Common Ground: How Nature Heals

September 2005

How Nature Heals

Five Lessons For Us All

by Stephen Altschuler

When a human being thinks of relaxing, time in nature often comes to mind. Resting by the ocean on a beach or walking through a redwood forest or driving across a great, vast, open plain. “Getting away from it all” or “getting back to basics” or “communing with nature.” A human being goes to nature and feels better, is more at ease. Muscles relax; back pain subsides, headaches vanish, soothed by the view, sound and scent of a sparkling sea or lake. Depression and anxiety fade as our emotional ground stabilizes and centers us.

Most of us have experienced this, but we don’t usually know how it happens. What is it about nature that heals us?

On a biological level, our cells are battle-worn veterans conditioned to stimuli such as the noise of our neighbor’s teenage rock band practicing next door, or cars trying to muscle their way onto a freeway, or a heightened terrorist alert on TV — all of which usually tighten and electrify the body and mind. We understand how these things cause stress. We brace at the first sign of intensity and can almost sense it coming.

We are, as a whole, sensitive beings. We know that physically when a pebble in our shoe makes us stop our hike. We know that emotionally when an overheard ethnic slur offends us. Even when we are not sensitive, we think we are — to the point of delusion. As Mike Tyson, the boxer who bit off the ear of an opponent and did time for rape said recently — in all sincerity: “My biggest weakness is my sensitivity. I am too sensitive a person.” In Tyson’s case, sensitivity “all depends what is is” (in the words of another deluded celebrity).

Our sense doors, often unbeknownst to us, are always open, sucking, sipping, saturated, unfiltered, unfettered, unable to block out unwanted miasma. Buddhist teachers admonish practitioners to guard the sense doors against unwanted infiltration, but even after years of practice, that doesn’t always work for a 21st century citizen of the world. (It doesn’t even always work for a Buddhist monk. Just check inside some Bangkok monasteries to see saffron-robed, shaven-headed monks watching TV. )

So we understand how stress and over-stimulation hurt. And in knowing this, we can begin to unravel the mystery of how nature heals.

The human brain is designed to inhibit excessive stimuli from entering and overwhelming the circuitry. Through its system of neurotransmitters and receptor sites, it keeps a balance. Some psychotropic medications reduce the receptor sites to cut down on stimuli, both internal and external, reaching the brain. This gives the schizophrenic, for example, some relief from the flood of voices, hallucinations, and paranoid delusions that are daily fare. Sounds, smells, sights — not to mention a tsunami of internal mono/dialogue of self-criticism, judgments and assumptions of the motives of others — inundate most of the rest of us who are not psychotic.

Nature helps calm these mental processes that can so jangle our nerves. It does this by demonstrating how it heals itself, in multiple ways, not the least of which are these five.

Acceptance

Nature “accepts” that death is part of life, that without death, life on Earth would eventually end, choked off for lack of resources. Perhaps nature’s processes of acceptance aren’t as cognitive as a human being’s but it is obvious through observation of its systems. The predator-prey relationship between some species maintains a balance in any given eco-system. There is no revenge. No wars start. There are no feuds. Human beings, on the other hand, attack each other with vengeance and violence, often without provocation or motive. We keep brain dead people alive with feeding tubes and other machinery, denying death’s importance in the fabric of life. We spend much of the time focusing on things that help repress death’s role in life. Consequently, humans are often out of balance, living empty, uncreative lives, full of disease, discontent, and judgment.

Time

Nature is master of time. It uses time to heal and knows that given enough time, the process of growth will balance the processes of disease and decay. At one time, Earth was a caldron of volcanic gases, unable to sustain life. Recent evidence shows a decrease in oxygen caused a “Great Dying” over a 20 million year period. Over time — some 150 million years — things changed and life again took hold as conditions allowed. We see it plainly just 10 or so years after a hurricane, fire, flood, or volcano unleashes its destructive force. Nature rebounds. Nature regenerates. Nature grows even after the most devastating natural disaster. In fact, disaster is just another vehicle of expansion and growth when time is introduced into the equation.

