David Abram on "Wooing our Culture Back into Reciprocal Relation with the Land"

"I don't think there is a way for those who work in service to the earth — for environmentalists, ecologists — to really woo our culture back into a reciprocal or sustainable relation with the land until we draw folks back to our senses, because our sensing bodies are our direct contact with the rest of the natural world. It is not by being abstract intellects that we are going to fall in love again with the rest of nature. It's by beginning to honor and value our direct sensory experience: the tastes and smells in the air, the feel of the wind as it caresses the skin, the feel of the ground under our feet as we walk upon it."

—David Abram in an interview with Scott London

You can read the full interview, "The Ecology of Magic" here

I'd be inclined to agree whole-heartedly with this statement...with a single caveat.

My work as Transformational Life Coach involves, without exception, reconnecting people with their sensory experience. This involves, in-part, de-programming them linguistically. We're mammals with a complex, rich means of representing our experiences, both verbal, internally (i.e. self-talk), and symbolically through the written word. The English language, with all its richness and versatility, together with supporting and enabling a cross-continental culture, has developed a rich lexicon of words which abstract away our emotions and sensory experience.

Direct contact with natural world, for our children, starts with Mother and Father. If we address how we re-frame our common experience of nature through the specifics of language, of 'expressing our senses' and emotions, then we have a opportunity. And that, dear friends, will require time and change...and change for us all in the coming decades is not negotiable, as a species.

It is what and how we think of nature, and our part within nature, that needs transforming.

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Richard Lamb March 27, 2014 at 5:09am

I'd be inclined to agree whole-heartedly with this statement...with a single caveat.

My work as Transformational Life Coach involves, without exception, reconnecting people with their sensory experience. This involves, in-part, de-programming them linguistically. We're mammals with a complex, rich means of representing our experiences, both verbal, internally (i.e. self-talk), and symbolically through the written word. The English language, with all its richness and versatility, together with supporting and enabling a cross-continental culture, has developed a rich lexicon of words which abstract away our emotions and sensory experience.

Direct contact with natural world, for our children, starts with Mother and Father. If we address how we re-frame our common experience of nature through the specifics of language, of 'expressing our senses' and emotions, then we have a opportunity. And that, dear friends, will require time and change...and change for us all in the coming decades is not negotiable, as a species.

It is what and how we think of nature, and our part within nature, that needs transforming.
Aleksandar Malecic March 27, 2014 at 2:48am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPUyR3aFMJQ - Stalker montage
- Bonnie Bright > Aleksandar Malecic March 27, 2014 at 3:29pm
  
  Hi Aleksandar. I checked out the video clip you posted. Can you say more about why it is relevant here?
- Aleksandar Malecic > Bonnie Bright March 31, 2014 at 11:38am
  
  “I love your eyes, my darling friend, Their play so passionate and bright'ning, When a sudden stare up you send, And like a heaven-blown lightning, It'd take in all from end to end But there's more that I admire: Your eyes when they're downcast In bursts of love-inspired fire And through the eyelash goes fast A somber, dull call of desire...” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ShUA885VjI

This reply was deleted.

Ecopsychology

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