Spiritual Effects of the Outdoors Ray Woodcock November 22, 2004 Introduction This paper began as a mere collection

of notes. As I went along, however, I realized that the notes themselves provided a better introduction to the topic than did any of the articles or book chapters I had come across. So I am using my notes, converted into a rough article, to introduce the topic. The title itself has gone through some changes. I had initially intended to explore the topic of therapeutic uses of the outdoors. As you can see, there have been two changes: therapeutic became spiritual, and uses became effects. You may find it helpful, as you go through this paper, to hear the reasons for these changes. First, how does therapy translate into spirituality? I could retort, with tongue in cheek, that I have no idea, but that this does not prevent millions of people from making exactly that mental leap. The truth is, however, that I do not mean to equate the two; I mean, rather, to be dividing therapy into two aspects, namely, the immanent and the transcendent. Many people talk about spirituality and healing (i.e., therapy) in the same breath; and for many, spirituality entails divinity or some other quality that transcends mere human experience. So in addressing spirituality, I mean to be considering the part of the equation that looks beyond the immanent realm beyond, that is, the person and the part of his/her situation that is, in principle, scientifically measurable. One could object that the study of the transcendent has no place in a modern university, but I believe the existence of a department of religious studies would tend to contradict that. One could also object that the study of the transcendent is unsuited for study within a quantitatively oriented department. But consider the converse proposition: that a ministry student, in the seminary, should have no exposure to quantitative courses in, say, finance or science. That assertion would be untenable. Upon reflection, we must acknowledge that an MBA who intends to work within the religious sector of the economy had better have a grasp of the techniques for marketing religion which is to say, s/he had better know the lingo and, likewise, a student of the outdoors would be poorly educated if s/he could not speak knowledgeably about outdoor phenomena, using the terminology and concepts that, as I say, literally millions of people do use. I did not initially choose to concentrate solely upon the transcendent in this paper. I thought (or, more accurately, I took a leap of faith, and believed that, by some miracle) I would have sufficient time within which to take at least an introductory sweep through the spectrum of relevant subtopics. It has not turned out that way. I began with the spiritual because, initially, I hoped to get it out of the way. I had a pile of books on that general topic, and I wanted to get a rough grasp on them and then move on to what I believed would be the more time-consuming and scientific investigation of the immanent. As these pages will show, there was more to the transcendent, in the context of the outdoors, than I realized, and even a rough introduction proved quite time-consuming.

I would also say, however, that it is good that I gave the spiritual realm ample space. I come to that conclusion as a graduate student in a program in social work. In that program, we learn to think of the client within his/her environment: that is, we look at the biological, psychological, and social influences that affect the persons situation. We examine client needs by considering all systems in which s/he is enmeshed, ranging from the very small (e.g., the family system) all the way up to the very large (e.g., his/her culture). In short, we really cover the waterfront. Why do I mention that? Because if the leisure studies field seeks merely to study the immanent phenomena of the person in his/her situation to study, that is, the purely psychosocial experience of a persons participation in the outdoors then it might eventually become unclear how the field of recreation (as either a profession or a field of academic research, for social work is both) adds anything to social work, except perhaps as a subfield of social work that takes particular interest in the outdoors. Those who would not prefer that eventuality might consider it advantageous for leisure studies to remain open to the contemplation and understanding of how people may conceive of the spiritual realm as a separate source of action or influence that may remain forever beyond the influence of any of the various systems involved in the person and his/her private situation. That, anyway, seems consonant with the views of some number of writers in the field of leisure studies, who have incorporated into their writings some analysis of, or reference to, spirituality (e.g., Heintzman (2002), White and Hendee (2000)). Some such writers, seemingly oblivious of the variety of meanings that spiritual might have, appear to equate it with one particular strain of Christian belief (see e.g., Griffin, 2003). Unlike the latter, this paper will take a broader and more neutral position, in concert with the dictionary definitions of spirit, which include an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms, the immaterial intelligent or sentient part of a person, or the activating or essential principle influencing a person (Merriam-Webster, 2004). Finally, a note as to format. I have had time only to work up the mere beginning of a sort of proto-literature review. Opting for substance over form, I have not spent valuable time attempting to perfect the APA style of my citations or of the presentation generally; nor have I uniformly imposed the language of scientese upon the text here. I have simply tried to convey a roughly accurate impression of what I was learning from the sources I consulted, with painful awareness that greater depth in various areas might lead to substantial changes in the wording. On the positive side, this paper may provide what Estes (2000) would approve as an introduction to important, relevant material that exists outside the confines of leisure studies literature. In light of the number of leisure studies writers who draw upon such external sources (in e.g., psychology, sociology), the effort seems appropriate. Personal Background Objectivity in social science is a dubious concept. Rather than pretend that I am observing the subject phenomena from a neutral distance, I believe it will be advisable to present a portion of my orientation toward the material presented below. Doing so may also make the reading more interesting.

In summer 2003, I worked as an assistant facilitator at the Alpine Climbing Tower at the University of Missouri Columbia (UMC). (The Tower operations were administered by the campus Office of Experiential Education (ExEd).) That autumn, I entered the graduate program in Parks, Recreation & Tourism (PRT) at UMC. Conversations, experiences, and readings that arose out of my work at the Alpine Tower and in PRT persuaded me that I might obtain important career insights at the international conference of the Association for Experiential Education (AEE) being held in November of that year in Vancouver, BC. While facilitating on the ropes course that summer, I had enjoyed climbing and other physical activities. After leading a group through the course or in climbing activity on the tower, we would sit down and process or debrief that is, we would discuss what the participants had experienced, and what they might learn from it. At the Tower, at other places, and also in literature I was beginning to read on the subject, I came to suspect that there might be more to the topic of debriefing, and more depth in our clients, than I was able to reach through the procedures we were using. Accordingly, when I attended the AEE conference, I focused particularly upon those seminars and other learning opportunities that were presented by, or related to, the work of the Therapeutic Adventure Professional Group (TAPG) of the AEE. I noticed, in those TAPG seminars, that there were far more social workers, both attending and presenting, than there were other forms of mental health workers (e.g., psychologists, counselors). This realization inspired the decision to apply to enter the graduate program of social work in tandem with my graduate program in PRT at UMC. Uses vs. Effects of the Outdoors I mentioned, above, that this paper began as an inquiry into the therapeutic uses of the outdoors, but has now mutated into a discussion of spiritual effects of the outdoors. This, too, deserves a bit of explanation. According to Luckner and Nadler (1995, p. 176), the instructional model used in many ExEd settings typically entails a preliminary setting of goals, a sequence of several different types of activities, and a processing or discussion phase. This, however, did not seem right. For one thing, as noted above, I was interested in advancing my concept of group processing. Accordingly, I took a counseling psychology course in the area of group counseling methods. In that course, I pored over Yalom (1995) word for word. As I learned about group counseling, I became increasingly convinced that the achievement of real gains, in a group setting, tends to require time and hard work. As just described, this typical ExEd model did not describe the zigzag path by which I, myself, was learning from my experiences in Experiential Education. It certainly would be convenient to assume that an instructor or professional would be engaged in an entirely different (and, of

course, a more sophisticated) path of learning. But I was not certain how much weight that belief could carry. It seemed to me that people might tend to learn most effectively when their learning is a haphazard affair in which they grab pieces of information as they need them which may not be the time at which a traditionally linear pedagogy is willing to offer them. (See the discussion of postmodernism, below.) An alternate approach, which I explored in a paper for Dr. Cole in PRT in spring 2004, is to use the phrase offered by Rusty Baillie to let the mountains speak for themselves (James, 1980). The concept here is that outdoor experiences are capable of working powerful changes upon people without human intervention that it is not necessary, and may even be counterproductive, to allow a human leader to manipulate the experience, interrupt with the insertion of some arbitrary amount of time for processing, or otherwise seek to control the situation or the recipient. At the time of writing the Cole paper just mentioned, I did not have an opportunity to explore a number of outdoor therapies that I thought might contribute to my understanding of the situation. Examples included horticultural therapy and therapeutic (horseback) riding. In both cases, human instructors tend to be peripheral. When I began my work on the present assignment, then, I intended to explore those kinds of therapies, to learn more about ways in which nature might speak to people. At some point, however, I realized that I might be repeating the mistake of the ExEd model, in attempting to put a form of human control over an unruly but powerful natural phenomenon. In essence, I seemed to be telling the outdoors that I would allow it to reach me, or my clients, in this one specific way (e.g., through plants, in horticulture therapy, or through the horse, in therapeutic riding). If the outdoors did not deliver what I wanted, when I wanted it, in the form in which I wanted it, then I would move on and try something else. But the outdoors would remain out there somewhere, largely unknown, while I continued to try to see it through predesigned, potentially foggy and illfitting spectacles. Eventually, it dawned on me that there was an alternative: that I might begin with the outdoors as a substratum or foundation. Instead of seeking therapeutic uses of the outdoors treating it, once again, as an inert tool that exists primarily for human satisfaction the question was, what are the therapeutic effects of the outdoors? Consider, for example, the ropes course. Participating in a ropes course can teach useful things about, say, teamwork. But it seems likely that ropes course participation can teach those things indoors as well as out. The more important message would seem to be, not that ropes courses are effective but, rather, that we are doing this outdoors because we like to be outdoors. In that event, the important question remains: why? Why (as has been reported to me) do students prefer to take the window seats in a classroom? What is it about the outdoors, in itself, that often seems better than human-designed alternatives? What about it beckons to (and perhaps heals) humanity? The question has potentially huge implications. All the therapists and social workers in the world will not be able to keep up with the quantity of grief and confusion that exists in people

