Is It Time to Start Regularly Taking Natural Medicine?

“Time in nature is not leisure time; it's an essential investment in our children’s health (and also, by the way, in our own).”  ― Richard Louv, Author and Journalist

Do you take regular time outdoors to intentionally connect with the natural world?  This might be through gardening, yardwork, walking (sometimes called forest bathing), camping, birdwatching, fishing, boating, or hunting. 

When I was a boy, our home backed to a farm, and I spent many a day playing in the woods, the fields, and the creek for hours until I heard the dinner bell.  My parents instilled in me a deep appreciation for the outdoors and modeled this by taking our family on camping, canoeing, and hiking trips.  I have carried this appreciation throughout my life, most recently in the form of standup paddleboarding, which I do regularly year-round.  When I am paddling, I routinely experience a feeling of presence, connection, and inner peace that is profound.   Indeed, those times on the water are my “Soul medicine.”

For many, such connection with the outdoors is becoming more of the exception, if it ever existed at all.  In his 2005 book The Last Child in the Woods, author Richard Louv coined the phrase “Nature-Deficit Disorder” to describe the negative impact on both children and adults of our increasing alienation from the natural world.  He described the costs to include attention difficulties, dulling of the senses, increased physical and emotional illnesses, a rising rate of myopia, obesity, and vitamin D deficiency. 

In the poem “The Peace of Wild Things,” poet, author and farmer Wendell Berry aptly and powerfully captures the “medicinal” qualities of spending time in nature. 

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

So for this week, consider making a commitment to get outside in a more natural setting at least 15 minutes daily for the expressed purpose of simply being present and “noticing” through your senses.  Allow yourself to lay down any despair you might be experiencing and rest for a moment in the peace of wild things.  Not only will this help eliminate any “NDD” you might be experiencing, it is also my hope that it might serve as some “Soul medicine” for you – naturally.