Putting nature back into our lives and spiritual practices

own life. And that topic is putting nature back into our lives and spiritual practice. So, although this might seem like a very ordinary, simple topic, in fact, it's very multi layered and can take us very deep into ourselves and into a universal experience. So I think any of us can agree that it's obvious that us as humans are very disconnected from nature. So as a society as a whole, we spend less and less time

outdoors than ever before. And even when we are outside, so much of it's in an urban or very tame or domestic setting, as opposed to actually being in the wild. And for most of us being in the wild is something that's just not available, either physically, or perhaps financially, or timewise. Or maybe there's even a fear of being in a very wild place. So there's definitely a lot that we can learn to work with. But we also need to start with what

we've got. And if wild nature isn't something that's available to you, then we can use any form of nature, whatever that might mean to you, as humans are also nature. So nature exists in, in absolutely everything. And it's not just because you might not have a wild nature experience, you know, very easily readily available to you, does it mean that process of putting nature back into your life has to be

something that's difficult. At the moment, there's of huge rewilding movement, which is taking people especially focused on children back into wild nature, teaching them basic survival skills and teach them about the natural world. And that's really wonderful. But that's not going to be the focus

of the talk today. So we're not going to be talking about the external aspects of rewilding or putting ourselves physically back into nature, it's more around, inviting an attitude of nature connection, into into our lives. So if we start off by thinking of our lives, and how much time we spend in nature, it's, it can be quite surprising. So I am very blessed. I live in Cape

Town in South Africa. And quite literally surrounded by nature, I have a forest on my doorstep, and so easily accessible to me that it's it really makes it really easy for me to get into nature, and in just a few minutes. But even when I did this exercise, I was shocked at how little of my life I'm

actually spending in nature. So if you just add up in your week, how many hours you're spending in nature, and preferably, in in a wild ish setting, preferably alone, and not for the sake of doing a run or some other sort of sports based activities. So just pure recreation in nature, so perhaps resting or relaxing in your garden, playing in the park, perhaps taking your dog for a walk and sitting on a

bench. If you add up all of that time you spend in nature and just, you know, basically divided by the number of hours that are in a week, it's pretty surprising to see how low the the number is. So I worked on spending five hours a week in nature. And that actually is just under 3% of my life. That means that I'm spending 97% of my life in an indoor or domestic or manufactured setting. And I think five hours is probably

quite a lot. I think most people aren't even getting close to five hours a week as a recreation time in nature. And I'm guessing that probably for most of us, the numbers closer to 99% of our life is being spent in a very indoor environment. Now, I want to relate this to our personal spiritual or religious or self development or self care, practice, whatever. Whatever you use for your own self growth, I'll just call that select connected. Flee spiritual

practice. How much of that is spent connected to nature, or even just mindful of nature or even just outdoors. So growing up, I grew up Catholic and went to a convent and spent hours in church and doing, you know, Catholic education and, and all of those things that you have to do. And not once do, I recall ever doing anything outdoors or in nature as part of as part of that whole Catholic education and, and church experience. It was always, you know, indoors in the church, very disconnected

from the natural world. And I really felt that there was something missing. In my Catholic faith growing up, I couldn't put my finger on it, but it just didn't feel it didn't feel connected to me, it felt like there was a separation. And as a teen, I really started becoming very interested in meditation. And I started exploring meditation classes yoga, and even that, it's primarily happens indoors.

In, you know, sometimes these yoga classes are in a shopping mall, or, you know, in a skyrise, building, or even, I was once in a Buddhist temple watching a beautiful ceremony. And then the offering is at the end, where people make all these beautiful offerings. We're all packets of chocolates and sweets, and, you know, fizzy,

cool drinks and stuff. And this image really shocked me there was just this huge disconnect that I was witnessing, of doing a beautiful practice where we are attempting to connect into all life, but then celebrating that by giving offerings that were quite literally poison and wrapped in in plastic. But just there was just something there that didn't that was incongruent

for me. And even a lot of the more New Age teachings that do tend to borrow heavily on all the pagan and shamanistic teachings and so forth, there's still a sense of wanting to transcend this earth wanting to evolve past this experience on this planet and move to something else, this idea of Heaven is not a place on Earth, it's like a sense of, we need a room. This, this experience that we having on Earth right now is

really difficult. And let's try to transcend this and to to get us somewhere else. So all of this has really prompted me to deeply question religion and philosophy and spiritual teachings, because it just seems to be a universal experience. And in all of these different teachings, and in a couple of others that I've studied, that the question of the natural world isn't something that really comes up and is talked about a lot. And I wondered why that was. And I think there are a few reasons