today. Group therapy can make a dent in it; but counseling groups are notoriously ineffective for persons from a variety of demographic categories (Yalom, 1995), and anyway, the people who need counseling the most are not necessarily those who seek it. But the outdoors the outdoors is there for everyone. Hence, the question mutated: I was no longer asking about therapeutic uses of the outdoors, but was rather focused on its therapeutic effects. That, then, is the background that led me to want to understand the link between spirituality and the outdoors. With that introduction, I turn to a summary of relevant texts. Understanding the Outdoors, Spiritually and Philosophically Innumerable persons over the eons have clung to various forms of religion, philosophy, or spirituality for the reassurance, strength, or other healing balm they claim to have found in their beliefs. The following paragraphs summarize a few of the principal forms of belief. Ancient Religions Starting with what many Americans might consider the most conservative approach to the link between the outdoors and the spiritual, one might contemplate Biblical references to nature, such as the famous account of forty years during which the Israelites wandered in the wilderness (Numbers 14:33). Post-Eden nature, in that and some other Biblical contexts, is a harsh place, befitting the image of exclusion from the land of Canaan and, later, of monkish asceticism (Bratton, 1993, p. 161); but, of course, Canaan itself was the future Land of Israel, flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8). Later, St. Francis of Assisi would preach to the flowers, respecting all living creatures as equals, in a lifestyle that sometimes had him living in the city, sometimes in the country (Bratton, 1993, pp. 221, 225). Then again, four centuries after Francis, Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation to a point of virtually rejecting nature altogether, for several reasons: the Reformation was a largely urban movement; monasticism, and its love of the wilderness, and the wilderness sojourn, were part of the church evils that Luther rejected; Protestant doctrine held that each Christian had a calling from God that being a wilderness monk was no more holy than being a good blacksmith; that reading the Bible was more important than ascetic practice; and that, contra the priests and monks, marriage and the family (and the settled life) were valuable (Bratton, 1993, pp. 232-233). Finally, Christianity learned to coexist with the Renaissance emphasis upon controlling nature (Bratton, 1993, p. 230). A passage commonly cited to that end says, God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth (Genesis 1:28). (The emphasis, there, has been upon the word subdue.) One seemingly valid way to summarize the nature-oriented attitudes of this Christian heritage, it seems, is that the outdoors can be friend, enemy, or whatever you want it to be. Judaism rests, of course, on many of the same scriptures as Christianity, with the addition of other traditional sources of wisdom. Judaism shares the Christian view of nature as being hierarchically organized, with humans at the top having so much value that even the elimination of an entire species of plant or animal would probably be better than losing a single human life (Solomon, 1994, pp. 106, 119-120). There are undeniable pleasures and physical necessities of

working the land and getting along with nature (Solomon, 1994, p. 111). But as just indicated, in traditional Judaism, nature remains a mere tool of the divine, with uses and effects that may be positive, negative, or both, depending not upon the outdoors per se but upon religious circumstance. For such reasons, some conclude that the Wests Judeo-Christian heritage is primarily responsible for the prevalent disregard of the natural environment, although others apportion at least part of the blame to the ancient Greeks, for their tendency to dissociate intellect from nature (Abram, 1996, pp. 94-95). Foltz (2003, p. 274) contends that it is wrongheaded to seek an eco-friendly Islamic history; rather, he says, one should adopt Tillichs (1951) correlational method to recogize that traditions succeed precisely by applying their internal resources to ever-changing concerns. In other words, mainstream Islam has shifted its views of nature, over the centuries, just as Christianity has done. Foltz (2003, pp. 250-251) notes a pantheistic strain of Islamic thought continuing for centuries but ultimately squelched by Islams radical monotheism strain (p. 253) in which it was thought that the face of God appeared in all things. Yet Foltz (p. 254) also cites a number of passages from the Quran (i.e., the Koran) condemning wastefulness, urging compassion toward animals and respect for plants, and emphasizing conservation. These passages, he seems to find, obtain scant attention in modern Islamic practice, which he criticizes for rapid, environmentally destructive population growth, major contribution to pollution through the petroleum industry, and the widespread pursuit of materialistic, consumption-oriented lifestyles in numerous Muslim-majority countries (p. 257). To demonstrate that this is not the way it has to be, Foltz explores in some detail the environmental progress that Iran has made; but the larger point is, again, that the outdoors has not been a primary focus of the mainstream religion, and that the religions views of the outdoors have consequently shifted in practice as needed to accommodate other priorities. Further afield, Buddhism offers a mixed picture on the subject of the outdoors. On one hand, Buddhist doctrine considers this world, including nature, to be devoid of meaning and purpose; but on the other hand, Right Action within Buddhism requires doing no injury to animals or plants which, after all, are intimately interrelated with all other sentient beings (Harris, 1994, pp. 25-26). This is not, however, part of an adoring attitude toward nature; rather, the purpose of loving and compassionate behavior is to ensure a favorable rebirth as a god (Harris, 1994, p. 26). Notwithstanding the popularity of some Buddhist views and practices, then, it seems that this particular religion might not be the firmest pillar upon which to base a spirituality of the outdoors, or in which to seek a spiritual explanation of, or emphasis upon, the potentially therapeutic effects of the outdoors. Hinduisms Ayurveda, or life science, served as a basis for a longstanding practice of herbal medicine, including about 110 curative plants mentioned in the Atharva-veda scriptures (Choudhury, 1994, p. 73). (The Bible mentions 120 medicinal plants (Ebadi, 2002, p. xvii); but (for whatever it may be worth) Ayurveda outdates the Bible by several thousand years, and also apparently outdates Chinese herbalism which, in its most developed form, identified 10,000 herbal remedies (Ebadi, 2002, pp. 3-4). Herbal medicine has also been practiced, of course, by others, including Native Americans (Ebadi, 2002, p. 10).) Hinduism also contains a strong pagan element, in which hymns glorify or anthropomorphize natural phenomena (speaking of e.g., Father Heaven, of the sweetness of the wind, or of the hidden consciousness of rivers and

mountains); thus, Hinduism emphasizes participating harmoniously in the natural system (Choudhury, 1994, pp. 66-67). In terms unfamiliar to many westerners, some plants are also considered divine; for example, people worship the tulasi plant daily, doing so partly because of its medicinal properties and partly as a symbol of the deity Vishnu (Choudhury, 1994, p. 72). Indeed, tree worship has a strong and ancient history in India and not only in Hinduism (Sinha, 1979). Unlike the Jewish (and Christian) elevation of humanity, Hindu deities demonstrate the importance of animals, our predecessors in the evolutionary chain, by taking on animal form; also, animals deserve respect for their wisdom, which in some cases includes knowledge of medicinal plants (Choudhury, 1994, pp. 74-75). In short, Hinduism does appear to contain the potential for a more highly nature-oriented form of spirituality than do several other religions. Without purporting to survey all of the worlds religions, it seems important to mention briefly the principal historical religions of China. First, in Taoist belief, humans are part of nature; nature lives forever; so immortality (though apparently not in a personal sense) arises when one attains harmony with nature (Yao, 1994, p. 150). To attain that harmony, one must change ones inner participation in chi, the essence of the cosmos, from the agitated state in which it exists in humans, back to its quiet, natural state; one does this by learning to act with non-action and to live by non-striving (Yao, 1994, pp. 150-151). In the pursuit of immortality, Taoists eventually adopted such nature-oriented practices as buying captive birds and releasing them (Yao, 1994, p. 154). By contrast, the practical philosophy of Confucianism urges that one must protect living creatures, not only out of sympathy for them, but also in order to insure human prosperity. Finally, folk religions of China borrowed from Taoism and Confucianism (and also from Buddhism, the third longstanding Chinese religion) to emphasize that animals had their own language and their own knowledge of the world, and that even plants had spirits and could become spiritual beings if they could obtain the essence of Heaven and earth (Yao, 1994, p. 155). Among other goals, the popular religion of feng shui tries to create natural patterns in human circumstances to achieve harmony and produce health, happiness, and prosperity (Ebadi, 2002, p. 9). (For a much more informative review of Asian perceptions of nature, see Braun and Kalland (1995).) The worship of nature pervades many cultures (Frazier, 1926). The Sun, for example, has been a focal point of worship for eons (Hawkes, 1962; Olcott, 1914). So has the Earth (McLuhan, 1994). Earth worship can take forms that appear quite agreeable to modern Americans; for example, in a book subtitled, Pages from a farmwifes journal, Rachel Peden speaks in terms very like some just reviewed saying, among other things, [T]he land never really belongs to man; it is an arrogance and a costly mistake on his part to think so. It is his only to hold in trust, to use, and to share with his fellow citizens of earth, the wildlife and plant life by which nature keeps the balance of life (Peden, 1974, p. 78). [See also Henderson (1990).] This very brief look at ancient religions has, of course, entirely neglected ancient religions of the Western Hemisphere. I have not, in fact, so much as searched for materials that might summarize those religions; but the neglect comes purely from the shortage of time, and not from any inkling that those religions are somehow inferior to others cited above. I did happen to find, however, an interesting description of daily practices of the Cree Indians, namely, Berkes

Sacred Ecology (1998), in which ties between nature and the divine appear in e.g., the ways in which hunters showed respect to animals because both were held to share a single Creator (pp. 83-84). (For additional reading on a spiritual connection to the concept of reverence for life, see Shepard (1999, pp. 56-66).) When ancient people ascribed intention and feeling to natural phenomena, they participated in a global tendency, linking cultures around the world (Andrews, 1998, p. xii). Responding particularly to the Christian version of this tendency, William James (1985) objected to a God who conformed the largest things of nature to the paltriest of our private wants, preferring instead a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business (p. 390). Classic Western Philosophy With due regard for the ancient Greek roots mentioned above, one convenient starting point for an analysis of the views of nature found in academic philosophy is the Naturphilosophie of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854). Schelling apparently held that there is an underlying unity between the knower and the known, and that science cannot dispense with holistic considerations (Esposito, 1977, p. 239). In terms somewhat reminiscent of Taoism, Schelling postulated that the essence of matter consists in living force or power, making all of nature one vast organism (Beiser, 1998, p. 351). Schelling was part of a larger movement called Romanticism, which was characterized in part by an emphasis on the subjective. This emphasis arose from the recognition that nobody, including the scientist, sees the world directly and objectively. The romanticist emphasis on the individual was reflected in ideas of self-realisation and nature (Jones, 2003), both of which have direct relation to studies of outdoor experience. Romanticism influenced Ralph Waldo Emerson, the New England Transcendentalist, of whose light touch Nietzsche is reported to have said, Emerson is one who lives instinctively on ambrosia and leaves everything indigestible on his plate (Lewis, 2004). Emerson understood nature to be a highly spiritual phenomenon indeed, the very symbol of spirit (Albanese, 2002, pp. 52-53). According to Sugarman (2000), Emerson (in anticipation of Rachel Peden, above) challenges the bold folly of those who claim to own and control parts of the Earth Upon reading those words, I wondered whether the therapeutic effect of nature is reduced when we experience the landscape as being crisscrossed and diced up by endless legal disputes, petty financial achievements, points proved, offenses committed, and so forth. Romanticists made the solitude, chaos, and mystery of wilderness seem appealing (Nash, 1967, p. 44), inspiring Claude Franois Denecourt to invent the woodland hiking trail circa 1837 (Schama, 1995, pp. 546-555). Romanticism, and the desire to justify and explore freedom from England, appear to have stimulated interest in a romantic literature and art extolling the beauties of American frontier lands (pp. 75-83). On a different plane, one gets a sense of the distance that humanity had to travel, between medieval devotion and modern environmentalism, from these words of James Fisher (1819) (which, in my reading, are fairly typical of his entire volume, in their rendering of ecological concern in religious terms):

