by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here)
The trail up Rattlesnake Canyon is just one of many opportunities to enjoy the therapeutic benefits of nature in the Santa Barbara area. (Karen Telleen-Lawton photo)
Apparently being a nutcase is good, but I’m not talking about the presidential race. I refer to the therapeutic value of getting down into the nuts, branches, and dirt of nature.
In a recent issue of the Atlantic Monthly, James Hamblin spotlights an ecotherapist named J. Phoenix Smith, who claims that soil has healing properties that can thwart depression. She practices both mental and physical health by promoting nature-based experiences.
Smith advises listening to bird songs, starting a garden, or finding a spot in a park to sit for at least 20 minutes a week, no cell phones allowed.
She notes that when she first awakened to the benefits, “I remember walking into the garden, and I immediately felt better. I just saw wealth and abundance.”
Craig Chalquist is the chair of the East-West Psychology Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
“If you hold moist soil for 20 minutes,” he says, “the soil bacteria begin elevating your mood. You have all the anti-depressant you need in the ground.”
Now I know why my folks, tilting towards their tenth decades, have such good mental health. They never worried about what my mom termed “good clean dirt” when it showed up on our knees, clothes, or apple slices.
They worked their own large and prolific garden for over 50 years. My sister and I recently helped them move to a retirement complex with all the amenities, but I worry about how they’ll get their quotient of soil.
The American nature-exposure movement certainly isn’t new. It dates back to such nineteenth century luminaries as Thoreau and Muir. My favorite living naturalist, E.O. Wilson, famously wrote, “Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, and even spiritual satisfaction.”
This concept has caught on more recently with the 2005 publication of Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.
“People are attracted to and feel restored [even] by looking at images of nature,” Louv writes.
Local educator Kathy Harbaugh was inspired by Last Child in the Woods. She has been involved in children’s nature education for decades at both the Museum of Natural History and the Botanic Garden.
“We try to expose the children to real nature: down in the creek or digging in dirt, using the exhibit halls as reference,” says Kathy. “They can watch birds flitting around. Then when they enter the exhibit they are more curious. They observe that the beak is adapted to what they eat, and the claw shapes are adapted to their habitat.”
For a few years, I took teenagers up Rattlesnake Canyon from Noah’s Anchorage, a local youth crisis shelter. Most of these kids had never been on a trail, and at first many found the wild outdoors somewhat gross and even frightening.
The first half hour or so they were full of complaints punctuated by screeches from the girls when they encountered a bug or spider.
But after a while they’d begin using their senses, taking in the sights, smells, and sounds as if nature were a living being. The transformation was palpable, in an amazingly short time. One could even say these kids took their first step toward being grounded.
Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
Karen Telleen-Lawton is an eco-writer, sharing information and insights about economics and ecology, finances and the environment. Having recently retired from financial planning and advising, she spends more time exploring the outdoors — and reading and writing about it. The opinions expressed are her own.