, you're not supposed to be out during the day, what's going on? So I sang to her the goddess chant, and she tilted her head and she rolled her head around and she listened to me. And when the song
was done, that was my offering to her. Then she flew off, and I was like, well, bless it be, so I can one of the quick thing that I do when I'm in the woods, whenever I see a hole in a tree, I will pick up a leaf or a blossom or whatever, a twig, and I will put it in the hole as an offering to the woodland spirits. And you don't have to Well, you could bring something if you wanted to, but you don't have to bring something. You know, some people might want to
bring a little offering. Organic offering might be nice, an apple or something like that. But even if you don't have anything with you, as soon as you see that hole in the tree, just reach down and pick up a leaf or a little stone and tuck it in there as an offering to the fairy spirits. Those are the type of spontaneous rituals that can take place without you writing a script and planning it weeks ahead.
Yeah, I love that. Let's talk about the seasons because we're have just started into spring and that's the time of renewal. How do we acknowledge spring when we're doing our walk? Can you give us some examples of like transforming? It's a renewal period, so I'd like to show nature that I am I'm changing with it. What would we do to kind of coalesce in that manner.
What I personally do is I will have a goal, like a New Year's resolution, and I will go into the woods and I will sit down and write out what my goals are. And then I say to myself, Okay, as the trees have lost their leaves, so too am I losing these old bad habits, these dysfunctional behaviors and possibly dysfunctional thoughts that I no longer want. And now look at the buds are starting to grow, the buds are starting to open up. I too want new behaviors,
which ones. Okay, well, I got to write that down. So then I have pen and paper with me. I write down what new behaviors, What new thoughts do I want to write down? And expanding on the thoughts, you could even add attitude, because if you think about your habitual thoughts, that's pretty much your attitude. And yeah, I write down how do I want to change those? What adjustments do I want to make? And then also sense things. You can smell the moist soil because the frost is
leaving the ground. You can smell the new leaves coming out. You can sense things, the warm sunshine, all of the things around you, hearing the songbirds. Oh, yesterday I heard a robin first time this year twenty twenty six. That activated my senses. So your senses come alive when you're in nature. And then you can use that metaphorically, tap into it so that you can say, hmm, I have goals that are coming forth, that are budding and that are starting to open up an unfurl and so then
you become mindful of those. And then what I do is when I go home, I take that list that I wrote out and I tape it to the mirror in my bathroom because I'm going to see him every day, and I remind myself, Oh, that's right. I want to be more optimistic. I want to be more compassionate. Oh that's right. Compassion is not just a thought, it's an action. I can't just think about being compassionate. I gotta do something kind. Yeah, those little daily reminders help.
Yeah. I like that idea of having a list of things I'd like to accomplish during the renewal. I'm letting go of certain things, bad habits, bad behavior, I eat too much chald good or sugar or whatever. It could be anything. Yeah, cock if you can a little bit about the use of intention and how that can set the tone for our walk in nature. And if you want what how we we would use that to welcome in spring?
Okay, Well, the intention would influence a person's focus.
M hm.
So if I'm going into the woods at night, I'm going to have the intention of connecting with the moon goddess, and so I'm going to focus on that and the things associated with the moon goddess, the owls, the stars, even if it's it's a cloudy night, just the breeze blowing by a shooting star something that catches my attention. So I'm going to be focused on that, and that's
going to be my intention. If I'm out during the day and let's say I think to myself, you know what, I need to pull things in because things have been so wild and out of control, all these things pulling me in all directions. Huh, Where do I want to go to feel pulled in? Oh? I know, there's a gorge about twenty miles away. It's kind of a small canyon if you will. It's not really a canyon, but it's a small gorge. And when I walk down in
the bottom of that gorge. I feel those walls on both sides of me, and that makes me feel like I'm pulling things in. It makes me feel safer. So that's my intention, had that intention before I went there. I purposely drove to that state park because they have this deep river gorge and when I walk along the river bank it's rather shallow. Just the feeling of those cliffs on both sides of me helps me feel like
I'm more pulled in. So my intention was actually before I left the house and then I go to that area. That will help me focus on that intention.
Can you for those of who are listening who don't use intention or haven't had any experience with it, can you give us a short example of an intention that you might use before entering the nature location, the forest, the fields, whatever, that allows them to open and receive without being intentional thinking about it. In other words, sitting this stage for an activation.