Among all the sins of which men are guilty, I am persuaded that that of cruelty to brutes is none of the least; and I cannot doubt, but in the judgment of the great day, by the Searcher of hearts, and Witness of all our actions, that sin will be exposed. What an awful account then, will many have to give, who have here unmercifully treated those beasts over which they had power. If God hear the young ravens that cry unto him, and supply them with food, Psal. Cxlvii. 9. will not he, who is a God of pity, hear the cries and groans which the cruelty of man extorteth from the animals, and avenge their oppression? (pp. 130-131). These writers generally predeceased the wilderness philosophers whose vision of the outdoors most directly influenced the modern conservation movement in America. According to Borrie and Roggenbuck (2001, p. 221), the latter prominently include Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Sigurd Olson. Those three, all inductees into the National Wildlife Federations Conservation Hall of Fame (NWF, 2004), are not ordinarily considered significant figures within the scope of classical western philosophy. Moreover, while one would not tend to base too much on one study, it is nevertheless worth mentioning that Borrie and Roggenbuck (2001, p. 221-222) did not find support for these writers belief in the primacy of mood and emotion in the wilderness experience. While those wilderness philosophers are doubtless worth reading, and would be analyzed here in greater detail if time permitted, it is not presently clear that they add fundamentally new and compelling information to that presented above. In any event, their emphasis on emotion may be a matter for psychology rather than philosophy. There is another point to consider, with respect to classical western philosophy. This other point arises under the heading of postmodernism. In general terms, postmodernism is a sustained and multivalent challenge to various founding assumptions of Western European culture (Ermarth, 1998, p. 587). In apparent agreement with the subjectivity of Schelling and the Romanticists, and contra William James, postmodernism says that the world as we know it is constructed out of our relative systems, not out of some absolute and objective science (Ermarth, p. 589). But this confounds Schelling as well: postmodernism also appears to say that it is backwards to start with some grand nature, out there somewhere, that is essentially the same for all of us; rather, you start with the individual, and you recognize that, for practical purposes, time and space begin from the person and extend, not infinitely, but only for limited distances. In a postmodern perspective, you dont try to create an all-encompassing explanation of anything; instead, you function as a bricoleur, picking and choosing choose pieces of explanations as you need them, and you decline to take responsibility for making any grand structure fit together (Ermarth, p. 589). In potential sympathy with this, Hemingway (1993, p. 7) cites Nietzsche for the proposition that there is no fixed and absolute meaning to terms (and, needless to say, no fixed and absolute Spirit) that the meaning of a term (e.g., spirituality) depends entirely according to the historical circumstances in which the question is posed. Karen Armstrong published a provocatively titled History of God, analyzing changes in the views of the divine. The foregoing paragraphs of this paper might equally belong in a field called the history of nature. There do exist a few materials so titled (e.g., Weiszacker, 1948). Many more use other titles for the same thing. For example, in a book called Nature: Western Attitudes Since Ancient Times, Coates (1998) speaks of the difference between historical ecology and environmental history (p. 18). On a more technical level, one can find works in

the history of science that shed light on the popular and learned views of nature at a given point in time, such as Debuss Man and Nature in the Renaissance (1978). Twentieth-Century Religions Possibly mindful of the sign over the entrance to Dantes Inferno (abandon all hope, ye who enter here), some brave souls have nevertheless proceeded to propose various forms of a modern religion of nature. One example, offered for purposes of perspective, arises, again, from Germany, though somewhat after Schellings time. The Nazi ideology of Adolf Hitler included a strong, religious interest in nature as a force of which man was a mere part (Pois, 1986, pp. 3439). In an expression of nationalistic pride arising from a 2,000-year history of German devotion to that lands forests, the Third Reich instituted what may have been the most earnest forestprotection program in German history (Downs, 2001, p. 9). Rather than consider that bit of history an affront (Downs, p. 9), however, one could contend that it provides an example that we should surpass an example, that is, of the degree of environmental protection that can result when one casts ones nature-oriented perspectives in fanatical religious terms. Let it not be said that ones religion makes no difference! Of course, Christianity and most of the other religions reviewed above differ dramatically from the Nazi vision. In one view, modern Christian theology can celebrate the conclusion that, in light of modern scientific developments, God was relieved of any responsibility for and involvement in nature (Stewart, 1983, p. 284). Through science, Stewart (1983) says, nature has emerged as enormously complex, driven by chance as well as by determinism, and open to novelty and change (p. 284). The process theology of Alfred North Whitehead, which he developed in multiple works, explains that the world unfolds as one natural evolutionary happening; but Stewart says there remains the problem that we know ourselves as agents (i.e., as actors who care not only about the how of nature but also about the why) (pp. 287-289). The kernel of Stewarts view is that we understand the world (including nature) to be, not merely a process, but an action in which one can intelligibly ask about the why of it all which is to say, we understand the world as the result of an act by an ultimate Agent, perhaps not in the mechanical sense of postulating a divine person who pulls the strings (p. 290), but rather as a transcendent intention that ties nature and history together in a sacramental arena, as envisioned by the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Stewart, 1983, pp. 291-292). The foregoing discussion seems to confirm Crosbys (2002) observation that major religions generally treat nature, not as something having religious significance in itself, but rather as pointing somehow to a transcendent reality beyond nature (p. 117). Crosby proposes that the object of religious worship (such as the Christian God, or the Greek Pantheon) typically has characteristics of uniqueness, primacy, pervasiveness, rightness, permanence, and hiddenness (p. 118). Primacy, for instance, entails the status of the religious object as being the most important object of interest for the religious person. Crosby suggests that nature itself can have the six essential qualities just mentioned, and therefore can serve as an object of religious concern (p. 121). Thus, in the nature-religion Crosby proposes, primacy of nature would arise if the naturereligious person treats nature as the ultimate object of loyalty (p. 127). To demonstrate natures merit as an object of religious attention in itself (rather than merely pointing to some deity),

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Crosby reminds the reader of, among other things, natures beauty and its role as the seat of all life (pp. 159-165). Albanese (2002) bemoans the propensity of nature religion to deconstruct or collapse (p. 54) into political advocacy for the environment, ethical debate about such things as vegetarian food practices, or metaphysical discourse about e.g., theology of animals. On the first point, the foregoing discussion of various religions views on nature may provide an example of environmental orientation; Palmer and Finlay (2003) provide more of the same. On the third point, echoing Hinduism and the Chinese folk religions mentioned above, but departing from what would normally be considered spiritual, Kiplings (1964) Jungle Book arising, interestingly, from India (see the discussion of Hinduism, above) portrayed fictional conversation between a feral boy and animals as peers. In similar (nonfiction) terms, more recently, the field of animal communication has emphasized primarily telepathic communications between animals who, in some cases, occupy a position of superiority, as maintainers of ancient wisdom forgotten by humans (Albanese, 2002, p. 59). (We in Missouri are perhaps familiar with the local manifestation of such wisdom in the form of Jim the Wonder Dog of Marshall, MO, who was reputed to display extraordinary intelligence and insight in repsonse to questions posed to him (Ferguson, 2004).) Websites such as AnimalTalk.net explore animal communication further (Smith, 2004). The views of Teilhard, mentioned above, provide perhaps the principal theological underpinning for what many call the New Age spiritual movement (Sessions, 1995, p. 291). New Age religion, in Teilhards formulation, is consummately human-oriented: the Hegelian end of history (Fukuyama, 1992) arrives as a completion and superseding of nature, in the form of a global, highly technological human civilization that transcends the natural world. Consciousness, to Teilhard, suffuses all matter, drives toward increasing complexity, and (in humans) achieves the level of reflection (Sessions, 1995, pp. 292-293). The idea of man as the perfection of nature (i.e., as the point at which the universe achieves consciousness), or perhaps as the agent that will perfect nature, also has philosophical roots in Aristotle and the Stoics, and draws upon Hegel and some German Romanticists (p. 299). Not surprisingly, given this background, Teilhard had little use for biological diversity, or for plants and animals in general (pp. 293-294). Teilhards liberal Catholic, evolution-based optimism for the human race differs significantly from the oft-cited Protestant theology of Paul Tillich. Tillich, also influenced by Schelling, rued the disregard of nature in favor of the written word of scripture; he too conceived of a multidimensional unity of all life (Drummy, 2000, pp. 72, 74-75). Tillichs theology would seem to provide one route forward for Christians who consider nature important in connection with the divine. Such a theology poses, for our contemplation, the paradox of human pursuit of goodness, and other ideals, within a natural world that does not care about such ideals (Cruz, 2003, p. 221). Another possible route forward appears in the area of feminist theology, which has been construed as facilitating a concern with healing and relationships and, particularly, with the relationship between human and nature treating the latter as subject rather than object, which requires allowing the other to emerge and to engage in creative interaction with humanity (Larkin, 2001, pp. 146-147, 152). Again, such an approach to theology of nature seems to open possibilities for spirituality connected with the outdoors.

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Another approach to nature religion arises in deep ecology, founded by Arne Naess and understood, by him, to combine intellectual inquiry (the ecology part of the term) and spiritual inquiry, of never-ending depth, into the fundamental relations among features of the environment, in what Naess has called an ecosophy (Grange, 1997, p. 173). The eight fundamental principles of deep ecology, according to Naess (1986), include such assertions as, The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth have value in themselves . independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes (p. 68). Deep ecology, as it has developed, incorporates elements from Buddhism, Taoism, Native American beliefs, Christianity, Whitehead, New Age views, and others (Belshaw, 2001, p. 182). Deep ecology is markedly oppositional, both in the sense of having a strong environmentalist (i.e., political) emphasis and in the sense that it tends to come from areas of the globe (e.g., the American West) in which human settlement and nature tend to be sharply delineated from one another (Belshaw, 2001, pp. 182-184). Deep ecology poses questions of interest to environmental philosophers; one might ask, for example, whether the destruction of the grossly polluting human race would be a good thing (p. 253). Finally, James Lovelock (2000) proposed a Gaia concept (using the name of the ancient Greek Earth-goddess, suggested by William Golding) in which one views the Earth as a super-organism capable of enormous self-regulation (Garrard, 2004, pp. 102, 172). The self-regulating occurs through the aggregate effect of actions by countless living organisms on Earth. For example, by complex natural processes, living things adjust the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in order to maintain ocean surface temperatures at a tolerable level, with the effect that the Earth has maintained a fairly stable global surface temperature during the eons even though the Sun has been getting hotter (pp. 172-173). The Gaia concept implies that extinction of individual species is not necessarily important in the grand scheme (p. 102). It would also seem to deny us a reliable target of spiritual attention: as Garrard (2004) notes, the concept is primarily scientific and thus remains open to falsification at any time (p. 175). Of course, that observation, true or not, does not prevent people from treating the Earth (whether or not autopoietic, la Gaia) as an ostensibly Gaia foundation of a sacred natural unity (see e.g., Primavesi, 2000, p. 169). Gaia became very popular among deep ecologists, providing a powerful statement of connection among all living things, and providing, for some, the basis for a mystical biocentric ethic (Roszak, 1995, p. 13). In words that pull together several of the foregoing strains of modern thought, Metzner (1999, pp. 173-174) says: [Some] argue that we are moving out of the modern age of rationalism and positivism, which began in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment period, into a postmodern age of deconstructionist relativism. In contrast to this view, I concur with those who believe it is possible to do more than just critique the modern view. A constructive ecological or systems postmodernism is possible, in which we can recognize consistent features of the newly emerging worldview. These features can be recognized as those that contribute to sustainability, preservation, and restoration of all life-forms and habitats on Earth, not just those of humans or of one group of humans.

