Effect And Cause

Watching Birds, Trees near Your Home is Good for Mental Health, Study Shows
According to a study led by University of Exeter researcher Daniel Cox, people living in neighborhoods with more birds, shrubs and trees are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and stress.
Feb 27, 2017 by News Staff / Source
http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/psychology/watching-birds-trees-good-mental-health-04654.html

Dr. Cox and his colleagues from the University of Maryland, the University of Queensland in Australia, the British Trust for Ornithology and the University of Exeter in the UK, surveyed mental health in 263 people from different ages, incomes and ethnicities...

They found benefits for mental health of being able to see birds, shrubs and trees around the home, whether people lived in urban or more leafy suburban neighborhoods. They also found that those who spent less time out of doors than usual in the previous week were more likely to report they were anxious or depressed.

“Experiences of nature provide many mental-health benefits, particularly for people living in urban areas. The natural characteristics of city residents’ neighborhoods are likely to be crucial determinants of the daily nature dose that they receive,” the scientists said...

 Think of this and think of the use of pets for the elderly, for the lonely, for the sick. There is a lot of testimony that shows pets and animals and trees - and stopping to smell the roses - is good for mental health.

I think it is important to keep in mind that we are not necessarily talking about a situation where a health problem precedes a "nature cure"; i.e., immersion in nature, taking a pet, looking at woodland creatures, etc.

I believe that it is a lack of meaningful and intimate relationship with other animals which is a major causation of depression.
And not merely animals, but with Nature itself: the mountains, the prairies, the rivers, and the sea. If we do not have some sort of functioning "I-and-Thou" relationship with people, with animals, and with the world as a whole, we are pointless beings and we drift into sickness.

This is what this report is saying. However, we usually think of Nature as a curative for mental problems, but a remoteness from Nature is also the cause of mental problems, and those problems naturally respond to a course of Nature.
This is part of what Heidegger is trying to tell us.


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Ray Bradbury and I

 

The Sunken Pier at Glen Harbor, Michigan

We spent our youths on the shores of lakes and rivers, Bradbury in Waukegan on Lake Michigan and I in Michigan on Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River.

There is some quiet and subliminal effect of water, flowing, moving, breaking on the shore, or carrying the great storm clouds from the west on its mighty back towards you standing expectantly for hours on the shore, as Lake Michigan does in Empire, Michigan - or in Glen Harbor north of the massive sand dunes where the waves lap the ancient piers and the wind blows sand into your eyes.
(refer to Google Earth  45 degrees 54' 22  86" N / 86 degrees 01'30 45 W  for the ancient piers.)

The interior of the country is oppressive; it is a place where change happens with the slow speed of creeks drying up in the summer and the mud cracking wider and wider. The interior is a land from which water escapes and flows away, and everything runs! Runs at the proverbial speed hydrological, which in our hearts is far faster than the speed of light.

My friend was going to go golfing at a place called Canadian Lakes. It certainly sounded great to me, and I was just a bit envious. But when I looked it up in Google Earth, I discovered it was not in Canada at all, and was furthermore in the middle of the Michigan; it consisted of some landlocked lakes throttled by houses and golf courses.
I was no longer jealous.
Golfing in the prison of land stretching as far as the eye can see - with a few spitoons of lake - is not comparable to golfing at a place, like Antrim Dells, where one starts high on the hills near Lake Michigan and drives down a fairway descending into the deciduous forests of autumn... and no matter how dense the foliage and how deep the declivity, one is never far from the life-giving wind off the lake. The only thing better would be the additional salt on your tongue from a sea breeze.

Water has formed our lives.
The impetuous transformations of water and air forced the minds of Bradbury and myself to the vast, foamy, and quick reaches of imagination.
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