We are born belonging to a world of perfection. We are welcomed by nature into nature. Yet, like fish who don’t know water until they are yanked out of it, we forget to notice, to feel, to know, to love, and to learn from the natural world – the place of our belonging. We know inarticulately and instinctively how our health, our deep well-being, our generative selves are always served by nature’s grace. Yet few of us stop to actually learn from the natural systems that are available to us all the time and everywhere. When we do, nature’s grace becomes great preventive medicine.

The deep stresses of these times are taking a terrible toll. As a writer whose work involves research into all the ways the world has gone wrong, I find myself dealing with hopelessness on a daily basis. I also forget, on a daily basis, how beautiful the world is, how much good is going on and how important it is to stay on the side of hope. It is the only place from which we can be truly effective – in our own lives and in the lives of others. Yet hopelessness, too, must be acknowledged. It comes with every wrongful death, every starving child, every victim of abuse, injustice and neglect, every way in which we fail to honor the earth and all its residents – from the seen to the unseen.

The simplest way to reconnect to meaning is to consciously reconnect to nature. In his book, Reconnecting with Nature – Finding Wellness Through Restoring Your Bond with the Earth,” eco-psychologist Michael Cohen writes, “The natural world, including our inner nature, contains attractions that intelligently hold it together and sustain it in balance.” What are we attracted to? And why? Answering these two questions starts us on a path of prevention that affirms and restores inherent well-being – even when we are distressed and disconnected.

At the moment, sitting here at my desk, I am attracted to two kinds of ivy. One is growing in a pot by my window. It is flourishing in the expanded daylight that comes with spring and summer. It climbs in long silent strands up the lace curtain. I am training it with string to reach out across the top of the window. The other ivy grows along the fence outside. Its leaves are big and bright in the sun; a slight breeze animates its reach. The outside ivy is flourishing; it chooses its own way to grow. The inside ivy chooses, too, but not quite as freely. I think about this, about how being inside is more confined –cozy perhaps – and in some way more protected, but still confined. The outside ivy gets whipped around by the winter winds and fully bathed in summer’s light; its resilience is strengthened by extremes. I think about my own nature – how I need restraint sometimes, and direction. And how I also need the wild outside, the unrestrained experience within which to reach out beyond borders and boundaries.

In these few moments I get an insight into my own nature and a moment of deep appreciation for the ways of nature. I feel a balance of inner and outer, an integration of all that is – within and without. It feels reassuring, as though the natural order of things is alive and well in spite of all the disorder that prevails in these times. Knowing the disorder fully will keep us from repeating it; knowing the order will restore us. I need to know both in order to grow and be useful.

In his Project NatureConnect work (www.ecopsych.com), Mike Cohen shows us that nature always works for people, no matter how dire their circumstances. But it is a process that must be conscious. And it begins in gratitude. By first of all knowing and identifying what we are attracted to in the natural world, and then by asking permission to be there, we establish a conscious connection. We open ourselves to relatedness. This can be an awkward business – but it works. And it takes a bit of practice.

I go for a hike in the woods at a park near where I live. There’s an encompassing green canopy over the trail. I give myself permission to feel attracted to something in my environment. It feels awkward to do so but it instantly focuses my vision – inner and outer – as well as my senses. I gaze around in deeper appreciation of the natural world. I notice ferns in varying states of living and dying, pine needles thick under my feet, stray sunlight catching on branches and moss, the deep quiet and the power of feeling alone in the woods, and safe. And what am I attracted to? Everything, of course. But I wait until the attraction jumps with a moment of unique recognition. It is to a fir tree, its lower branches bare and neglected in the shade but upturned in a kind of curtsy. I instinctively look around to make sure no-one is watching – then I curtsy back and ask permission to be there. Then I start to laugh. The tree and I greet each other. We do a bit of a dance in the woods. I appreciate how its abandoned lower branches curl up at the edges, how they invite me into a much-needed moment of play. The good feeling stays with me as I go through my day. It is like a secret. And so is my gratitude.

Nature is a preventive tonic, always available to us, always waiting for us with open arms. All we have to do is show up, ask for permission to be there, open our senses to the experience, learn something and be grateful.

Janet Thomas is the former editor of SPA Magazine and author of The Battle in Seattle – The Story Behind and Beyond the WTO Demonstrations (Fulcrum 2000). (360) 378-3854.