Healing in Nature
Section Overview

Nature can be a source of solace, healing, insight and regeneration. Whether in the wilderness or the backyard, being and communing with nature is also a source of wonder. Here we can be inspired, recharge our batteries, get our hands dirty and engage in partnership with the elements, the awesome beauty of nature and its power. This is the theme of the section Healing with Nature.

But in the city it might be hard to find a restful place away from our busy work-lives, the rumble of heavy traffic and the daily rush. Based on his own experience, Kipling Z (who asked us to disguise his name so he wouldn't alienate the people he wants to help change) wanted to know how city office workers sustain themselves during the day, so he went out over a number of lunchtimes to talk to people in Melbourne’s city parks to Search for the Sacred in the Concrete Jungle.

Gardens are beautiful, restful, engrossing, flourishing. In Gardening: Good for our Soul, Peter Cock explains that in cultivating the garden as a friend and partner, we also begin to cultivate a deep soulful connection. Soul. Nurturing the earth, eating our home-grown produce, weeding out garden beds and things we no longer need in our lives, the garden is indeed a place to grow.

But the garden can also be a place to be buried. Peter, together with Jill Hocking, has written a charming story of one man’s wishes for a Green Burial. His desire addresses the issues of life and death where trees act as a bridge between them, to create and sustain life. Instead of a marvellous headstone, Peter Cock recommends we request a tree to be planted in our memory.

On a Buddhist retreat at Vipassana in Australia Anna Clabburn finds through the way of silence and sitting there is greater awareness that can be learned of self, others and the world beyond. She describes her journey in Stumbling on the path to myself, I found a way to the world…