Nature as a sacred place
Over the years, I have become increasingly awestruck by nature 🌿
It is truly magical to see what grows, blooms, flows and lives all around us.
And the intelligence hidden within nature is something that deeply fascinates me.
If you look closely, you’ll see countless examples of an ingenious system.
Take the ocean.
An octopus that changes not only colour but also texture.
Its skin adapts to its surroundings – from smooth to rough, from stone to coral – in a matter of seconds. It instantly adjusts to whatever is required.
Or a school of fish.
Thousands of individuals changing direction in a single fluid movement. Seemingly without a leader or signal. As if a single body were moving, rather than thousands of separate creatures.
And underground, trees communicate with one another via an invisible network of fungi.
They exchange nutrients, warn one another of danger and support weaker members of their species.
As if the forest were a single organism, rather than separate trees.
Nature is certainly not random.
Quite the contrary: it is highly intelligent.
Only perhaps not in the way we have come to understand intelligence.
An intelligence that precedes our thinking
We are accustomed to linking intelligence to thinking.
Where we often direct, control and explain, nature shows us something different:
a form of order that does not arise from control, but from coordination.
Bees that dance to show each other the way to food.
Migratory birds that travel thousands of kilometres and return flawlessly to exactly the same spot.
Seeds that germinate at precisely the right moment, not too early, not too late.
What becomes apparent here is not isolated cleverness. It is coherence.
An intelligence that resides not in a single organism, but in the whole.
Ingenious system
What fascinates me so much is that an incredible wisdom emanates from simplicity.
The system is, on the one hand, hyper-ingenious and, at the same time, astonishingly logical.
Nature does not seem to make things any harder for itself than necessary.
It makes an art of not working against itself.
I can appreciate that.
No pressure to perform, no tendency to compare or judge.
No striving to be better at something than another.
A tree does not try to grow.
Water does not try to flow.
An animal does not try to be present.
Everything is.
And with that, it is right.
Nature and the nervous system..
Let’s take a closer look at what the presence of natural environments does to us as humans:
- Reduces the activity of the sympathetic nervous system (stress response)
- Supports the parasympathetic state (rest, recovery, integration)
- Increases body awareness
- Alleviates hypervigilance and chronic tension
It is worth noting here that these effects are not primarily mental. They operate below the level of thought. The body responds to rhythm, space, sounds, light, smells and natural order.
Nature can, as it were, offer recovery through attunement. In this way, it can help slow things down and literally provide more breathing space.
Nature as a co-regulator
In therapy, I regularly speak of co-regulation:
the ability of another (person, animal or environment) to help regulate the nervous system.
In this way, nature is also an exceptionally stable co-regulator.
There is no agenda, projection or unconscious needs. Nature moves at its own pace and invites the body to adapt to it.
For people who have been in survival mode for a long time, this can be deeply healing. It is no coincidence that people with mental health issues in Japan are sent into nature for a certain number of weeks. It is not uncommon for nature to be the first place where the system dares to relax again. Possibly even before this is achieved through contact with another person.
My process
The order in which this is taking shape for me is also an interesting one. In recent years, I have spent more and more time in nature and have been able to experience at a deep level how this affects me.
From there, my dog came into my life. With a remarkably calm foundation and a direct, non-judgemental presence. Co-regulation became palpable there too. In contact, closeness and simplicity.
Now, space is opening up for me to give this form in a relational sense. And by that I mean: the ability to remain with the other person, and at the same time with myself. The skills for this were there, but old survival patterns meant that I needed time to get to this point.
So you could say: nature – dog – human.
In that order, in terms of safety in connection.
I say this somewhat jokingly and with a laugh to myself.
Although there is a grain of truth in it, it is of course far from a linear process.
Life energy and longing are currently resonating from a place of abundance, not from a place of lack. A fundamentally different movement. Less pulling and more being carried.
This is a particularly welcome development
In practice
That movement also carries over into how I work.
Whereas professionally I have always been able to build on a calm, grounded presence, there is now an increasing sense of depth arising from effortlessness.
In addition, I regularly take clients outside.
Stepping out of the indoor setting can sometimes open up something that remained closed within.
The space, the sounds, the movement.
It can help us step out of our heads and return to direct experience.
Sweden
I experienced this most deeply in Glaskogen, Sweden.
Here, with a group of 10, we opened ourselves to the wisdom of nature.
No rush, no phones.
Just water, forest, silence and each other.
In our canoes, we paddled from island to island.
To land there and delve deeper through constellations and forms of bodywork.
For me, it became beautifully clear there that we are not a separate system.
But – in harmony with one another and nature – part of something much greater.
However ordinary our life here may sometimes seem,
it is truly something special to be allowed to be part of it.
Next week I’ll be writing about:
Sweden: Polyvagal in outdoor practice
About the special experiences in the Glaskogen nature reserve 🌿
