A World Without Racism is Loving
Love For Our Environment & Nature
A common trait in people is a shared connection to nature. This connection to nature can manifest itself as a love and appreciation for landscapes, nature, and our planet as a whole. The power of nature is one of the most well-documented feelings across the world. This shared connection not only acts as a connection between all people, but it can likely heal many of the world’s divisions as well.
All cultures around the world incorporate a level of appreciation for nature to some degree. In the United States, this love for nature has been continually expressed widely by Native Americans. As America was colonized, authors like Henry David Thoreau helped promote this naturalist, transcendental movement. A similar view of nature can be found throughout Asian cultures as well, where a significant appreciation is placed on mountains and flowering plants. In African cultures, a grand appreciation of the animals, trees, and sunsets can be found throughout their culture. Naturalism is truly a unifying human trait.
This appreciation fornature is also believed to be directly linked to positive health effects. In an article written by Rebecca Lawton for Aeon.co, it was found that exposure to nature may provide measurable health benefits. Across cultural and geographic boundaries, venturing out into nature for set periods of time has been used to heal people. In the US, Grand Canyon river tours have been used to heal emotionally damaged war veterans with great success. In 1982, Tomohide Akiyama, former secretary of the Forest Agency in Japan, coined the term shinrinyoku, or ‘forest bathing’, to describe this healing process.
In addition to personal health benefits, it is believed that this shared connection to nature could heal some of society’s wounds. In times when people are more divided than ever over social issues, it may take a shared experience to bring people together, and start the healing process. Nature can act as this shared experience. In this way, the innate human trait of loving nature has the capability of perpetuating love through humans.
Love for the environment, as many cultures have observed over many years, is transcendental. Not only does nature have the power to heal the individual, but it also has the power to heal humanity as a collective, through love. By practicing this love of nature, and sharing it with others, love has the opportunity to be spread and shared by society, in turn resulting in many benefits.
What other ways do you spread the loving philosophy? Please click here to share your ideas, we’d all love to learn more ways to be loving! Take care and stay connected.
