For the past few days I’ve been attending The Nature Talks – an online conference that has brought together nature practitioners from across the globe. In one of the sessions the speaker spoke of what we mean by the term nature and it got me thinking.
If you were to look at any indigenous language- you’ll struggle to find a word for nature. To start you wonder why that would be? Surely nature is all around them – they’re part of it. And that’s the point. Nature wasn’t seen as something that needed to be named. It wasn’t something separate to them – it was part of them as it is part of us.
When I embarked on my training to become a guide – I told people I was going to become a Forest Therapy Guide but as my training progressed I found that didn’t sit right with me. As a term it felt too constrictive. The subject came up in one of the sessions with my trainers. One describes herself as a Nature Therapy Guide and I thought YES!!! This is me. It’s always been nature who I have turned to in my hour of need. Call her Mother Nature, Gaia, Pachamama … or any other name – she has been and continues to be a guiding light for me.
So what is nature? I’ve looked up dictionary definitions and there isn’t one clear definition from what I can see. The non-man made world? All of the universe? Things connected to the elements (water, fire, earth and air)? Reality (as opposed to art or effect)? To me it’s all of these things combined and more. It is genuine. It is true. It is real. It is honest. Nature can be soft, can be soft, can be beautiful, can be ugly, can be kind and can be unforgiving. Nature is the most amazing thing.
As a Nature Therapy Guide I want to help you connect with nature – whether that’s the nature of the environment in which you’re in or whether that’s the nature within you. In my humble opinion, now, more than ever, we need to reconnect with the nature that is both within and around us. It is only upon really knowing it that you will really love it. It is once you really love it that you will want to protect and nourish it.
Want to find out more? Join me for a nature therapy session …
The Eco Monkey 