Human beings, on the other hand, are usually impatient, unwilling to wait for time to “heal all wounds.” We “push the river,” “make it happen,” “just do it,” and “just can’t wait.” We rebuild in flood plains. We rebuild in fire-ravaged forests. We rebuild in so-called “tornado alleys.” Through ignorance, we keep the wheel of suffering turning. Educators may tell us differently, but human beings simply don’t learn.

Play of Opposites

Nature acknowledges that, in order to know what cold feels like, you must know what hot feels like. In other words, in nature, all is grist for the growth mill. Everything is used in its processes, from the tiniest molecule to the largest mammal, from a single blade of grass to vast meadows and plains. There is no judgment that something is better than or more important than anything else. All is part of the embroidery. Ignore one aspect and you ignore all.

Human beings, on the other hand, are always judging and labeling something as more important than something else. We compartmentalize and dichotomize. We dissect and categorize. For humans, the world is full of fragments and dualities and often the perspective of the whole goes unnoticed. In ancient China, that perspective was embodied in the Tao, the essence of Nature itself that transforms opposites into complementary forces (yin and yang; the receptive and the creative) — Nature’s invisible hands working to create a cohesive whole.

Wabi Sabi

This Japanese perspective says that, at any given moment, everything is either evolving from emptiness into something or devolving from something into emptiness. The wabi sabi practitioner will put a frame of some sort — like a photograph — around this process and elevate it to art. Anything in decay is potentially valued and emphasized and becomes an object of reflection and meditation. In wabi sabi, as in nature, you don’t get rid of the old or rotten, you acknowledge it as part of a web that is constantly evolving and devolving in the process of life.

Human beings, on the other hand, generally tear down the old and replace it with something new. We paint over the rust and denigrate and abhor decay in any form, equating it with death and despair. We generally do not honor historic ruins and relics, including old-growth forests in the US, we assess the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for its commercial value, downplaying its function as a sanctuary for animals and humans (which is easy to do if it’s only a place we think about and never visit). As a consequence, there is little soul in our growth and development, and without soul, growth is destructive.

The Gaia Principle

In nature, all is connected. Nothing exists independently of anything else. Anything sick or diseased will affect anything healthy and that which is healthy will help heal that which is diseased, or at least allow it to die without remorse or fanfare. It is a mutually inclusive system. Caring is too conscious a concept but all in nature cares for all else because each individual takes only what it needs. There is an implicit understanding of the planet as Gaia — a web woven to sustain life, not at the expense of other species but in cooperation with others.

True, by human estimation, nature seems violent and cruel at times, but it is never gratuitous, never excessive, and its consumption always ends when hunger or desire subsides. Humans on the other hand, are never satiated. We always seem to want more and often will grab more at the expense of others. The generosity of nature is often absent and, the moment hunger is gone, human eyes often look about for the next meal — food, money, sex, health — even though actual hunger is no longer present.

Nature has much to teach us, if only we could slow down, observe, reflect upon, and change our grasping ways. We are an impatient species. Nature, by contrast, is and always will be patient, allowing time, acceptance, decay, growth, and the thread that weaves it all together, free rein to nurture, heal, live, and blossom.

Stephen Altschuler is the author of The Mindful Hiker: On the Trail to Find the Path (DeVorss Publications, 2004) and Hidden Walks in the East Bay and Marin: Pathways, Essays, and Yesterdays (Great West Books, 2001). The Coalition of Visionary Resources has named The Mindful Hiker the Book of the Year for 2005 and Spirit and Sky has named mindfulhiker.com the top spiritual site for 2005. He also leads retreats in nature, the next one, with Buddhist teacher Bruce Fortin, for three days starting September 30, 2005. More details at www.mindfulhiker.com.

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