Reconnect with Nature

If you are wondering why and how more nature and a deeper connection with nature to help you to become calmer and more serene and better with all this stress and the demands that rain down on us every day, on this page you will find (my) answer to these questions.

You will learn, among other things,

Reconnection with nature?

In my early 20s, I once had a very impressive experience when I rode my bike home from a party in the morning.

The first rays of sunshine were shining through the trees of the forest I was riding through, when I suddenly felt a feeling of connection with the nature around me that was so intense that it almost knocked me off my bike.

Even today, over 30 years later, I can still feel the power behind this feeling inside me.

And that, although the forest I drove through back then was actually not even particularly beautiful. Just a forest like any other.

This experience showed me how much nature can become a true Source of strength in our lives if we can build a deep connection with it.

To reconnect with nature, to feel the connection with nature and life again, is therefore the Thread, which runs through everything here at Flowfeather.

Times of crisis

We live in a very turbulent time, which is characterized by new developments in all areas of society, by upheavals and uncertainties and more and more by crises and an ever-increasing number of years. increasingly aggressive social climate .

In addition, on a global level, there is climate change, deforestation of tropical rainforests, pollution of the world's oceans, and an extinction of species on an unimaginable scale – to name just a few of the problems.

And things don't look any better on a personal level either.

inflation, rent explosion, a permanent Increasing work stress, worries about losing their jobs, crumbling relationships, loneliness, isolation and a seemingly increasingly uncertain future perspective.

Of course, not everything is negative and you should actually focus more on the positive things in life.

But:

The developments described are there and cannot simply be denied. And that wouldn't be good either.

It is much better to ask oneself what reasons there might be for the fact that we have all these problems today, with which we struggle daily - globally and each of us individually in our everyday lives.

Because that could provide an approach to how we can better deal with these crises could.

How did we actually get to where we are today?

Of course, social developments always have many reasons that lead to some current state of affairs.

And I can't say anything about many of them, because I simply don't have the expertise to do so. I'm not a sociologist, political scientist or economist.

Nevertheless, I think I can say that a major reason for our problems today is the Overemphasis on the mind and rational thinking in our modern world.

We pride ourselves a lot on the achievements of our minds and modern science. And undeniably, science and reason have made our lives much better in many areas.

Today, technical achievements make many things easier for us that used to be tedious, time-consuming or even impossible to do.

I would even describe myself as quite tech-savvy and find the current technical developments, especially in the field of information and communication technology, really exciting.

All of this has been made possible by our intellect and our rational thinking. But we pay a high price for the "sole dominion" of the intellect.

This very problem was already addressed in 1988 at a congress in Hanover called "Mind and Nature".

Spirit and nature

At this congress, representatives of science (physicists, chemists, physiologists, psychologists) and representatives of Christian and Far Eastern religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Shintoism) as well as philosophers met to discuss the necessities and possibilities of a holistic view of the world to discuss.

The various lectures and panel discussions held there resulted in a book edited by Hans-Peter Dürr and Walther Ch. Zimmerli, which I virtually devoured in my youth.

However, the congress has not changed much in our worldview.

More than 30 years later, we still see the mind in our Western society as the main authority and as the basis for decision-making for our lives and our actions as a society.

And of course, the mind is undeniably an important tool when it comes to solving problems. He's really good at that.

However, it becomes problematic when we start (or continue) to consider the mind as the sole authority in our lives and the quiet voice of our heart - the intuitive wisdom within us - increasingly fading out.

Then we get out of balance because the opposite pole to our rational thinking is simply missing.

Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance

One film that saw and picked up on this as early as the 1980s is the one made by American director Godfrey Reggio in collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola produced experimental film Koyaanisqatsi.

Koyaanisqatsi comes from the language of the Hopi Indians and means something like "life out of balance".

Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance

The film is completely devoid of audio commentary and language (with the exception of the word Koyaanisqatsi itself) and essentially consists of a sequence of scenes from our modern world, which are contrasted with scenes from nature, accompanied by dark music composed by Philipp Glass.