Well, if I'm going to have a clear intention, let's call it a prayer offering. I planned that ahead of time, and by the way, just two three weeks ago, I did a presentation in the Twin Cities at a conference about how to make prayer bundles. And that's what I would do. And a prayer bundle can be whatever you
want it to be. What I'd like to do is collect some polished stones that have been in the waves of Lake Superior near my home, and then I can collect those and then I put them into perhaps something bio degradable, like cheesecloth or some form of packaging, maybe just plain uncolored paper, and I fold it together. I might put in a feather and all of those different things. And then sometimes I'll just write on a pitch a small piece of birch bark, or possibly a small piece
of driftwood no larger than four inches. I'll just write my intention or maybe a prairie quest for a person that needs healing. I'll put all of that in the bundle, and then i'll fold it together. And then i'll take hemp, string or anything that's earth friendly, and I'll tie it all together in that bundle, and then I'll take it with me to the woods, and then i'll lay that at the base of a tree or something of that nature.
I know other Pagans who prefer to put that into the stream and it floats for a while and you can watch it go downstream. We all have our own style. Yeah, but that's one way of making your intentions manifest and then you know as things happen in your life that it's developing that the spirits are honoring your request because you can feel it in your spirit that they have accepted your offering, your prayer bundle, and things are in the works.
I love that idea of a you call it a prayer bundle, I think as an intention bundle that over a period of time is in the way you've described it, it's going to disintegrate into the soil or the atmosphere or in the nature, and then it's activated in some capacity.
And I'd like to share one other technique which works real well for anxiety. And again I'm only going to say that it works for me. I don't want people to think that this is the cure for an anxiety disorder, because it's not. So I just want to say this
only works for me. If I'm having some anxiety about something, I'll pick up a leaf off the ground, usually it's a dry leaf, and I'll hold it between my hands and I'll put emotionally and spiritually, I'll put all my anxiety into that leaf and I'll hold it and I'll
charge it with energy through my body heat. And then once I placed all of my anxiety metaphorically into that leaf, I then, with my bare hands just dig a little hole in the ground, just pull away some of the grass, and then I'll take the leaf and I'll tuck it into that shallow little hole, or if you will, call it a grave, and then I'll cover it up with the grass that I just peeled off, and then press it down and I walk away. And as I walk away, I say to myself, as this leaf rots, so too
does my anxiety. And then I remember, this is not spontaneous. It's going to take several days, maybe even a week, for the soil to break down this leaf. It's not going to take very long. I'm a gardener and I use leaves as composts, and I know that it doesn't take more than a few days for the ground to really eat up those leaves. So then in the next passing day or two, I think to myself, Okay, that was about two days ago that I buried that leaf. I bet it's pretty much dissolved by now, so too
is my anxiety and worries. And I can keep that mindful. It's not just one instant cure. As the days go by, I remind myself, yes, that leaf is probably completely decomposed by now, and you know what, so is my anxiety. I'm feeling better. It's a little reminder in the back of your head. And it's a wonderful ritual to do for me. It really is anxiety.
I love that idea. I hadn't even thought about creating bundles and storing your fatigue, your anxiety, your depression, and placing it somewhere or actually partially burying it. It's a wonderful idea. Why is it important to be quiet in nature? And how does communing with nature kind of develop this importance of silence and quiet and interesting I'm going to use the word introspection.
Yeah, and that introspection kind of answers that question, because when a person is quiet, then it reduces the distractions. I'm not saying it completely the distractions. Even though I've been meditating for several years, I've never gotten to the point where I have a blank mind and don't have any thoughts at all. So being still and quiet in nature slows down some of my racing thoughts, some of
my inner dialogue what technically they call meta cognition. Excuse me, I'm in this room and the lights go off if I don't move.
So Okay, there you go.
It's sinning up. Okay, there we go. Sorry about that interruption. The lights are on a timer in this room, so it's important to be still and be quiet because that way, even though it doesn't completely take away distractions, it greatly reduces distractions. And I want to remind you of what I said earlier. Mother nature whispers. She doesn't scream a message in your ear. She doesn't take out a billboard
with flashing lights. She whispers, and you need to be quiet and still to hear her and to see the subtleties that you otherwise wouldn't notice.
