I just saw a great article on “The Nature Cure,” where a physician actually prescribes outside sitting time in local parks, no electronic devices allowed.
We need this. We need to sit outside. We need to sit outside without headphones or ear buds. We need to let the serendipity of the less-controllable world of nature seep into our souls.
We need to let breezes blow our hair. We need to let the rain hit our heads, the sunshine warm our skins. We need to walk in snow, get our hands in the dirt, watch the sun come up and the moon go down.
We need to get out of artificial light and away from clocks. We need to escape our climate controlled work and living spaces for a while and let the temperature be what the temperature is.
I have this sense that the more we “artificialize” our environments, the more our health will suffer. Allergies, auto-immune stuff, hyperactivity, mild and major depressions, all these things appear to be related to our relentless refusal to acknowledge natural rhythms and the realities of our DNA driving pasts where most of us spent most of our time outdoors. Our insistence that we can function without adequate sleep is leading to bad and long-lasting health effects. Our reliance on non-foods rather than real nutrition displays our continued self-delusion that we are not biological creatures.
“We’re too busy!” for outside, for sleep, for proper food! Right. We’re not as busy as we’d like for people to think we are. Most of us let unimportant stuff file our time. Even worse, we take on too much in order to fulfill some inner myth that we might actually be superman or superwoman and are utterly indispensable. How many of us have gone to work actually ill because, clearly, no one but us can do our tasks adequately?
I write this sitting at a desk piled too high with things that need attention. Or maybe less attention. I’m going to see how much I can dispose of in the next two hours and then go sit outside and enjoy the later light of the day.
Can you find a way to sit outside today?
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