for that. I think, firstly, religion. And a lot of these older philosophies were developed in a time when people were much more connected to nature. So it was more of a given they, this, this disconnect and separation that we feeling today, just didn't exist on the same level as it does now. And perhaps they didn't need anything to remind them about the nature connection, because people have those times were so much more

just net in nature already. So I think we do need to translate the teachings based on the environment in which they were given. But the interesting thing is that as a man made involvement and structure and political hierarchy and so forth, increased within religious organisations, the the disconnect from nature increased, and vice versa. I think the more people disconnected from nature, the more religions and structures and philosophies became disconnected from the natural

world. And there was a here's a fairly famous philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, who was he was Italian and later worked in in France. And he was very instrumental in as a thought leader at that time. And essentially, professing that humans and the human realm was above anything that was animals second, was second to humans and and all other nature came beneath it. So he, he came up with this hierarchical model. And what this allowed was that people could treat animals and treat the environment as

arbitrary. And they could use and abuse them to suit their own ends for commerce and capitalism. And that was perfectly acceptable. And because Thomas Aquinas was super influential at the time, coming from a very affluent family with ties into the royal family at the time, and so forth, his thinking, really instructed a lot of the ethics and the politics from their time, which Europe in those years, really was the, the, the dominant

superpower of the earth. And those, those teachings and way of thinking are still actually prevalent in a lot of our systems today, including our education system, which is, is fairly crazy. And about 250 odd years after Thomas Aquinas, there was another French philosopher, Rene does caught. And he came with the famous saying, you know, I think therefore, and everything he he, he spoke about was around the power of the mind and the

intellect. And he took the act of separation even further, he, he kind of did the separation of the mind and the body. So he said, within the human, the mind and the soul are the, the pinnacle, and the body is simply just a mechanistic object, I suppose that's my word, not his. But I'm sure he stated a lot more elegantly. But there was, again, this disconnect of, of, you know,

mind and body. And it wasn't until, you know, Charles Darwin came around in Bernie in the 19th century, which isn't really that long ago at all, and started to talk about things like evolution and, you know, things that, that we now know to be true or truer. That, that people started to question, but it's still very much within our religious structures. We don't question religion, even though religion professors to teach truth. What we do know is that truth is a

natural living thing. And any natural living thing changes with the cycles and season and grows and evolves. But a lot of our religions haven't changed and evolved and are still stuck, you know, two 3000 years ago, however long they first started. But why is any of this an issue? The issue is that so much of our own current system, educational, societal, cultural, and even a lot of our familial belief systems are built on these

incorrect notions. And, for example, this is something that just continues to shock me if you have a look at the definition of nature. In the Oxford English Dictionary, it actually specifically specifically says that nature excludes men, and anything to do with man's creation. So it's it only includes the, you know, the plants and animals and all other rock formations and the oceans, everything essentially, except for men. And that's just so

surprising. It's, you know, that in this day and age, we can still the find nature to exclude humans. And isn't that how this arrogance of the separation and how man's put ourselves at the top of the food chain, and it's our human ego that perceives ourselves to be to be at the top of the chain. And, unfortunately, it's actually on us that we're the ones that are missing out, we're missing out on a huge part of who it is that

we are. So, you know, at our core, we are human animals, and we're having a very physical experience here on Earth. But we are equally physical and energetic beings, we've got this capacity for energetic awareness and energetic connection. So there is an element of truth and the fact that we're not just physical we, we do have a greater awareness then, then just this physical form, and that isn't necessarily just human animals, or animals have their own sense of awareness.

And potentially other forms of life too. So today, I'll focus a little more on this energetic quality. If you're interested in the health and wellness side or childhood development, I can really recommend that you look at the books by Richard Luth. He's like a thought leader in this space, he came up with the very famous fitting in, in concept, meaning that we need nature, it is so essential to us, it's essentially a nutrient

that we, we need to take in. And he looks at nature in the context of children, he I think he calls it the nature deficit disorder or something along those lines. But his books are really really good if you're interested in, in understanding more of that aspect of things.

So today, we'll look a little bit more at this concept that nature connection is something that we live and feel and breathe, it's it's part of who we are, it's in our flesh and blood, it's simply we can we can really embody it, it's not a concept that's out there. It's something that we can drop in and fill. And the very first time I experienced this as as young I was nine years old, I remember it very clearly I was on a holiday in the dragons, big mountains in South Africa, with

my family. And we had been on the hike and had gone fairly high up to the top of mountain peak, and we're winding our way back down. And as we came back down, we went through this beautiful forested gorge where it was, you know, kind of sheltered from from the blazing sun, and we were in these trees, it was just absolutely beautiful. And I was trailing behind my family a little bit. And in the one place, I just was so overwhelmed by the sense of this feeling of nature all