We're going to take a short commercial break to allow our sponsors to identify themselves, and will return shortly with my guest today, Mark Legenfeld, discussing his new book Wisdom from the Woods, will be right back. My guess today is Mark Legerfield. He has written a new book called
Wisdom from the Woods. This is a look at how to interact with nature, and it's done over fifty two weeks, so it's a solid year of interacting on a fairly regular basis, relaxing the mind, body and the spirit and connecting so that you're relieved of the strains and stresses
and the fatigue of everyday lifestyle. I'm just I need to get out and go for a hike today after talking with you, because I haven't been hiking, and I'm thinking when I go, I go to this area that's they saved part of a forest, a small forest, but it's not redwood trees as oak trees. And one of the things that I appreciate is observing as I'm walking. And I'd like you to talk a little bit about the importance of observing in silence but taking in nature
and why. And I keep using the term healing because for me, I feel like I'm getting blessed by nature, a subtle blessing, but an important one because it's taking away the stress I'm being relieved in somehow. And some people define these nature walks, and you have an an to a degree in this book that you've written, But I'm curious to know how we should be the observer of nature and what that is doing for us as we observe.
Well one of the best things about observing nature is that it is always going to be slightly different. Nothing stays exactly the same. We don't say the same either. So when you go out in nature, something's going to be different than it was yesterday. The plants might grow a little bit more, a different squirrel or bird might be here or there, a cloud might be different in the sky. It's never going to be the exact same thing. And the only way to really notice that is to
slow down and be observant. It takes that observance to become aware. But that flower has bloomed. Yesterday it was just a bud or whatever it might be.
You know.
That branch broke in that windstorm we had last night. You have to be observant in order to notice these things, and then when you're still, you can notice the metaphor that, okay, here's a metaphor about things breaking. I went past in the wintertime an area that was marshy, and there was a lot of dried cattails. The ice was covering the roots, and many of the cat tails that were dry broke many of them, and I thought to myself, because they lost their flexibility. So the subtle message was if I
am brittle and inflexible, I'm going to break. That's what happens in the spring when we have the reads and the cattails that are green and lush, they're flexible. And when the wind blows, I see those reads, I see the cattails swaying back and forth. They don't break because they're flexible. That's a metaphor that I took into my own life. I'd better be flexible, because if I'm going to be rigid and stubborn and unyielding emotionally, if not spiritually, I'm going to break.
I love that. Why fifty two weeks? Why did you design the book? Did you have that intention mark to do that? To go each week? This is what I feel. Did it come out of just obviously it came out of your nature and your nature connections. But was there something that inspired you to create the book in that manner?
No? Not, in that manner. I wrote down metaphors. And each time I wrote a metaphor, it was roughly about a thousand words, comes to about three pages for each chapter. And after about ten years of collecting metaphors, and then it took me about two years to actually write them all. I thought to myself, Okay, this is about this feels
about right. And when I went into Llewellyn's website, they said our average book is about fifty thousand words, and so I looked on my laptop word processor and thought, oh, look at that. My book is about fifty thousand words. That's just right. I wasn't even aware that there were fifty two chapters. I was aware that there were fifty
thousand words to meet the criteria of the publisher. It was the publisher, it was Llewelen that said, say, why don't we make this a devotional because there's fifty two chapters. That's one chapter for each week of the year. And I was like, why didn't I see that that was their idea.
Wow, it's funny because Llewellyn puts out a lot of sacred cards, and your book could have easily transformed into a deck. I totally see that you may have had a certain with your perception of nature. You could probably have an animal, fifty two animals that represent that week or that period.
Yeah.
Well, if you flip through the page, you notice that every single chapter, without exception, has a little artwork. I don't know if you can see it on the screen. Yeah, but they all have. Every single chapter has a little bit of artwork that also came from the graphics department at Llewellyn. I did not make those drawings or sketches.
That's nice.
I'm a very visual thinker. I haven't mentioned this yet, but I was born with a learning disability, dyslexia, and so my way of compensating for that is I imagine the things that I'm talking about, or that I'm hearing about, or that I'm reading about. I picture them in my head. So even if I'm listening to somebody speaking in my head, I'm picturing what they're saying. Very visual thinker, so I'm pleased that Llewellyn puts so many sketches and drawings into the book.
As a side note, I have some dyslexia myself. I'm finding that AI is a really huge tool. Have you found that as well or are you resistant to that?
I'm pretty resistant to it. I will use spell Checker, and I will use AI tools that check for grammar errors. But that's where I limit myself because I want to continually challenge my own mind to do my own work and do my own creative thinking and forming the sentences. If AI catches some spelling errors in grammatical errors, great, I love that. But I haven't really utilized AI, nor am I really interested in tapping into all of.
The machine learn right? Yeah? Interesting.
I do want to mention one thing though. On my computer, I have the ability to hit the speak button, which will allow me to speak my words and then it'll type it out. And it also allows me to go over what I just wrote and it'll speak it to me. And that has been a real good writing tool for me because in my head when I'm writing it, I know what I want to say, but then when the computer reads it back to me, I'm like, oh, when I hear it in my ear, it sounds a little vague.