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[The mechanistic worldview of Newton, Galileo, and Descartes] is giving way in many circles to an organismic view, which sees the universe as an evolving process, a story in Thomas Berrys terms. Instead of seeing life as biochemical machinery somehow derived from random molecular combinations, the new biology defines life as a self-generating (autopoietic), genetically coded process adaptively coupled with the environment. Earth, instead of an inert body of dead matter, is seen in the Gaia theory of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis as a kind of superorganism . Some critics initially found fault with the Gaia theory for not offering any new mechanism and instead just changing the metaphor. This statement ignores the fact that mechanism is itself a metaphor. ... Quantum physics, with its uncertainty principle, has challenged the old deterministic model of a predictable clockwork universe. Traditional concepts of linear causality and mechanical forces acting on material objects are being superseded by chaos theory, nonlinear dynamics, and dissipative structures. Obviously, there is much to the subject of nature-oriented spirituality. This summary has provided a highly superficial introduction to the topic. It may nevertheless be possible, from this introduction, to detect that ones choice of religion, and of emphasis within that religion, can make a great difference in how one interprets the outdoors per se and ones relationship to the outdoors. Depending upon religious preconceptions, a given outdoor phenomenon may be interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure with some human error; as an opportunity to meditate upon celestial majesty; as a natural result of a predesigned cosmic machinery; as containing, within itself, the presence of a specific deity; as a manifestation of the divinity that exists everywhere ... the list goes on. As noted above, for the outdoors, choice of religion matters!

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Ebadi, M. (2002). Pharmacodynamic basis of herbal medicine. Boca Raton: CRC. Ermarth, E.D. (1998). Postmodernism. Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy, vol. 7 (ed. E. Craig), 587-590. London: Routledge. Esposito, J.L. (1977). Schellings idealism and philosophy of nature. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press. Estes, C.A. (2000). Rethinking philosophy of leisure: A proposal for including more humanism in the curriculum. Schole: A Journal of Leisure Studies and Recreation Education, ___(___), ___-___. Ferguson, H.N. (2004). Jim the wonder dog. Retrieved November 15, 2004 from http://www.john-bauer.com/jim.htm Foltz, R.C. (2003). Islamic environmentalism: A matter of interpretation. In Islam and ecology: A bestowed trust (eds. R.C. Foltz, F.M. Denny, and A. Baharuddin). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 249-280. Frazier, J.G. (1926). The worship of nature. New York: MacMillan. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The end of history and the last man. New York: Free Press. Garrard, G. (2004). Ecocriticism. London: Routledge. Grange, J. (1997). Nature: An environmental coosmology. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Griffin, J. (2003). The effects of an adventure based program with an explicit spiritual component on the spiritual growth of adolescents. Journal of Experiential Education, 25(3), p. 351. Harris, I. (1994). Buddhism. In Attitudes to nature (ed. J. Holm with J. Bowker). London: Pinter, 8-27. Hawkes, J. (1962). Man and the sun. New York: Random House. Heintzman, P. (2002). A conceptual model of leisure and spiritual well-being. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, 20(4), 147-169. Hemingway, J.L. (1993). Recovering the world: Varieties of philosophical experience. Schole: A Journal of Leisure Studies and Recreation Education, ___(___), 1-16. Henderson, K.A. (1990, May). An oral life history perspective on the containers in which American farm women experienced leisure. Leisure Studies, 9(2), 121-133.

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James, T. (1980). Can the mountains speak for themselves? Retrieved November 21, 2004 from http://www.wilderdom.com/facilitation/mountains.html James, W. (1985). The varieties of religious experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Jones, R. (2003). Romanticism. Retrieved November 14, 2004 from http://www.philosopher.org.uk/rom.htm Kipling, R. (1964). The jungle books. New York: Dell. Lewis, J.J. (2004). Emerson: Analysis. Retrieved November 14, 2004 from http://www.transcendentalists.com/emerson_analysis.htm Lovelock, J. (2000). Gaia: A new look at life on Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Luckner, J.L., & Nadler, R.S. (1995). Processing adventure experiences: Its the story that counts. Therapeutic Recreation Journal, 29(3), 175-183. McLuhan, T.C. (1994). The way of the earth. New York: Simon & Schuster. Merriam-Webster. (2004). Merriam-Webster OnLine. Retrieved November 14, 2004, from http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=spirit Metzner, R. (1999). Green psychology: Transforming our relationship to the Earth. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press. Naess, A. (1986). The deep ecological movement: Some philosophical aspects. In Deep ecology for the twenty-first century (Sessions, G., ed.). Boston: Shambhala, 1995. (Originally published in Philosophical Inquiry 8, (1-2) (1986).) NWF. (2004). Conservation Hall of Fame Inductees. National Wildlife Federation webpage. Retrieved November 21, 2004 from http://www.nwf.org/about/inductees.cfm. Olcott, W.T. (1914). Sun lore of all ages: A collection of myths and legends concerning the sun and its worship. New York: G.P. Putnams Sons. Palmer, M., & Finlay, V. (2003). New apprroaches to religions and the environment. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank. Peden, R. Speak to the earth: Pages from a farmwifes journal. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Pois, R.A. (1986). National socialism and the religion of nature. New York: St. Martins. Primavesi, A. (2000). Sacred Gaia: Holistic theology and earth system science. London: Routledge.

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Sessions, G. (1995). Deep ecology and the New Age movement. In Deep ecology for the twenty-first century (Sessions, G., ed.). Boston: Shambhala, 1995. Shepard, P. (1999). Encounters with nature. Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Sinha, B.C. (1979). Tree worship in ancient India. New Delhi: Books Today. Smith, P. (2004). Animal communication Is it really possible? Retrieved November 15, 2004 from http://www.animaltalk.net/ Solomon, N. (1994). Judaism. In Attitudes to nature (ed. J. Holm with J. Bowker). London: Pinter, 101-131. Soper, K. (1995). What is nature? Oxford: Blackwell. Stewart, C.Y. Nature in grace: A study in the theology of nature. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Sugarman, S. (2000). Universal beauty, natural sovereignty, and the oversoul: The central themes of the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Retrieved November 14, 2004 from http://www.farmingdale.edu/CampusPages/ArtsSciences/AcademicDepartments/English Humanities/sugarman.html Tillich, P. (1951). Systematic theology, vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 59-66. Weiszacker, C.F. (1948). The history of nature. (F.D. Wieck, translator.) London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1951. White, D.D., & Hendee, J.C. (2000). Primal hypotheses: The relationship between naturalness, solitude, and the wilderness experience benefits of development of self, development of community, and spiritual development. Proceedings Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service, No. RMRS-P-14, 128-135. Wilson, E.O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wilson, E.O. (1993). Biophilia and the conservation ethic. In The Biophilia Hypothesis (Kellert, S.R., and Wilson, E.O., eds.). Washington, D.C.: Island Books. Yalom, I.D. (1995). Theory and practice of group psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books. Yao, X. (1994). Chinese religions. In Attitudes to nature (ed. J. Holm with J. Bowker). London: Pinter, 148-159.

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[Optional reading provided to classmates] Psychological Effects of the Outdoors by Ray Woodcock November 27, 2004 This paper follows on from the companion paper, which addressed spiritual effects of nature. Topic Revision Redux In the companion paper, I described how my thinking had led to some mutation in the original topic. The first change was from therapeutic uses of the outdoors to therapeutic effects of the outdoors. I made that change when I realized (1) that I had originally looked on nature (i.e., the outdoors) as being a mere tool that I expected to provide certain results if I used it in certain ways, and (2) that it might be confusing to examine some of the active uses I had contemplated originally (e.g., ropes courses), because I wouldnt know whether the benefits of the outdoors were coming from mere human activity (which, in some cases, can be done equally well indoors). I was interested in learning which benefits were strictly the result of natures workings. So, as I say, I started looking at effects rather than usesof the outdoors. The topic then changed again, as I concluded that one could look at the relationship between humanity and nature in two essentially divergent ways: as entailing an element of the transcendent (i.e., of what people commonly associate with spirituality), and as having (or, in some views, as consisting entirely of) an immanent (i.e., worldly, non-spiritual, self-contained on the mortal plane) aspect. Thus, I devoted the companion paper to the topic of spiritual effects of the outdoors, and commenced the present paper as an exploration of the immanent, focusing particularly upon psychological reactions to nature. As I have looked at that revised formulation, I have become aware of something else I mentioned in the companion paper, namely, that in addition to being a student of leisure, I am a student of social work. In the social work perspective, the psychological is merely one of several aspects of a given persons situation. Current social work teaching emphasizes a holistic biopsychosocial perspective, in which one takes into account, not only the psychological, but also the biological (including medical/psychiatric) and social (including sociological) perspectives on, or elements of, the persons situation. Hence, it would be excessively narrow, in my view, to think that the psychological would encompass the full scope of the immanent portion of human-nature interactions. Probably a better solution would be to use immanent or non-spiritual or nontranscendent instead of psychological in the title. My reading has alerted me to yet another potential faux pas in the title shown above. That title assumes that the reader will know that we are talking about effects upon humans. This instance of human chauvinism (see below) is not one I would wish to advertise. So if I were planning to revise this paper into a more final form, I would probably rename it something like Interactions between Humans and Immanent Aspects of Nature. I think I would have to retain the concept of

interaction in order to remind myself, and others, that assuming a strictly one-way street could imply an acceptance of certain limiting views of nature. The Condition of This Paper For the present assignment, I have not had time to explore, in any great depth, these non-spiritual aspects of the larger topic of therapeutic effects of (or interactions with) the outdoors. For the most part, I have only gotten as far as identifying certain sources that contain provocative materials on several topics within larger field. Hence, this paper consists largely of illustrative excerpts from those materials. The first section, below, is an exception. I did get as far as fashioning some initial transitional paragraphs from the other papers treatment of the transcendent, before I decided to splinter this paper off into a separate document. After that first section, however, my excitement about covering as many leads as possible means that, for the most part, I can only supply edited excerpts from the text, in the form of a brief anthology. These excerpts may illustrate why I considered these sources worth revisiting, if I decide to develop this paper more fully later. I do wish I had had the luxury of distributing a more polished text, but given the present impossibility of that option, I hope it is helpful at least to provide the following notes. I have incidentally found a few materials that probably would have been better incorporated in the spirituality paper. I have generally attempted, here, to be satisfied with relatively brief references to those materials. Transition from the Spirituality Paper: Psychology, Nature, and Ecopsychology Philosophy and religion can affect ones interpretation of psychological phenomena. A belief in cosmic interaction arises in, for example, the idea that, in ecopsychology, [T]here is a synergistic relation between planetary and personal well being; that the needs of the one are relevant to the other (ICE, 2004). According to Roszak (1995), Gaia provides a theoretical foundation for this synergistic relation; Gaia is the evolutionary heritage that bonds all living things genetically and behaviorally to the biosphere and allows life and mind [to be] as fully at home in the universe as any of the countless systems from which they evolve (p. 14). On this basis, Roszak speculates, there exists an ecological unconscious at the core of the psyche, capable of serving as a resource for restoring us to environmental harmony (p. 14). The contemporary fascination with or approval of nature, found in ecopsychology and its ilk, stands in sharp contrast against the fearful, hostile, or aggressive views of nature found elsewhere. The Judeo-Christian concept of subduing the Earth provides one example; another arises from scholarship suggesting that, to the mind of medieval Europeans, dwelling in walled cities, the night tended to be a time of danger rather than beauty (Verdon, 2002) as it is, of course, to many city dwellers nowadays as well. In general agreement with the Judeo-Christian concept, Industrial Age attitudes taught western humanity to think in terms of overcoming nature (Schneider and Morton, 1981, p. 5). Yet in a countervailing thread that may have continued throughout the eras just mentioned, one recalls the