around me. And in that moment has stopped. And I look to my right, and there was this beautiful deer standing just in the bushes not far from the path at all. And, you know, normally I'm sure we would have walked straight past and not seen it. But this, this this moment, it was probably only a few seconds that it ended up lasting for. But there was this complete, energetic connection in that moment where I just felt myself completely plugged in to the natural world. And that feeling

really stuck with me. And I think that was the feeling this, this intense feeling of connection that I was always searching for, through various religions and other practices. And and could never find and only through nature connection and through exploring nature, connection practices, and being in the wild have been able to

reconnect with that feeling. And once you start to reconnect with that feeling, it's actually easy to then take that into all aspects of your life, even if you're not, you know, spending 97% of your life in in the outdoors. So the reason that we don't, we don't find this connection, very easy, and it's not something that we able to do on an instant, is because we've thought ourselves out of nature.

So whether that's, you know, due to our incorrect perceptions and beliefs, it has, it's something that we have creative conceptually. And it's interesting because we have obviously done this on a collective level as a society. But there is also an individual element of being in the busy mind getting lost in thought, and not being able to drop into present awareness. And herein lies the whole crux of the

matter. So because of the way that societies developed, because we've forgotten our connection, even though right now on this exact moment listening to this, you're in a physical body actually in the world, we can no longer feel it. So, if we no longer able to feel the connection, we have to ask the next question, well, what has taken its place? And the obvious answer is disconnection and separation.

So by not being able to feel our state of connection, we then have allowed this feeling of disconnection and separation, which we then perceive and attached to as our personal truth and then create our whole life based on this sense of of separation and disconnect. And the more we believe we're a separate self, the more we strengthen our egoic sense of self And this is what is meant by the term, dualistic experience. We hear that term a lot in, in Eastern philosophy in

particular. And dualism means that we perceive the world as me versus you versus it. So there's this constant idea or belief in subject and object. And and if you want more evidence of how you ego works, we just need to look at various polarities in life. So polarities are things like light and dark heaven and earth, black and white, right and wrong. And the more our ego perceives these polarities, through this dualistic viewpoint, we see things as

separate. So we've, instead of seeing heaven and earth as one, we see it as two separate things entirely. Instead of seeing feminine and masculine as different qualities of one, we see them as different sexes. So we, the more and more conditioned by dualistic thinking we are, the more we perceive any polarities as separate, separate objects and separate things. And I read a very interesting book recently

by Andrew halachik. And he says in there that our ability to think things into being is really the kind of the root of the issue. So if you even think of the word thing, it's very similar to the word think. So instead of saying, You're thinking you're actually thinking, we're constantly thinking things into existence by virtue of the fact of this, the separation. So how do we change this? How do we stop this constant, realistic, conceptual

thinking? You know, discard said, I think, therefore I am. But I'd like to turn that on its head and say I am. And I also happen to think it's, you know, how do we change something that has been so ingrained into our society and into the fabric of our belief system for for such a long time. So I think the very first thing is to even know that there's something to change that

we have to change. Because most of us are so lost in thought, just wondering, throughout our lives busy, will never even have the, you know, the kind of the the glimmer of, of anything of hope of change, or even the awareness that there's something to change. So I think that's just even having that acknowledgement as an incredible first step that that most of us will never even get to. And then secondly, I think having a good reason for change.

So what this means is knowing that you want to be unified with all life, you want to experience life from your original heart, you want to feel you're plugged in, that you're plugged into the complete web of life, and actually experience your life, through your body, and in a very embodied way and make the most of it. You know, I did read a funny thing recently that said, when you did, you're going to be dead for a very long time. So you've rather make the most of every moment you've got right

now. And it's really true, you know, let's take this opportunity of this embodiment to really experience and love wholeheartedly. But this isn't always that easy when we haven't had the experience first, or we aren't easily able to access that experience anymore. So for instance, just because I may be had that experience as a child doesn't mean that as an adult, I'm going to find it very easy to reconnect and to get into the space.

in the Buddhist Dzogchen teachings, they say that, at first, when we starting on a particular practice, it's very important to cultivate the right view. Because when we have the right viewpoint, it builds trust and it builds self confidence. And we must build on our view and deeply have a reason deeply understand why we're doing the practice and nurture it. And when we've got that view, the experience realisation will

come. So, in this case, we want to try and get out into nature light, really put in time to do the practice, practice mindfulness, allow ourselves to just deeply rest and allow this met this natural state to arise. And what exactly is the view so our natural state is always

present. So actually, right now, as I'm speaking these words to you, as you're listening to these words, are state of pure connection into all life is 100% present, it's they exist right now, it's just that because of our thinking mind, and the fact that we are so conceptual, we, it's been clouded over, so we are unable to feel it, because it's being clouded over by all of these different thoughts.