I better clarify that sentence.
Ah.
Well that's a useful tool.
Yeah, very cool. The books call Wisdom from the Woods. My guest today has been Mark langenfriled. What's the one of the big mistakes people make when they're trying to connect with nature, especially somebody who may be out of touch. They've been sitting and watching TV too much and they are trying for a bird of nature connection.
I think the word trying brings with it a whole lot of expectations, and that can be problematic. It's my opinion that people are automatically connected with Mother Nature. Mother Nature is life energy. We all have life energy within us. If we didn't, we'd be dead. So it's my opinion that we are already connected with Mother Nature. Everyone, and so it's a matter of recognizing, acknowledging, perhaps even deepening
the connection. It's really about mindfulness, And when it comes to mindfulness, it's more of letting go of trying that helps me acknowledge my connection with nature. If I try to, like if I make it my goal, I'm going to go out today in nature and I'm going to really connect no matter what. I don't care how long it takes, I'm going to connect. Well, that's like trying real hard to meditate. The harder you try, the less you know clear minded, the less relaxed, the less deepened the spirituality
you develop. So I would recommend to people that they just acknowledge that they're already connected to nature, and they can find that by the way, even in their dreams. I've had nature metaphors come to me in my dreams. Sometimes if i'm having a hard time sleeping, I'll remember Grandmother Moon is watching over me and protecting me as I sleep, and that thought of having a guardian will
help me fall asleep. So it's a mindfulness. Being mindful that you're already connected to Mother Nature and then perhaps wanting to deepen that connection is where people might pursue going into the woods.
I like that. That's excellent. As we conclude, you mentioned in this pressure release that you've designed the book so that you don't necessarily have to read it from cover to cover. You can just grab it and open to a section and that's for you. And in some ways, it's almost like it would be great if you could ask an intention. I intend for this to be the
right message for me today. You don't have to, but I'm just thinking, because we were talking about intention, can you give us a sense of why you designed the book like that or perhaps it just came together in that manner.
Well, it did just come together in that manner. I wrote down the metaphors as Mother Nature revealed them to me and as I was receptive to them, and I couldn't help but wonder how many metaphors did I miss before I became mindful of all of this. So in the back of the book they have what is called a subject chapter index, and it's the last oh three
or four pages. And what's nice is a person can look up by topic what they want to read about, and I'll just mention a few of these real briefly, emotions, anger, anxiety, depression, behaviors, bad habits, breathing, self nurturing. You can look up certain animals, dogs, large birds, elements, plants, if you're into water and nature and rivers, streams. If you're concerned about relationships, you can say, okay,
well look at this. There's a whole list here of chapters that deal with family chapter thirteen, twenty thirty six, forty six fifty two. If you're concerned about romantic relationships, look it up in the subject chapter index. Oh, here we go. Romantic relationships talked about in chapter fifteen sixteen, seventeen, twenty twenty two, twenty thirty two. All of these indexes can help you jump ahead to a subject that is concerning you, whether it's an animal or an emotion or what have you.
Now that's interesting. Did you design the book like that or did you just write the book and then at the end you're like, wait a minute, I can categorize.
These No, that was Llewellyn's idea. Oh, I wrote the manuscript. I submitted it to them, and it was toward the end of the editing process that they said, please write a subject index area where people can look things up based on their interests. If they're interested in trees, or if they're interested in lakes, or if they're interested in anxiety or what have you, they can just go to that and they can say, oh, here's one that talks about dogs, and look at there's like three or four
chapters that talk about dogs. Good, I'll go to those first. It was llewlyns idea.
Fantastic. I love the book. It's very porrible. You can put it pretty much anything. You can almost fit it in a big jacket pocket.
That was also Llewellyn's idea. When it came out, they said, we made it intentionally small so that it can fit inside a jacket pocket, so you can take it with you in the world. Was as a field guide, and I was like wow. And here I was thinking it was going to be a full sized book and you're going to have to leave it at home.
Amazing wisdom from the Woods. I want to mention that Mark reminded me one hundred percent of the royalties are donated to the Student's Nutritional Alliance program through the north Woods Technical College Foundation. And I Mark brought this up before we started, and I said, well, what's that all about? He says, students are literally starving. That these port students. Give us a sense of what that's all about, would you?
Because I haven't been in college in many years, but things are tough, I.