Christian counterexample of St. Francis (above); the pastoral preoccupations of a number of ancient Roman poets (Geikie, 1912, p. 83); and the subjective, intimate scientific vision of Goethe (Seamon, 1998). (See sources cited in the other paper for further development of this kind of history of nature. For a more comprehensive history that encompasses much of the Western (e.g., not Hindu) material contained in both of these papers, see Oelschlaeger (1991.) The following sections address several other topics pertaining to the relationship between psychology and the outdoors. Summary of Multiple Threads Metzner, R. (1999). Green psychology: Transforming our relationship to the Earth. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press: Ecopsychology may be defined as the expansion and re-envisioning of psychology to take the ecological context of human life into account. It is not a variation of environmental psychology, which deals mostly with the impact of institutional environments on psychological states. It offers a critique of all existing schools of psychology ... for focusing their research solely on the intrapsychic, interpersonal, and social dimensions of human life and ignoring the ecological foundation. ... In that regard, ecopsychology parallels similar re-envisionings taking place in other knowledge disciplines: philosophy is being challenged by environmental ethics and deep ecology, economics by green or ecological economics, religion and theology by the concept of creation spirituality and other ecotheological formulations, and sociology and history by new ecological perspectives. All of these foundational revisions may be seen as part of an emerging ecological or systems worldview, a worldview that can also be called ecological postmodernism. Underlying these fundamental revisions of our systems of knowledge is a major paradigm shift in the natural sciences, a shift from physical to ecology and evolution as the foundational or model science. ... Bioregionalism is one of four sociophilosophical movements that could be characterized as radical ecology, the other three being deep ecology, ecofeminism, and social ecology (with socialist ecology a possible fifth). ... The focus of the deep ecology critique is what is called anthropocentrism, but it can more accurately be described as a humanist superiority complex. The ecofeminist diagnosis of our ecocultural malaise is that it is based on patriarchal androcentrism rather than anthropocentrism. The social ecology movement critiques all social structures of hierarchy and domination, whether toward ethnic groups, the poor, women, or nature. For socialist ecologists, the crucial diagnosis is via the analysis of capitalist class oppression, which includes the domination and exploitation of nature.

Bioregionalism offers a radical critique of the conventional approach to place, revolving around the idea of ownership of land and the attendant right to develop and exploit. ... [pp. 183-184] Nature in Space and Time, Part 1: A Sense of Place Smith, D.R. (2003). Phenomonology. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (E.N. Zalta, ed.). Retrieved November 27, 2004 from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2003/entries/phenomenology/: Phenomenology is the study of phenomena: appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience. Phenomenology studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view. Low, S.M., & Altman, I. (1992). Place attachment: A conceptual inquiry. In Place attachment (Low, S.M., & Altman, I., eds.). New York: Plenum, pp. 1-12: [Phenomenologists] analyses of place attachment are rich and varied, often focus on homes and sacred places, and emphasize the unique emotional experiences and bonds of people with places. ... Because earlier environment-behavior studies were dominated by positivist [i.e., scientific] philosophies of research, phenomenological approaches that emphasized unique subjective experiences ... were not always viewed as productive research strategies. ... A number of other factors may also have resulted in an initially limited interest in place attachment. At a broad cultural level, the history of New World Western cultures has been one of instability, migration, and change, with research emphasizing how people seek out and adapt to new situations, rather than focusing on how they affiliate and attach themselves to their new locales. ... [Also,] early work in environment-behavior studies was heavily influenced by psychological approaches, with their emphasis on individual cognitive functioning .... Over time, however, research by social psychologists, sociologists, and others began to address personal spacing, territoriality, family and group use of space, crowding, environmental meaning, and other topics. [p. 2] Chawla, L. (1992). Childhood place attachments. In Place attachment (Low, S.M., & Altman, I., eds.). New York: Plenum, pp. 63-86: In the face of the rising prestige of secular science and its mechanical world view, poets assembled a rejoinder .... A belief that childlike vision is redemptive because children have a special bond with nature ... became a major theme of Romantic philosophy. Countless poems and novels have echoed the famous lines of Wordsworth [citation omitted]: There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. .... At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day. ... There is an economic and geographical side to this cultural story. The Romantics idealized nature and childhood at the same time that rural villages were being engulfed by industrial cities, pastoral common lands enclosed for private estates, and children sent to labor in mines and factories. ... This chapter will explore ... four diverse literatures: psychoanalytic theory ... ; environmental autobiography, which has evaluated places saved through the sieve of memory; behavior mapping, which has observed where children and adolescents congregate; and favorite place analyses, which have explored the reasons for their preferences. [pp. 64-66] (As a follow-up to the brief mentions of works by Peden and Henderson in the companion paper on spirituality, regarding rural womens experiences of nature, see also S.B. Ahrentzens article in this same volume, Place attachment (Low, S.M., & Altman, I., eds.), pp. 113-138.) Rubinstein, R.L., & Parmelee, P.A. (1992). Attachment to place and representation of the life course by the elderly. In Place attachment (Low, S.M., & Altman, I., eds.). New York: Plenum, pp. 139-164: [P]lace attachment is especially significant to older people for several reasons. First, feelings about ones experiences in or of key former places may be an important part of remembering ones life course and thus of organizing and accessing a lengthy life span. Attachment to key former places is one way of keeping the past alive and thus relates to the later-life tasks of maintaining a sense of continuity, fostering identity, and protecting the self against deleterious change. Second, attachment to a current place may be a way of strengthing the self. ... [A]ttachment to a current place may be a way of retaining a positive self-image. Third, attachment to a current place may be a way of enacting or representing independence and continued competence. [pp. 139-140] [A] small but growing general literature implicates life stage and patterns of interdependence as consistent influences on the nature and objective manifestations of emotional bonds with neighborhoods. [p. 150] McAvoy, L. (2002). American Indians, place meanings and the old/new West. Journal of Leisure Research, 34(4), 383-396: American Indian place meanings regarding national parks and protected areas are often very different from those of White Americans. ... One of our roles as

scholars in recreation, parks and tourism can be as translators to identify and translate the various senses of place and place meanings that different people hold for the West. [pp. 383, 394] Stokowski, P.A. (2002). Languages of place and discourses of power: Constructing new senses of place. Journal of Leisure Research, 34(4), 368-382: [W]e hear more and more frequently about people being drawn to images of the past, to times that seem slower and more peaceful, where life gives an appearance of being richer than what is offered in this contemporary fast-paced, highly mobile world. ... [W]riters offer the term sense of place in an effort to capture such sentiments, and the phrase seems to resonate. Who among us has never felt nostalgia for a place and its people, especially a place once known intimately? ... [pp. 368-369] [An] example of the politics of place in leisure is provided in wilderness research, a prominent area of study in outdoor recreation that has nonetheless been accused of concealing discourses of power and privilege. The short story version of American wilderness goes something like this. Early New England colonists considered their town commons as refuge from the vast dark and foreboding wild lands that lay beyond community borders. Over time, though, westward expansion redefined Americas relationship with wilderness. Poets, artists, writers, and historians traveling the frontier created for those back in the States images of wilderness designed to elevate the American spirit. This new scenic vision of wilderness grand landscapes of parks and forests, immense rivers and canyons, and bigger-than-life natural features like Half Dome, the Grand Canyon, and Devils Tower was a constructed ideal, intended to symbolically inspire national unity. By the early 1900s, that awe-inspiring vision of wilderness was itself transformed to fit new circumstances. ... (One is reminded here of the words of former Alaska governor, Walter Hickel, who was once quoted to say, You cant let nature just run wild.) [pp. 376-377] This paper has suggested that research focusing primarily on the physical qualities of actual recreation, leisure and tourism is limiting, and researchers must look to the role of language and discourse to develop richer understandings about the social construction of place and its political ramifications. ... Gerson and Gerson (1976, p. 203) have noted: inquiries into the character of images as constituted by relations among people is overdue. ... [W]hat is visible on the ground at any given time is only the working out of one version of reality, promoted by a set of social actors who have succeeded in using their power and position to advance their own ideals. [pp. 379-380] Ecocriticism, Nature Writing, and Bibliotherapy Ecocriticism is a relatively new literary discipline, with an advowedly Green emphasis (i.e., politically oriented toward environmentalism), that takes an Earth-centered approach to literary

