Every week, we bring you the latest news in placemaking, landscape architecture, the nature-mental health link, and much more. Check back each week for new roundups and items.
For Winter’s Gloom, a Healing Dose of Light in a Garden
On an unusually warm and bright Sunday in January, almost 100 people showed up to watch and listen to Lynne Spevack, a plant lover and a tour guide, offer her wisdom. On her next tour, on a Sunday this month when the high temperature was 30 degrees and the sky was battleship gray, attendance was closer to 10. That weather-based variation is typical, Ms. Spevack said, but in her opinion it should not be. Ms. Spevack, a volunteer at the garden, is not a typical tour guide. She is a licensed psychotherapist and she has a specialty in helping people cope with the winter blahs, which is clinically known as seasonal affective disorder.
An Example of Urban Farming Done Right
About ten miles northwest of downtown Boise sits a 60-acre organic farm that appears to be doing everything right. This is a story about sustainable agriculture – typically more the purview of my NRDC colleague Jonathan Kaplan than of yours truly – but it is also a story about sustainable communities. Founded by Clay and Josie Erskine in 2002 and assisted by a community of about a dozen “farm hands,” the richly named Peaceful Belly farm strives “to grow the most wholesome food for our community” of Boise, and it’s easy to believe that they do just that.
Nature: The Glue that Holds the Family Together
In 2005, Richard Louv coined the phrase “Nature Deficit Disorder†in his bestselling book “Last Child in the Woods.†The basic idea of NDD is that today’s kids are deprived of time spent in nature: they’re over-scheduled, over-structured, over-scrutinized, and supervised at all times; they lack the ability to think and feel independently; they’re stressed; most of all, they don’t get muddy, dig for worms with their bare fingers, climb trees, or otherwise have enough spirited, unbridled fun (in a nutshell.) If this concept sounds familiar, that’s because Louv’s book opened the door to a national discourse on the subject, and started an entire movement.
Do Early Outdoor Experiences Help Build Healthier Brains?
What role do early childhood experiences in nearby nature play in the formation of brain architecture? It’s time for science to ask that question. In January, 2012, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported on the American Academy of Pediatrics’ “landmark warning that toxic stress can harm children for life.†This was, he wrote, a “’policy statement’ from the premier association of pediatricians, based on two decades of scientific research,†and he added that the statement “has revolutionary implications for medicine and for how we can more effectively chip away at poverty and crime.â€
‘Nature Therapy’ Uses Healing Power of Natural World
A growing number of psychotherapists are enlisting nature as an ally in their work with clients. Generally referred to as “nature therapy,” this approach is the applied art and science of a new field called eco-psychology. And the research supporting the psychological benefits of nature interaction is compelling. Eco-therapists, as we are called, assign considerable homework to our clients and apply nature-based rituals, symbols and ceremonies as part of the psychotherapeutic process. Most of what we do is based on ancient knowledge, that practiced by the earliest mental healers of our species. These tribal elders recognized nature’s capacity for promoting emotional healing and spiritual opening, and they used it to help the troubled in their midst. Today, we use behavioral science to affirm what our ancestors knew in their souls more than their minds. Nature heals. Nature comforts. Nature enlightens.