Guess well, I think there might be a basic understanding in the public that students really aren't rich, that students are often struggling. And at the Tech College, where I teach psychology and sociology, I see my students struggling, and some of them have families of their own, they have kids, and they're trying to find food for themselves and their families. And so at the college we have the Student Nutrition Assistance Program where we hand out food vouchers to students
who are hungry. And for years I've been contributing to that financially. And then when I got the book, I thought to myself, Okay, well, you know what. As I'm submitting this manuscript to Llewellyn. I think I'm just going to donate all of the royalties to the Student Nutrition Assistance Program. Why not, I'm already donating money to them every year anyway.
Wow.
And there's also a personal emotion involved because I was a student and I know what it's like to be hungry, and it really touches on some deep feelings when I remember those days where I would come home and all I had to eat was a Bullis cereal for supper. Yeah, and many of us students were in the same category, and I remember thinking, we need to compare notes, and so some of us students, particularly I remember in graduate school,
we would share notes. Hey, you know that bar down the street they have at happy hour they have freeer diures. And that other place, that nightclub they'll have like shrimp cocktails for free, or they'll have like whatever free or DERs set out for their customers, and all you have to do is buy a soda pop and then you can gorge yourself. You know, we give each other these little helpful hints. Do you know where you can get
free food? So that's something I lived with, I experienced it, So I want to pass that on to my students who are hungry. I empathize with them. I've been there and I know. So I want people to know that the book is really kind of a fundraiser in a way.
It's totally a fundraiser, my friend.
Yeah.
In fact, I was just going to say, I typically suggest that people go to Amazon, because it is available on Amazon, but if you have another place you have rather have people go to, let us know now so they can purchase the book and maybe you get a little more money out of it. Because of course Amazon's it.
Is available on Llewellyn dot com. Oh, and also Walmart dot com is carrying it. Walmart, Yeah, Walmart dot com is carrying it. I checked it out myself. And also Barnesananoble dot com is carrying it. And so there's a whole slew of bookstores that are online, I think thrifty Books dot com and things like that. So there's a whole list of online bookstores where you could get it. And of course you can always pick it up at
your local family ocult bookstore. Okay, you can pick it up at any local new age bookstore because most of them are in connection with Llewellen and even if they don't physically have it, they can certainly order it for you.
Yeah, fantastic.
You can support local bookstores exactly.
Wisdom from the Woods. Mark much success on this book. It was a pleasure speaking with you.
Thank you to be on your show.
Yeah. I definitely think that you will have some new books coming out in the near future, kind of a follow up.
We're already working on them.
Oh okay, good yeah, yeah, uh yeah. How to how to connect with nature and meditate? Love to hear some meditative practices would be kind of cool as well.
So well, I'm playing around with the title. The title that I'm thinking about from my next book is Manifesting Nature's Kindness, and then the subtitle is fifty two weeks to Deepen your Self nurturing for yourself and others. So it's still a title in the works, but it's about nurturing yourself and others.
Fantastic. Hey, well, hopefully we'll have you back on.
Thank you. All right, have a wonderful thing.
I'm hoping that Mark has a website soon. He does not, and you can find more information by going to Llewellyn dot com. That's L. L. E W. E. L. L y N dot com and there's a page for Mark and his last name is l A n g E n f E l D and he is in Minnesota. So it's a fun book. I really like it. It's well written, it's quick, it's a quick read, and it's almost like you could you could do it for daily inner connection, higher wisdom, where you pull a chapter and
just read it and kind of follow along. The most important aspect is getting out in nature. We both agreed that they walking, communing, relieving yourself over your daily strain, and walking among natural elements is really critical to wellness. Also to note, this interview will be on the Earth Ancients. Excuse me. Destiny has its own YouTube channel, so just go to the Destiny podcast on YouTube. You'll see the interview. He has some illustrations from the book. So that's the
way to to join in. Hey, if you're enjoying Earth Ancient's Destiny or the Earth Ancient Special Edition, please consider becoming a subscriber for as little as five dollars a month, you can support the work that we do here on these podcasts. We have a wonderful series of gifts for you. We have over fifty digital books from many of our well known authors and other individuals who are contributing, and
it's a wonderful thank you for becoming a subscriber. To become a subscriber, go to Patreon dot com, forward slash Earth Ancients and just check it and they will take care of everything. Oh you u is an ATM or a credit card They dedocted each month. You don't even have to think about it. And it's a great way to help us out with our commitments. So to become a subscriber to Earth Ancients Earth Ancients, go to Earth Ancients dot com, Forward slash tours. All right, that's it
for this program. I want to think my guest today, Mark Langenfeld, coming to us from Minnesota as always a team of Gil Tour, Mark Foster and fay A Pavar. You guys rock all right, take care of you well and we will talk to you next time. The the.
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