studies and (in its simpler forms) addresses such questions as, How has the concept of wilderness changed over time? (Garrard, 2004, p. 3). (One response: scary natural phenomena of the past (e.g., the whirlpool, the abyss) have become sources of interest or pleasure in modern times (Soper, 1995, p. 222).) As another example, an ecocritic might note that we can look at a photo of the Earth, taken from space, and might equally well characterize it as a lovely and fragile system or, instead, as a biological mechanism that, soundly managed, might produce unlimited wealth (Garrard, 2004, p. 161). The question about changes in the concept of wilderness again interjects the topic of the history of nature. Mayhew (2004) provides more on that for the Enlightenment period in England; Armbruster and Wallace (2001) reconstrue a number of nature-related classics; and Slovic (1992) searches for awareness in nature classics by Thoreau et al. For guidance in the how-to of nature writing, see Roorda (1998). Bennion and Olsen (2002) and Cassidy (2001) explore the usefulness of writing as a tool of wilderness learning. Ecocriticism itself evokes the tedium of recherch, one-step-removed words about words, as in this passage (which, as you see, is not about nature, but about the act of writing about nature): The interconnections between human beings and nature the concern of pastoral [writing] from ancient times to the present take on a heretofore unprecedented significance at a period when the comfortably mythopoeic green world of pastoral is best by profound threats of pollution, despoliation, and diminishment. From the earth-centered context in which we now find ourselves, the study of pastoral is thrown open to new interpretation (Love, 2003, p. 66). Though I and others may react with a yawn to ecocriticism per se, reactions might be different when we move to the related matter of nature writing. Writing about nature obviously takes many forms. In poetry, for example, Schneider and Morton (1981, pp. 7-9) juxtapose Alexander Popes Enlightenment-era, mechanistic view: Those Rules of old discovered, not devised Are Nature still, but Nature methodized: Nature, like liberty, is but restrained By the same laws which first herself ordained. against Wordsworths Romanticism, appreciating nature as an inspiration, not (as Pope would have it) restrained: These beauteous forms, Through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind mans eye; But often, in lonely rooms, and mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration feelings too Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good mans life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love. Turning another page, we have nature on a more casual level, greeted in light tones of greater familiarity, in this contemporary poem by Galway Kinnell (Merrill, 1991, p. 88): I love to go out in late September among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries to eat blackberries for breakfast, the stalks very prickly, a penalty they earn for knowing the black art of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries fall almost unbidden to my tongue, as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words like strengths or squinched, many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps, which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well in the silent, startled, icy black language of blackberry-eating in late September. See also the webpage for the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) at http://www.asle.umn.edu/archive/intro/sierra.html. Also, Murray, J.A. (1995). The Sierra Club nature writing handbook: A creative guide. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Finally, as a related topic in the realm of writing and nature, bibliotherapy involves the use of reading materials in an interactive fashion between therapist and client (i.e., not just handing them something to read) to help clients become aware that others share problems similar to theirs (Austin, 1997, p. 61). Bibliotherapy may entail a broad spectrum of materials, and may be used in individual or group settings (Hynes and Hynes-Berry, 1986, p. 17). I have not researched the extent to which bibliotherapy might also take advantage of the soothing effects of exposure to nature (see e.g., horticulture therapy, below) to evoke therapeutic benefits in clients who may not be able to experience nature (because e.g., they are institutionalized or bound to a highly urban life) but who may be able to draw upon written words (e.g., Powers Chicago Waters (2002)) to generate images or stimulate memories of nature exposure. Nature in Space and Time, Part 2: Time Styles Highwater, J. (1981). The primal mind: Vision and reality in Indian America. New York: Harper & Row:

Primal people are supernaturalists, and for them time is extraordinary. Among the Australian aborigines, for example, there is both the immediate and ordinary time of daily existence as well as an experience they call dreamtime which includes not only the events of our sleeping state but also those things we anticipate, envision, imagine, intuit, and conceive. The aboriginal dreamtime is the solution to the Western question asked by the late Hannah Arendt: Where are we when we think? [p. 89] There are a great many preconceptions with which various societies grasp the world and make it comprehensible, but in the West there is perhaps no single idea as obsessive as the notion of the material reality of time. ... Recently, for example, a group of Midwestern farmers who opposed the introduction of Daylight Saving Time in their region summarized their position by pointing out that the extra hour of sunlight will burn the grass. [pp. 92, 95] Cotte, J. [an assistant professor of marketing!], & Ratneshwar, S. (2001). Timestyle and leisure decisions. Journal of Leisure Research, 33(4), 396-409 [citations mostly omitted]: [Timestyle is] the customary manner in which one perceives and thinks about time. ... The economic approach ... treats time as a fixed resource and assumes people want to maximize use of money and minimize time expenditures on all activities. ... The sociological time budget approach is primarily empirical, and it concentrates on collecting and analyzing time diary data (e.g., Robinson and Godbey, 1997). ... Both the economic approach and the sociological time budget approach have conceptual similarities in their reliance on a fixed, objective view of time. For many other sociologists, time is a social construction, a convenience that cultures agree on. ... Psychological and experiential views of time all share a focus on time as perceived by the person. The psychological literature on time has two distinct streams of research: psychophysical research on perception of time still mainly compare [sic] this to clock time, while phenomenologists view time as a mental construction having only subjective meaning. [pp. 396-397] Contrasting with classic approaches, where people choose among desirable activities and then make time and money tradeoffs, we posit that people may first think about How much time do I have? and What kind of time do I have? before asking What would I like to do? [p. 405] Heintzman, P., & Mannell, R.C. (2003). Spiritual functions of leisure and spiritual well-being: Coping with time pressure. Leisure Sciences, 25, 207-230 [citations omitted]: Spirituality and spiritual well-being ... have been found to be important coping resources that may mitigate the negative impact of stress on mental and physical health. ...

Spiritual well-being has been defined as: "A high level of faith, hope, and commitment in relation to a well-defined worldview or belief system that provides a sense of meaning and purpose to existence in general, and that offers an ethical path to personal fulfillment which includes connectedness with self, others, and a higher power or larger reality." ... [pp. 207-208] Stringer and McAvoy (1992) found that for some wilderness participants, enhanced spirituality and spiritual experience was due to being in a different setting, free from the usual constraints on energy and time. ... [R]espondents with less leisure time were less likely to experience the spiritual functions of leisure, and in turn were more likely to experience lower levels of spiritual well-being. This finding is consistent with suggestions in classical and contemporary writings on spirituality that time and balance in life are needed to develop spirituality .... [But increased time] pressures ... may also trigger increased efforts to maintain spiritual well-being through the leisure time and activities that they have available. ... Another way to create this "space" or temporary escape is to use leisure to go to places in the natural and built environment that encourage spiritual experiences (the sense of place spiritual function of leisure). ... [T]his paradox of the experience of greater time pressure and yet increased use of the leisure available for spiritual purposes has similarities with the monastic notion of negotiosissimum otium, that reconciled and provided a basis for maintaining the very delicate balance between work and rest. This view suggests a very busy leisure involving matters or activities such as prayer, reading, and writing that foster the spiritual and tend toward restfulness. ... [W]e found that those respondents who generally were more active in cultural, outdoor, and hobby activities, and less active in mass media, social, sports, and travel activities were more likely to experience or use their leisure for its spiritual functions .... [pp. 224-226] Borden, R.J. (1985). Personality and ecological concern. In Ecological beliefs and behaviors: Assessment and change. (Gray, D.B., ed.) (chapter 4). Westport, CT, 1985: Greenwood Press, pp. 87-122 [citations mostly omitted]: [The assumption that time is linear], of course, is inherent to the antecedentconsequent basis of the scientific method. Nonetheless, it is only an assumption. An examination of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural ideas about time reveals a multitude of alternatives (Frazer, 1967; Teilhard de Chardin, 1959). Even within psychology, Jungs acausal temporal concept synchronicity provides for a very different meaning of time. ... [T]here is growing body of evidence concerning, among other things, Asian Indians response to time pressure in competitive situations, Hindu concepts of fate, and Chinese attitudes toward past, present, and future. Taken together, these ideas suggest that one of the problems with which we are faced may not be stretching peoples concern for [the health of

the planet in] future time [see ecopsychopathology, below], but fundamentally stretching our concept of time itself. [pp. 105-106]. Wohlwill, J.F. (1983). The concept of nature: A psychologists view. In Behavior and the natural environment (Altman, I., & Wohlwill, J.F., eds.) (chapter 1), 1983. New York: Plenum [citations omitted]: One of the values frequently mentioned as representing the basis for peoples desire to seek out the natural in all of its forms ... is the sense of refuge from the everyday world and from human activity .... This view receives support from studies of the motivation for the visitation of natural recreational areas ... as well as from the general finding that residents of urban areas are overrepresented among the visitors to such areas. ... If nature can afford refuge, it is surely in considerable measure because of the opportunity it presents for individuals to escape temporarily from the pressures and tensions of their interpersonal and social lives .... [p. 23] Thich Nhat Hanh, quoted by Doherty, W.J. (2004, September-October). Lets take back our time. UU World, 18(5), 33-35: If we are too busy, if we are carried away every day by our projects, our uncertainty, our craving, how can we have the time to stop and look deeply into the situation our own situation, the situation of our beloved ones, the situation of our family and of our community, and the situation of our nation other of the other nations? [p. 35] Ecopsychopathology This is a term that has not appeared on Google until now. I coined it for the occasion. It arises from the fact that, within ecopsychology, several writers have focused upon the psychopathology of contemporary life when viewed from a nature-sensitive perspective. Shepard, P. (1982). Nature and madness. In Ecopsychology. (Roszak, T., Gomes, M.E., & Kanner, A.D., eds.). San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995, pp. 21-40: The idea of a sick society is not new. Sigmund Freud asks, If the development of civilization has such a far-reaching similarity to the development of the individual and if it employs the same methods, may we not be justified in reaching the diagnosis that, under the influence of cultural urges, some civilizations or some epochs of civilization possibly the whole of mankind have become neurotic? [p. 24] The effects of the historical march away from nature can be seen in key elements of the European American personality. The American is, in respect to certain characteristics, the full embodiment of Western, classical, Christian human, enabled by the colossal richness of an unexploited continent to play out

the wrenching alienation that began five to ten thousand years ago, with the advent of agricultural practices. Careless of waste, wallowing in refuse, exterminating enemies, having everything now and new, despising age, denying human natural history, fabricating pseudotraditions . [p. 35] Metzner, R. (1995). The psychopathology of the human-nature relationship. In Ecopsychology. (Roszak, T., Gomes, M.E., & Kanner, A.D., eds.). San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995, pp. 55-67 [Editors note: Metzner is among the leading theorists of green psychology (p. 55)]: Paul Shepard in his book Nature and Madness was the first person to articulate a psychopathological metaphor for our destructive and exploitative treatment of the natural world. Drawing on the work of psychoanalytic developmental psychologists such as Erik Erikson and Harold Searles, Shepard brilliantly dissected the cultural pathology of Western Judeo-Christian civilization as a case of arrested development . Shepard argues that agriculture increased the distance between the growing child [i.e., humanity] and the nonhuman or wild world of nature [that had given birth to this child] . In Eriksons developmental model, adolescence is the time when the child is enmeshed in a conflict between identity and identity diffusion. The notion of a species-wide fixation at the stage of early adolescence fits with the kind of boisterous, arrogant pursuit of individual selfassertion that characterizes the consumerist, exploitative model of economic growth . It also fits with the aggressive and predatory militarism and emphasis on the values and ideals of male warrior cults that have characterized Western civilization since the Bronze Age. [pp. 56-57] Roszak, T. (1995). Where psyche meets Gaia. In Ecopsychology. (Roszak, T., Gomes, M.E., & Kanner, A.D., eds.). San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995, pp. 1-17: Recently, in a private letter, the Australian rainforest activist John Seed put it this way: It is obvious to me that the forests cannot be saved one at a time, nor can the planet be saved one issue at a time: without a profound revolution in human consciousness, all the forests will soon disappear. Psychologists in service to the Earth helping ecologists to gain deeper understanding of how to facilitate profound change in the human heart and mind seems to be the key at this point. . Once upon a time all psychology was ecopsychology. The oldest healers in the world, the people our society once called witch doctors, knew no other way to heal than to work within the context of environmental reciprocity. Theirs was an animistic vision of the world, a sensibility that both Judeo-Christian doctrine and scientific objectivity have censored. In our culture, listening for the voices of the Earth as if the nonhuman world felt, heard, spoke would seem the essence of madness to most people. [But is traditional psychology defending]