Very depressing (and impressive) are the hectic, alienation and destruction of a world in which man seems to have become more and more out of balance and has moved further and further away from nature.

Of course, one must see the film against the backdrop of the time in which it was made. And of course, there is another side to it - not everything people do is bad, and there is a lot of positive news, even when it comes to how people deal with the environment.

Nevertheless:

The film shows where a purely rational and rational view of the world leads if it is not a Counterweight in the form of Intuition, introspection and wisdom of the heart are signs of primarily (but not exclusively) East Asian wisdom teachings, which are very popular with us today for good reason.

And all things that make us more familiar with ourselves and our own nature if we would give them more space in our lives.

Find your nature

One of the sliders on the homepage says "Find your nature.This slogan plays exactly on that. It is, of course, meant ambiguously: on the one hand, it is about rediscovering nature, finding it and building a relationship with nature - and thus making it an important part of one's own life.

For some, that might mean being by the sea, walking along the beach and listening to the waves. For the other it may be the mountains to which he has a very special relationship, for me it is above all (but not only) the forest.

But it's also about rediscovering nature on your doorstep - not everyone has the opportunity to spend their vacation by the sea or in the mountains.

It is therefore also about recognizing the value of nature in small things again and appreciating "completely normal" nature: The flowers on the roadside, the butterfly fluttering past the window, or the sunbeams falling through the leaves of the trees and forming a pattern on the ground.

And also about finding (one's) favorite place in nature - precisely: "Find your nature".

On the other hand, it is also about finding one's own "inner" nature in a very concrete way. "Who am I really? - regardless of all the thoughts, worries, all the everyday stress and the hustle and bustle around me.

We are most likely to find an answer to such questions in nature. Because that's where all the distractions fall away from us, with which we otherwise surround ourselves or by which we are surrounded.

"In the tranquility of nature you find yourself, and in your authenticity you touch the hearts of others", is a beautiful quote, whose author is unfortunately not known.

But that's exactly what it's all about: finding yourself in nature in order to build a deep and happy relationship not only with yourself, but also with the people around you.

And by the way, we find our way to inner peace and serenity - because stress and hectic have simply no place in life when you are at peace with yourself, completely in your inner center.

Because stress and hecticness arise primarily from our thoughts and the worries we have every day about all sorts of things. If, on the other hand, we find our own nature in nature, we are completely in the now. Then we are in the flow, "everything is running smoothly" and we follow the natural flow of life.

And that's what Flowfeather is all about: finding flow in life through connection with your (own) nature.

What we miss most

In order for the mind to solve problems, it divides and divides what it deals with in order to then analyze the individual parts and find a solution.

He distinguishes between himself and what he investigates and, in addition, separates what he examines further and further into its individual parts.

This also works very well, but destroys something essential, namely the feeling of connectedness.

"[...] the one who breaks something to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom", says J.R.R. Tolkien's wizard Gandalf in his "Lord of the Rings".

I believe that it is precisely this Feeling of connection is what we miss the most today. And I believe that alienation from nature plays a major role in this.

Because: We are not only a part of nature, we are Nature. When we move away from nature, we always distance ourselves from ourselves and our own nature.

This is how we lose the connection to ourselves, to others and to life as a whole. And that has consequences - in the form of all the problems I described above.

If I lose my connection to life, I am no longer centered. Then I am "out of balance", as the film Koyaanisqatsi expresses it.

I'm then in a permanent state of stress and radiate this to the outside world.

And if that applies to an entire society or an entire civilization, then it also has global effects – as we can see everywhere and every day.

Descartes' view of nature, which has shaped our Western thinking so deeply, is a major reason why we have lost more and more connection to nature.

Nature was (and is) considered a source of wisdom in many cultures and was and is deeply revered. With Descartes at the latest, nature loses this position and becomes a mere accumulation of soulless matter that can be used at will.

Our current attitude towards nature and the often missing Connection with nature are, in my view, an expression of this view developed by Descartes in the 17th century.

