"Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours"  – William Wordsworth, from his poem “The World is Too Much With Us”The English poet William Wordsworth wrote these lines around 1802 at the time of the first industrial revolution, when he felt himself and the people around him to be out of tune with nature. If “the world”—the worldly world of making money so we can spend it to buy more things—was too much with him in 1802, what would Wordsworth have thought about life in the 21st century?Not only are we immersed in overwork and commercialism, but we choose to spend a good part of our discretionary time glued to mobile phones, smartphones, computers and TVs. A 2018 Nielson report found the average US adult spends 11 hours a day listening, watching, reading or interacting with electronic media.Studies have shown that heavy tech use can be addictive, and that it increases stress and anxiety levels, interferes with sleep, and fosters depressi…

When I first found the second-floor flat in San Francisco that I’ve called home for the past 25 years, I was thrilled that it had a backyard and that I could see neighboring yards with trees and gardens as well as distant green hills from my back windows. I didn’t know then that scientists had begun investigating the benefits of nature and greenery to the human body and psyche. I just knew that looking out on or being in my backyard fed my soul.More recently, when a Chinese Massage (Chi Nei Tsang) therapist found my liver was tight and congested, she recommended a daily practice of looking at something living and green—as close as possible to the color of new grass—with my palm over my liver, and visualizing inhaling the color into my liver to soothe and heal it. Was it just my imagination or could I actually feel the color filling my liver, releasing and revitalizing it?As the world’s population has exploded, cramming more and more of us into crowded cities, we’re getting less and les…

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet, and the winds long to play with your hair." -- Khalil Gibran Before reading any further, if you want to laugh and feel good about life for a few minutes, please click on this great video produced by nature-rx.org. The video tells us what scientists have recently started to document, and what we’ve known intuitively all along: Our relationship with nature is fundamental to our well-being. Nature heals and restores us, mentally, physically and spiritually. Without adequate “vitamin N,” we are somehow lost, disconnected from life and from ourselves, and this impacts us on every level, including having negative effects on our physical and emotional health. In fact, some doctors are beginning to prescribe “nature” to their patients, and some researchers are trying to determine what exact “dose” of time spent in nature would be optimal! So, as we look this month at re-creating ourselves through rest and recreation, it is…