the deepest of all our repressions, [namely, the industry-serving] assumption that the land is a dead and servile thing ? [pp. 3-7] Gomes, M.E., & Kanner, A.D. (1995). The rape of the well-maidens: Feminist psychology and the environmental crisis. In Ecopsychology. (Roszak, T., Gomes, M.E., & Kanner, A.D., eds.). San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995, pp. 111-121: In mainstream male-centered psychology, healthy development has been conceptualized as a process of increasing autonomy and independence, thus lending an aura of authority to the separative tendencies of Western culture. [P]sychologists at the Stone Center at Wellesley College have been working on alternative models of human development. Through their self-in-relation model, the Stone Center theorists have challenged this traditional view and stressed the primacy of human interconnection. Rather than equating healthy development with increasing autonomy, relational theory suggests that as we mature, we move toward greater complexity in relationships. Relationships based on competition and hierarchy ultimately sap vitality and reduce power, even for those who are the apparent winners in the struggle to become fully independent. Since full autonomy is an illusion, hyperindividuality is a type of relationship that denies and often destroys the larger context, whether this is a friendship, a family, or an ecosystem. A large part of what feminist psychology has to offer the environmental movement is vision a vision of what our human experience could encompass if liberated from the need to dominate and control. [pp. 117-118] OConnor, T. (1995). Therapy for a dying planet. In Ecopsychology. (Roszak, T., Gomes, M.E., & Kanner, A.D., eds.). San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995, pp.149-155: A few years ago I was giving a talk titled The Mature and Healthy Intimate Relationship to a group of divorced people. Midway through the talk a woman asked, Last week we had a speaker who said that some people are satisfied with very limited relationships. So why should we want this mature relationship? Why should we bother? [I gave an uncertain answer and] went on with my presentation, but her question kept nagging me until eventually I lost all concentration and came to a halt. I need to stop here and go back to the question I was just asked, I finally said. Let me say something about the status quo. The status quo is that the hole in the ozone layer is as big as the United States. The status quo is that some scientists are predicting that by the middle of the next century global warming will result in most of the coastal cities in the United States being below sea level, and will make the grain belt a wasteland. The status quo is that acid rain is now considered to be the leading cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoke. The status quo is that thirty-five thousand people die of starvation every day. What

does this say to you? To me it says that the status quo is that the planet is dying! The planet is dying because we are satisfied with our limited relationships in which control, denial, and abuse are tolerated. The status quo is that we have these petty relationships with each other, between nations, with ourselves and the natural world. [pp. 150-151] Schneider, S., & Morton, L. (1981). The primordial bond: Exploring connections between man and nature through the humanities and sciences. New York: Plenum: By tracing the U.S. food system, we find that much of it depends on fertilizers and pesticides, both of which are produced from energy-intensive processes. Food production is also aided by irrigation from electric or gas-driven pumps, harvested by diesel tractors, and transported by trucks. Once in the supermarkets, it is refrigerated, only to be transported, usually by car, to individual homes or apartments, where it is refrigerated and heated, until ground up by electric disposal units and carried away to sewage-disposal plants. Each stage entails an energy use, and the entire process can be seen as dependent on our energy system. It takes about 10 calories of energy, mostly in the form of petroleum products, to deliver just 1 calorie of food energy to a U.S. table. This statistic led one ecologist to quip that today, We eat potatoes made of oil. [pp. 247-248] Borden, R.J. (1985). Personality and ecological concern. In Ecological beliefs and behaviors: Assessment and change. (Gray, D.B., ed.) (chapter 4). Westport, CT, 1985: Greenwood Press, pp. 87-122: The existence of a gross lack of interest in the future has been considered to be a central problem in the ecological crisis by several observers . [Mesarovic and Pestel say, if the human species is to survive man must develop a sense of identification with future generations and be ready to trade benefits to the next generations for the benefits to himself. [Unfortunately, in Libbys research, such caring] was found to drop off substantially at the end of ones own lifetime and again about the time of the expected end of ones childrens lives. Expectation of species survivability and quality of life in the future became increasingly pessimistic on projections up to 1,000 years hence. Metzner, R. (1999). Green psychology: Transforming our relationship to the Earth. Rochester, VT: Park Street Press: There is an implicit meaning of assumed superiority and right to dominate others. This has been referred to as human chauvinism or human imperialism (two metaphors from the political arena) as well as speciesism . [Psychologist Alfred] Adler believed that conscious feelings of superiority are always a compensation for an unconscious inferiority complex and that such inferiority feelings tend to arise normally in childhood, as a result of prolonged dependency and immaturity.

A related psychopathological metaphor put forward by theologian-turnedgeologian Thomas Berry is that the human species has become autistic in relationship to the natural world. Autistic children do not seem to hear or see or feel their mothers presence; they do not respond to touch or voice or gesture. A third analogy from the field of psychopathology is the model of addiction (or compulsion, more generally). We are a society whose scientists and experts have been describing for forty years, in horrifying and mind-numbing detail, the dimensions of global catastrophe. Our inability to stop our suicidal and ecocidal behavior fits the clinical definition of addiction or compulsion: behavior that continues in spite of the fact that the individual knows that it is destructive to family, work, and social relationships. [Another relevant psychopathology is that of dissociation.] The notion of the splitting of two or more [psychic identities was] used by Robert J. Lifton in his analysis of the Nazi doctors, who were able to enjoy listening to Beethoven in the garden and playing with their children after a day of torturing and killing people. We have the knowledge of our impact on the environment; we can perceive the pollution and degradation of the land, the waters, the air but we do not attend to it, and we do not connect that knowledge with other aspects of our total experience. Biophilia Wilson (1984): Biophilia refers to the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes (p. 1). Wilson (1993, p. 31): That focus is the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms; it is a complex of learning rules that can be teased apart and analyzed individually, ranging from attraction to aversion, from awe to indifference, from peacefulness to fear-driven anxiety. Roszak, T. (1995). Where psyche meets Gaia. In Ecopsychology. (Roszak, T., Gomes, M.E., & Kanner, A.D., eds.). San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995, pp. 1-17: [Wilson sees biophilia] as an important force working to defend the endangered biodiversity of the planet. ... Wilsons colleagues have been quick to suggest that the influence of biophilia might be offset in some degree by an equally innate biophobia, but from the psychologists viewpoint, both our love and our fear of nature are emotions; both merit study. ... In a sense, ecopsychology might be seen as a commitment by psychologists and therapists to the hope that the biophilia hypothesis will prove true and so become an integral part of what we take mental health to be. [p. 4] Milton, K. (2002). Loving nature: Towards an ecology of emotion. London: Routledge [citations omitted]:

It has been suggested that aesthetic appreciation of landscapes is linked to the recognition of suitable habitats, that the landscapes we now find the most attractive are those which contain the kinds of features that would have provided what our ancestors needed to survive. Other suggestions appear more speculative. A sense of wonder at the complexity and diversity of nature might have encouraged the kind of explorations that enabled our ancestors to gain control over natural processes. Deep attachments to individual animals or trees might have conferred the sort of well-being that is thought to be gained, in contemporary western society, from companion animals. The biophilia hypothesis provides nature protectionists with a potentially powerful argument. It suggests that nature, and particularly the presence of other living things, is important for our emotional health. [p. 61] Therapeutic Benefits of Horticulture Therapy and of Nature Settings Generally Therapeutic nature activities can include working with plants, painting an outdoor scene, designing a nature collage, and investigating tree rings (Jessee, Strickland, Leeper, and Hudson, 1986). Simply being in a garden can have a positive effect upon morale, and possibly on the behavior, of Alzheimers patients (Mather, Nemecek, and Oliver, 1997). An understanding of the psychological, physiological, and social responses of people to the plants in their environments can play a significant role in improved physical and mental health for individuals and communities (Flagler and Poincelot, 1994). Research comparing the effects of a living room, a room with sensory equipment, and the outdoors, upon the behavior and engagement of four adults with profound mental retardation, found that the outdoor setting produced superior results (Cuvo, May, and Post, 2001). In an interesting review of the literature on scene preference, Kaplan and Kaplan (1989) found that subjects tended to prefer photographs of scenes that contained the fewest signs of human influence (e.g., industrial scenes were rated low) (pp. 42-44); that reactions to a scene depended upon knowledge (e.g., awareness that disease is the reason for bright coloration of a trees leaves in autumn) (p. 51); and that other factors (particularly complexity, coherence, and mystery implicit in a scene) can powerfully influence a persons reactions to it (pp. 52-57). Familiarity with a scene (e.g., geographical, cultural) can improve subjects reactions to it (p. 73). In her dissertation here at UMC, Wells (1995) studied the reactions, toward plants, of 263 members of 24 focus groups. Among her conclusions (pp. 112-114): subjects who raised plants voted 14 to 1 in favor of the proposition that gardening was not too much physical work, while those who never raised plants voted in the opposite direction by 6 to 1; senior citizens viewed plant care as an important means of attaining physical exercise by a ratio of 30 to 1; respondents having an outdoor garden saw plant care as a convenient and easy way to obtain exercise by a margin of almost 15 to 1, while those without a garden were just slightly more likely than not to see plant care that way; a majority of those having houseplants indicated that they often become so involved in caring for them that they lose track of time; female subjects voted 7 to 1 in favor of the concept that certain plants triggered their memories of a loved one (males: about 2 to 1).