And when you can start to move the thoughts aside, we can actually start to feel that there's a lot of space that we, we have within us and this is the pure natural state of our being, it's a very vibrant and energetic feeling. This is why I keep saying it's a feeling it really is a feeling. And there's a lot of joy involved in this feeling. So moving the clouds apart, and and picking our minds from this very conceptual framework that they're on or in is of critical importance to any spiritual

practice. But very important for that nature connection, which has become something that's that's so foreign to us. A little practical example of what I mean by saying that our conceptual man's hold us back is that say we are experiencing

nature. So imagine you're sitting on a very wild beach, the winds blowing the elements side full force, there's a beautiful strong smell in the air, perhaps the sun is beating down and knew what we tend to do in be stuck in our conceptual mind as we constantly narrating and telling ourselves stories. So we have a story, whether it's good or bad for everything we relate to the sun, perhaps we think the sun is Phil's just right, and we happy we might get

a 10. Or perhaps we worrying about sunburn, or maybe be complaining because it's too hot. Or maybe the wind is bothersome, or perhaps we

feeling thirsty. So we constantly narrating these stories in our head, instead of just allowing ourselves to sit on the beach, and whatever comes up, you know, whether the weather changes and we get rained on, we can just actually have that as an as an experience, free from all of our concepts, doesn't mean you can't, you don't have to do anything about it and eventually get up and leave. But it's the story that attaches to the experience. That is the concept that holds us back from our true

natural state. It's not, it's not the state. It's not that we're not there, of course, we are there. So the only thing that's the problem here is is our state of mind. So to get beyond our thinking mind is the only way to recognise our innate natural state. And doing this with the support of nature or the world helps us hugely, but it doesn't have to be a roadblock. That, you know, if you don't have access to nature, or to a very wild place, it doesn't mean that you can't

practice these things. You can't, you can't try and immerse yourself in nature and allow

this feeling to arise. And that's where the power of the imagination and our daydreams and our nighttime dreams just come in so useful that it's such a hugely powerful tool for us is to, to use our creative imagination, because we can actually using our imagination and even our daydreams, we can create these experiences for ourself to allow our bodies, our, you know, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual selves, to reconnect and to remember what that

feeling feels like. And it helps us to then integrate that back into into our lives. So, for me on a personal note, by being able to experience this natural state a little bit more and more over the past 10 years that have been on this particular nature connection journey. It's been hugely transformative for me and just breaking down so many of my, you know, preconceived ideas, judgments, so many beliefs that I had, that I've loosened criticisms on other

people. And the more and more I'm able to do this and get into nature, the more energy I derive from living in the present moment. And that's a really wonderful thing. It's just completely joyful, that there's no other way to describe it of being fully present in the moment, right here right now experiencing experiencing life.

So, you know, this isn't something that we can only experience in a retreat setting, or, you know, in a mountain cave, we can still have a very ordinary mundane life, ordinary careers, relationships, that we can find this place of liveliness, and joy and connection within ourselves. And then we can start to truly live our lives and not thinking about living our lives. So it's, it's a very, very real, tangible and

embodied experience. It's not a lofty idea, or philosophical or religious ideal that we aspiring to, or when we start to understand our conceptual mind and how the ego works, and what dualism and separation means and, and what the consequences of that is, we can start to see why the original state, their original heart, of connection, and, and non dualism, so unity with all life is so critical, it's just, it's everything that we need in order to not feel

disconnected and separated. And using nature as quite literally the most natural way for us to get back to that state, we can get back to that state, through working, you know, just with the mind and trying to break down our concepts and beliefs. And we can do these things at the same time. So you can have a practice where you are just working with the mind saying meditation in breaking down egoic structure. But we've got the tool of nature, right here for us to use

in our everyday lives. And it's up to us to use that and to incorporate natural nature back into everything in our lives, but also into our spiritual practice. And the great thing is, is there's no rules for this. It's not prescriptive, match, like a wilderness, it's, you know, it's unscripted. It's, it's, it's open for you to, to explore, and to create your own adventure on this nature connection journey. There's a really lovely quote by chits and rubbishy that says, Only you can

make your mind beautiful. I hope you enjoyed this topic today. It's something I could talk about for hours and hours on end. So I had to restrain myself with just the kind of you know, the high level points. But really, if you've got questions or comments, please reach out to me and I'd love to hear your

points of view. And in the coming episodes, I'll start going a little deeper into nature connection and into a few tools that I've used to really soften soften the hold that the ego has has on us and I'll be sharing those too. Thanks for stopping by.