And also the "Subdue the earth" of the Christian religion has contributed to us losing our connection to nature more and more.

Boniface and the Donar Oak

An expression of such a view of nature is an event that occurred in the year 723 AD:

St. Boniface had the Donar Oak felling a probably very old and powerful oak tree dedicated to the god Donar, which represented one of the most important sanctuaries of the Germanic peoples - to show that the Christian God was more powerful than the Germanic god Donar.

For the Germanic tribes, trees were sacred. In their culture, it was a tree that forms the axis of the world (the World Tree Yggdrasil).

Somehow, this story always reminds me of the attack on the home tree in the movie Avatar, one of my favorite movies.

And it shows an alienation from nature, which has been running through the thinking of the West since the early Middle Ages and which has led to us today becoming more and more aware of our own nature alienated.

After all, it is inextricably linked to the nature around us. We are not just a part of nature, we are are Nature.

And that's why I also believe that this is exactly where the Solving many of our problems today lies - both global and many of our individual problems.

When we reconnect with nature, we also reconnect more with our own nature and our own inner self.

In this way, we create the necessary counterbalance to the overemphasis of the mind and come back into balance (more).

In science, one also speaks of the Biophilie-Hypothese and by that we mean that we are already closely connected to nature purely from our evolution.

And that's exactly what we feel when we're in nature.

That is why we feel so good in nature and why we are automatically more with ourselves in nature and less trapped in our intellectual thinking.

And that is why reconnecting with nature is an important step – towards many profound changes that become possible when we build a deep and strong connection with nature.

"Making Friends with Nature"

All this may sound good at first. But maybe you're wondering what you get out of giving nature more space in your life and rebuilding more connection with nature?

What exactly becomes different when we see more in nature than a resource that we can use for ourselves?

Why is it worth considering the idea of making nature your friend?

"Making friends with nature", as Serge Kahili King often formulates it.

It's worth it for many reasons. Here are a few of them:

A holistic view of the world

Especially the last points in my list above are sometimes difficult for us Westerners to understand. Other cultures often have a completely different view of the world and life.

A view from which we can learn a lot.

However, in my eyes, it also makes no sense to simply copy and blindly adopt the views of other - mostly original - cultures (which would also be a form of cultural appropriation).

But what we urgently need in our time is a modern form of spirituality, which is inspired by these different ways of looking at the world and life, without at the same time completely ignoring our rational thinking.

A balance between head and heart, between spirit and nature, to use the title of the aforementioned congress.

Modern physics shows that this does not have to be a contradiction. It not only leaves room for a view beyond the purely material, it even emphasizes the Role of consciousness in the emergence of what we call our reality.

And thus comes very close to many traditional wisdoms of the most diverse cultures. For such a consciousness is nothing other than what might be called the spirit, spirit, or soul of something.

Shinkansen - The fastest train in the world

Japanese Shintoism, one of Japan's two main religions today, for example, looks similar to Hawaiian Shintoism Huna Philosophy everything in this world as animated - including things created by humans.

In a television report, I once saw how the two chief engineers of the famous Japanese high-speed train "Shinkansen" explained their relationship to their work.Bullet train" - after all, the fastest train in the world - directed a prayer to the spirit of the train at a small altar specially set up in the train for this purpose before a test run.

Perhaps the Japanese engineers are not "from yesterday", perhaps they are simply ahead of their time. Or rather: ahead of our time, because in Japan such an approach to technology is everyday and normal.

Now you don't necessarily have to build an altar right away to make 😉 your TV or computer beneficial.

But:

A spiritual worldview in which not only humans, animals and plants, but all creation, including mountains, rivers, clouds and the wind, is an expression of an intelligent, communicative consciousness, would certainly contribute to the solution of many of our problems today.

And:

Such a worldview does not contradict what (modern) science has to say about the world.

Consciousness is more than a function of the brain

In our Western world, we often equate consciousness with mind or intelligence. For example, we attribute all the more consciousness to animals the higher their cognitive abilities are.

