“The Japanese work is essential in my mind, a Rosetta stone,” Allan Logan, a Harvard guest lecturer, naturopath, and member of the scientific committee of the International Society of Nature and Forest Medicine, (which is, naturally, based in Japan), had told me. ” We have to validate the ideas scientifically through stress physiology or we’re still at Walden Pond. (Note Thoreau’s Walden Pond still works for me. See my Lighthouse Reflected XXIII, published April 30th 2020.)
The Japanese have good reason to study how to unwind: In addition to those long workdays, pressure and competition for schools and jobs help drive the third highest suicide rate in the world (after South Korea and Hungary). One fifth of Japan’s residents live in greater Tokyo, and 8.7 million people have to ride the metro every day. Rush hour is so crowded that white-gloved workers help shove people onto the trains leading to another unique term, tsukin-jigoku- commuting hell.
The opening excerpts are from, the Nature Fix, written by Florence Williams, published in 2017.
Nature, it turns out, is good for civilization. This book explores the science behind what poets and philosophers have known for eons: place matters. Aristotle believed walks in the open air clarified the mind. Darwin, Tesla, Einstein, walked in the gardens to help them think, (excerpt from page 4).
After that nightmare commute illustrated above I would certainly need what Williams goes on to illustrate, “forest bathing”. Neuroscientists, with the help of technology, figuring out and studying the effect of something as beautiful and complex as nature on something as beautiful and complex as the human brain. ( Excerpt from page 34.)
The Nature Fix, is an expanding thesis of optimal health, both on individual and societal points of view, aided by nature. The baths of bird song, the fragrances of the blooms, and the change of air, like a trip on the sea, can present positive body and emotional results. All that and more tested by monitors of hearts and respiration, showing the benefits of reductions in stress levels.
Williams, mixes philosophy, poetry and literature into her recipe of this story that explains to the reader, Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. (Front Cover). Examples that resonated with me are as follows: The faint whisper of rain and running water was still there and it had the same tender note of solitude and perfection, (Tove Jansson). Most people never listen, (Ernest Hemingway) Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life, (John Muir).
If you have been following along the years I have shared my journals and reflections, it is easy to understand how the Nature Fix, by Florence Williams, resonates so profoundly with me. The Lighthouse I visit each month, by its very design, is situated on the shore of Nature’s prolific theater of sound and olfactory salt laden air cleansing my senses while touching my soul! But, you remind me, my Lighthouse only lives in my mind’s eye. True! But having lived in New England for most of my current life, I have had the opportunities of living near the ocean, in Danvers, Centerville, Yarmouth and the island of Nantucket. While living in western Massachusetts has gifted me the beauty of forest, meadows, rivers and a myriad of water fowl, and bird song. So it must be easy to understand how and why I am so healthy. Well, I must admit the pacemaker, the weekly shot of Ozempic, and daily doses of high pressure medicine help too. And that is the crack in the mirror that tells me I am still too young to fully integrate with nature. The angels of healthcare have aided me and my family to live despite the frailty of heart disease and the brutality of cancer. I am thankful that we live in and near nature along with world class healthcare institutions in New England.
I am young and new at all this, but I have been practicing. Again you ask, practicing what? I am learning the discipline to pray as if I already have the good health. To pray as if my loved ones already have the tumors and cancer gone. I am learning to pray not just with my mind but also with my heart. With the compassion and feelings of what it is like to be free of the rigors of illness and aging. My heart’s compassion gives me that opportunity. Along with it, the birdsong, the tree baths, the rhythms of the tides, the flower’s scent on the breeze, and the touch of her hand complete my neighborhood of love.
It is said that the first one hundred years of life hurt the most. After one hundred years it’s easy peasy!
Thank you for reading.
Be at peace and joy!
Mark