Tarrant, Manfredo, and Driver (1994) found that people had differing physiological responses to different kinds of recollections. In particular, recollections of active outdoor recreation experiences yielded the highest levels of positive mood but, interestingly, recollections of passive outdoor recreation experiences yielded the lowest levels of negative mood. Rodiek, S. (2002). Influence of an outdoor garden on mood and stress in older persons. Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture 13, 13-21 [citations omitted]: This pilot study tested methods for comparing environmental effects by randomly assigning subjects to the same activities in either a garden or non-garden setting. The garden setting was lush and flowery, the indoor settings reasonably pleasant but lacking in nature elements. ... It was hypothesized that outdoor garden subjects would have more positive changes than indoor subjects, based on: 1) the expressed preference of older adults for plants and nature elements, and 2) naturerelated health outcomes found in other populations. ... The sample distributions of two of the three psychological outcomes show substantially more positive change for the garden group (outdoor) than for the combined non-garden groups (indoor). The mean anxiety level was reduced about twice as much outdoors as indoors (3.50 compared to 1.50). The mean negative mood level was reduced about four times as much outdoors as indoors (1.67 compared to 0.40). ... [T]he mean cortisol reduction for outdoor subjects was about two and a half times that of indoor subjects (0.59 ug/dl compared with only 0.22 ug/dl), showing significantly greater stress reduction in the garden environment. These findings generally agree with the hypothesis, and with previous findings in other populations showing improved health outcomes associated with gardens and other nature elements. Marcus, C.C., & Barnes, M. (1999). Healing gardens: Therapeutic benefits and design recommendations. New York: John Wiley & Sons: One of the few findings to emerge in a fairly reliable manner from different studies is that certain types of nature views can have significant restorative effects on emotional, physiological, and behavioral components of stress in patients. It appears that even acutely stressed patients can experience significant restoration after only a few minutes of viewing nature settings with greenery, flowers, or water. Another potentially important finding that has emerged in at least three studies is that gardenlike scenes apparently mitigate pain, as indicated both by patient ratings of perceived pain and observed intake of analgesic medications. ... In recent years ... the mainstream knowledge base and conceptual outlook of the medical and behavioral sciences has been altered by a flood of mind-body studies showing that psychological and environmental factors can affect physiological systems and health status. [pp. 71-73]

As with the history of nature topic cited in the companion paper on spirituality, so also there exists some history on the therapeutic benefits of gardens. Tyson (1998, pp. 3-6) cites, among other things, the spiritual benefits and physical benefits that gardens have provided down through the centuries. Another related source not yet reviewed: Prigann, H., Strelow, H., & David, V. (2004). Ecological aesthetics: Art in environmental design: Theory and practice. Basel: Birkhauser, 2004. Other Forms of Potential Benefit of the Outdoors (not yet reviewed) (These notes are here for my own reference.) For older persons: Stoneham, J., & Jones, R. (1997). Residential landscapes: Their contribution to the quality of older peoples lives. Activities, Adaptation & Aging, 22(1/2), 17-26. Lee, K.Y. (2004). The impact of visual connection with nature on social interaction in facilities for the elderly. Dissertation Abstracts International, section A: humanities & social sciences, 64(8-A), 2676. Kono, A., Kai, I., Sakato, C., & Rubenstein L.Z. (2004, March). Frequency of going outdoors: A predictor of functional and psychosocial change among ambulatory frail elders living at home. Journals of Gerontology Series A Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 59(3), 275-280. Patberg, W.R., & Rasker, J.J. (2002, January). Beneficial effect of being outdoors in rheumatoid arthritis. Journal of Rheumatology, 29(1), 202-204. For women: Wesely, J.K., & Gaarder, E. (2004, October). The gendered nature of the urban outdoors Women negotiating fear of violence. Gender & Society, 18(5), 645-663. Filemyr, A. (1997). Going outdoors and other dangerous expeditions. Frontiers A Journal of Womens Studies, 18(2), 160-177. For children: Mygind, O., Ronne, T., Soe, A.L., Wachmann, C.H., & Ricks, P. (2003, December). Comparative intervention study among Danish daycare children: The effect on illness of time spent outdoors. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 31(6), 43-443 [sic]. Nabhan, G.P., & Trimble, S. (1994). The geography of childhood: Why children need wild places. Boston: Beacon. For animals: Johnson, A.K., Morrow-Tesch, J.L., McGlone, J.J. (2002, October). Behavior and performance of lactating sows and piglets reared indoors or outdoors. Journal of Animal Science, 79(10), 2571-2579. Therapeutic interactions with animals: Therapeutic riding: Kohanovs Tao of Equus (1981). Becker, M. (2002). The healing power of pets: Harnessing the amazing ability of pets to make and keep people happy and healthy. New York: Hyperion. Schoen, A.M. (2001). Kindred spirits: How the remarkable bond between humans and animals can change the way we live. New York: Broadway Books. Masson, J.M. (1997). Dogs never lie about love: Reflections on the emotional world of dogs. New York: Crown. SAD and other meterological influences. The DSM-IV identifies Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Research finds, not surprisingly, that exposure to increased light (such as an earlier human, living outdoors on the short days of winter, might have gotten from being outside on

brilliant, snowy days) can alleviate the symptoms of SAD. Materials on this subject include Blehar and Lewy (2000). See also Graw, P., Recker, S., Sand, L., Kraeuchi, K., & Wirz-Justice, A. (1999, December). Winter and summer outdoor light exposure in women with and without seasonal affective disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 56(2-3), 163-169. Cyr, K.A. (1995). Mental health, mood, and perceptual responses to meteorological conditions. Dissertation Abstracts International, Section B (Sciences & Engineering) 56(2-B), 1088. (Also: look into effects of e.g., full moon.) Noise pollution: Shaw, E.A.G. (1996, May-June). Noise environments outdoors and the effects of community noise exposure. Noise Control Engineering Journal, 44(3), 109-119. Allergies and possible immunities: start with Kim, C.H., Choi, J.Y., Son, M.H., Kim, K.E., Lee, K.Y., & Han, M.J. (2001, February). Distribution of fungus spores in the air of indoors and outdoors in September, October, November in Seoul, Korea. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 107(2), S169-S169. Walking and other non-adventure exercise (i.e., available to the large majority of people): Hays, Kate F. (1999). Working it out: Using exercise in psychotherapy. Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. Dubbert, P.M., Cooper, K.M., Kirchner, K.A., Meydrech, E.F., & Bilbrew, D. (2002). Effects of nurse counseling on walking for exercise in elderly primary care patients. Journals of Gerontology, 57A(11), M733-M740. Norris, S.L., Grothaus, L.C., Buchner, D.M., & Pratt, M. (2000, June). Effectiveness of physician-based assessment and counseling for exercise in a staff model HMO. Preventive Medicine: An International Journal Devoted to Practice & Theory, 30(6), 513-523. King, A.C, & Brassington, G. (1997, Spring). Enhancing physical and psychological functioning in older family caregivers: The role of regular physical activity. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 19(2), 91-100. Davis, G.L. (1982). A running/walking group in the church: Psychological and theological perspectives. Dissertation Abstract 198353534-001. Dissertation Abstracts International, 43(4-A), 1200. Other medical: American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM): webpage at http://www.aaem.com/Who_we_are.htm: Environmental Medicine is the comprehensive, proactive and preventive strategic approach to medical care dedicated to the evaluation, management, and prevention of the adverse consequences resulting from Environmentally Triggered Illnesses. Other sources generally: Kahn, P.H. (1999). The human relationship with nature: Development and culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McLuhan, T.C. (1994). The way of the Earth: Encounters with nature in ancient and contemporary thought. New York: Simon & Schuster. Gottlieb, R.S. This sacred Earth: Religion, nature, environment. New York: Routledge, 1996. Cumes, D. (1998). Inner passages, outer journeys: Wilderness, healing, and the discovery of self. St. Paul: Llewellyn. Nebbe, L.L. (1995). Nature as a guide: Nature in counseling, therapy, and education. Minneapolis: Educational Media Corp. Biese, A. (1963). The development of the feeling for nature in the Middle Ages and modern times. New York: Burt Franklin. Stokols, D., & Altman, I. (1987). Handbook of environmental psychology. New York: Wiley (note especially volume 1, article 8). Fox, M.W. (1996). The boundless circle: Caring for creatures and creation. Wheaton, IL: Quest.

Other Fields in which Outdoor Influence May Be Significant Art: see e.g., Anthenaise, C.D. (2001, April). Painters of the outdoors: The Italian landscape from 1780 to 1830 Exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris. Connaissance des Arts, no. 582, 50-57. Education: explore relationship between traditional educational theory and e.g., Experiential Education/Adventure Therapy.

Addendum to Spirituality Paper While accumulating the foregoing materials, I came across several items that, in retrospect, belong in the companion paper, as follows: Davis, J. (1996). An integrated approach to the scientific study of the human spirit. In Nature and the human spirit: Toward an expanded land management ethic. (Driver, B.L., Dustin, D., Baltic, T., Elsner, G., & Peterson, G., eds.) (chapter 35). State College, PA: Venture, 1996, pp.417-429: A modern view of science asks of the phenomenon under study, Is it real? and assumes there is a single correct answer to the question. This view is based on the tenet that reality can be described by mechanical laws that are constant, universal, and unchanging. Griffin [citation omitted] argues that the key to the modern approach to science is a mechanistic philosophy and disenchantment of nature. If nature is purely mechanical, it has no subjectivity, experience, or feeling, no aims, purpose, ideals, or direction, and no intrinsic value. ... There can be nothing sacred or spiritual, nothing of ultimate value or connection. Since humans must be considered part of nature ... the modern view also denies meaning, purpose, and intrinsic value to humans as well. ... [Quoting Griffin:] There are no norms, not even truth, and everything is ultimately meaningless. The ironic conclusion is that modern science, in disenchanting nature, began a trajectory that ended by disenchanting science itself. If all human life is meaningless, then science, as one of its activities, must share in this meaninglessness. ... A postmodern approach to science holds that reality is, to a degree, soft [citation omitted]. While it is not infinitely malleable, what we consider real is partly a function of paradigms, language, conceptual frameworks, culture, class, and gender. The answer to the question Is it real? becomes It depends. ... In a postmodern view of science, narrative, story, and myth may be the primary tools for describing reality. In a modern view, myths are those descriptions of reality that have been proven to be false. In a postmodern view, however, myths describe that which is most real (i.e., the meaning and deep structure of experience). [pp. 420-421] It appears that, for present purposes, existentialism may be an heir of the Romantic heritage. See Barrett, G. (1958). Irrational man: A study in existential philosophy. New York: Doubleday, p. 269, quoted in Goodale, T., & Godbey, G. (1996). Hard-to-define values as dimensions of leisure. In Nature and the human spirit: Toward an expanded land management ethic. (Driver, B.L., Dustin, D., Baltic, T., Elsner, G., & Peterson, G., eds.) (chapter 6). State College, PA: Venture, 1996, pp. 97-104), as follows: The essence of the existential protest is that rationalism can pervade a whole civilization, to the point where the individuals in the civilization do less and less thinking, and perhaps wind up doing none at all. It can bring this about by dictating the fundamental ways and routines by which life itself moves.

Technology is one material incarnation of rationalism, since it derives from science; bureaucracy is another, since it aims at the rational control and ordering of social life, and the two technology and bureaucracy have come more and more to rule our lives. Bagby, R. (1996). African American naturifocal values. In Nature and the human spirit: Toward an expanded land management ethic. (Driver, B.L., Dustin, D., Baltic, T., Elsner, G., & Peterson, G., eds.) (chapter 10). State College, PA: Venture, 1996, pp. 135-144: [T]he majority of African slaves cultural heritages reflected civilizations of the clearings [e.g., cattlemen] and the cities [e.g., stone and metal artisans] ... because their skills were demanded by colonists. ... [T]he version of Christianity slave masters offered slaves encouraged them to believe their subservience was inevitable and ordained by God. ... Despite [a similar] indoctrination effort and shattering of traditions, Native American Christianity evolved a rhythmic and musical quality in its preaching and ritual styles evocative of that found in Africa and absence from practices of typical non-Black Christians. [pp. 135, 137]

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