In my eyes, however, consciousness is rather what one could call a creative spirit - and that is reflected in everything that has been "created".

In other words, in the whole of nature.

This insight has been an integral part of the traditional knowledge of indigenous cultures for thousands of years and which is the basis for the fact that all indigenous cultures regard the earth and the whole of creation as sacred and feel closely connected to it.

And also an insight that is increasingly coming into focus for modern science - especially modern physics.

The physicist Federico Faggin, inventor of the touchscreen and co-inventor of the microprocessor, even decided, after a kind of awakening experience, to dedicate his entire life to researching the connection between modern physics and spirituality. Here you can find a very interesting interview with him.

In his work, he concludes that consciousness exists independently of the brain and matter. Consciousness is not a product of the brain and thought. Rather, the entire material world, including the brain, is a manifestation of consciousness.

The same conclusion is reached by the Dutch cardiologist and death researcher Pim van Lommel, who as a physician has studied the role of consciousness intensively and has conducted a number of studies with people who have had near-death experiences.

Perhaps we should finally start to rethink our one-sided material view of the world, towards a modern and holistic view that considers nature and the material world as an expression of an all-encompassing consciousness.

Developing a connection with nature, but how?

The question remains, how do I find more connection with nature and thus a holistic and at the same time modern view of the world?

I believe that there are basically two ways to rebuild more connection to nature and thus enrich one's life.

"The Great Outdoors"

The simplest: To be in a magnificent natural landscape stop.

Because then we feel the power and energy of nature very directly. And feel and automatically connected to the nature around us.

We experience a feeling of awe (Awe feeling), which studies have shown can even have a positive impact on our physical and mental health.

It's as if nature itself makes us feel connected to it.

For me, the national parks of the USA and Canada, the landscapes of Iceland and Greenland with their waterfalls and volcanic landscapes, or the fjords of Norway and New Zealand are examples of such impressive landscapes.

Some of them I was allowed to visit, others I only know from pictures.

But sometimes it's enough for me to just look at the pictures of such landscapes to feel the energy behind them.

This is also the reason why there are many such images here at Flowfeather.

Because this can also strengthen your connection with nature to a certain extent, even if this cannot be a substitute for really being in nature.

In Germany, unfortunately, we hardly have such impressive landscapes (anymore). The Eibsee, parts of the course of the Isar, Bavarian Forest, Kellerwald and Reinhardswald (still, as a wind farm is also to be built here) or some areas of the Baltic Sea coast may come closest to this.

Open to the Good Vibes

But there is a second way to build more connection with nature, which we can also use in our cultural landscape to feel connected to nature.

A possibility that comes from ourselves.

If we inwardly open if we are open to the good vibes of nature, then we can also feel very connected to nature when we experience it "only" on a small scale.

An important step in this process: Consciously experiencing and perceiving nature - an approach from the Mindfulness Teaching (engl. Mindfulness), which enables us to encounter nature with an open mind and without judgmental thoughts.

Then the sunlight reflected in a dewdrop can release a wave of power and energy in us.

That's exactly how I felt back then during my experience with the bike.

I had already driven several kilometers when I got to this place. Constantly pedaling with the pedals can be a very meditative activity and probably contributed to me being inwardly open to the experience at the time.

But you don't necessarily have to get 😀 on your bike for that.

There are a variety of Techniques, Mindfulness Exercises and Self-coaching toolsthat you can use to create this inner openness.

You can find some of them in my Daily Flow Exercises - simple and short micro-exercises that help you break free from feelings of stress and get back into the flow.

In this way you can strengthen your connection with nature, the everyday stress counter our modern times and Relaxation in nature to find.

And that is even if you don't have the opportunity to stand by a secluded mountain lake, but perhaps only have nature in the city park around the corner available.

By the way:

A wonderful opportunity to deepen your connection to nature and find relaxation in nature is offered by the Forest bathing (Shinrin-yoku), which I have already written about at one point or another.

Just give it a try!

Do you want to learn more about why nature is so good for us? Then go to the page "NATO's tuot gut!".