Posts tagged with "nature"

Where did the project idea come from?

fruits to seeds...

fruits to seeds...

WHERE DID THE IDEA COME FROM?

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

Two questions I get asked all the time about the project that I’ll try to answer, at least in part…

BUT the answer to the second question really lies in the process of the project over the coming months. “It’s all about” how the process of this project affects the people taking part, how it changes the way they look at the world (theirs and others), how it changes the way they act and behave and also how they influence others’ to change. Of course we can talk about sustainable behaviour change but that must be the least inspiring combination of unimaginative words known in our language. I think it is more about the art of living, the creation and finding of meaning, rediscovering ourselves and what it means to be a human being alive in  2008 facing the pressures that we all face, yet finding that underneath our skins lies a unifying thread of humanity. Lofty ideals? Perhaps. But without lifting ourselves up to some noble aspirations, taking full responsibility and truthfully facing ourselves and where we come from as a species how can we genuinely hope to create a powerful vision of the next century for future generations of any species?

 So where did the idea for this project come from?

Well, like all ideas it is an amalgamation of thoughts, approaches, experiences, needs, creative process and partnerships. From my own perspective I can trace the birth of the idea back to about eighteen months ago when I was working up campaign and communication ideas for sustainable lifestyles for WWF and co-incidentally went on a WWF personal effectiveness course. There I was given an article called “For An Ecology of the Heart” that I will try to find for this blog. It was from Resurgence magazine, a magazine that I had (perhaps surprisingly) never heard of before, let alone read.

As soon as I read the words in “For An Ecology of the Heart” I was thrown into a storm of ideas and excitement – here, at last, was someone eloquently saying some of the things that I had been thinking and fumbling with for a while but had not yet found the means to express. I wondered if WWF could combine some form of these ideas with personal development approaches, communicate the concepts far wider and INSPIRE people to “sustainability” through a reconnection with nature and what it means to be human. For this communications project to work it would be far better to take real, interesting people on a journey spread over some time and for them to communicate it themselves. I believe there is nothing more powerful or affecting than personal experience. This led me on a personal quest to discover more about an inspiring and relatively unknown approach that combined art, nature, spirituality and psychology that I discovered mainly came under the name of eco psychology. Six months later I took part in the incredible eco therapy course run by Dave Key and Mary-Jayne Rust, upon which much of this project’s design and process is based (read Dave Key’s blog on here).

The intention is that we communicate as widely as possible about this project and research the process. The range of people taking part and the amount of time they will be thinking and creating should lead to some fascinating blogs (and potentially lifechanging experiences). For some of the blog readers the ideas and experience will resonate, for others it will leave them cold, but what this project won’t do is just leave people not knowing that this approach exists.  And just maybe…it could even create genuine, lasting change.

Posted: September 27, 2008 | Author: Jules Weston | Comments: Add 

Why bother trying this project?

 My experience of doing the eco therapy course with Dave Key has led me to believe that an experiential approach to “sustainability” holds a vital key to a strong elemental awakening and connection with what we often call “the environment” but really mean the entire magnificence of the natural world and all its ecosystems.

By experiencing the feeling of being human in the elements of wild nature, relying on self/instinct/human nature and being wholly and solely responsible for self care, choices in behaviour and actions this engenders a heightened, accentuated awareness of ourselves as human beings and our absolute, visceral connection with nature:our ecological selves.

All separation from nature is artificial, constructed, superficial and ultimately flimsy. Witness our attempt to separate from the powerful elements of nature in volcanic eruptions, floods, storms, typhoons and now the chaos of climate change. We are unavoidably part of, dependant not dominant.

Can we live an instinctively “lighter” life on the planet without this sense of what it means to be “part of” something far greater than ourselves?  Why would we care or bother trying?

Self responsibility is key. Without it we don’t feel responsible for ourselves, our actions or the repercussions of them, nor others, human and non human. At the minute it feels like humans are holding all the power but not taking much responsibility, at least not in a positive empowering way.

Yet self responsibility brings a tremendous feeling of strength. When you go through something like the solo experience from dawn till dusk (that is planned in these workshops), face the fears of being alone, of being wholly self reliant outdoors, some physical discomfort and the anxiety about the psychological impacts there is the sense of feeling stronger, more comfortable in our skin, more connected with our lives, ourselves and others, more grounded, safer and happier.  Something happens to people when they do the solo experience.

Einstein purportedly said that there was only one important question to ask: “Is the universe friendly?”

I believe that the universe is friendly.

Posted: September 11, 2008 | Author: Jules Weston | Comments: Add