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NATURE AS HEALER
At the Sierra Tucson in Arizona - a center for treating coexisting addictions and psychiatric disorders, James MacAdam is their first Naturalist, teaching meditation, leading yoga for eating disorders, and facilitating adventure therapy and wilderness walks.
There's something serene about the bike path in Harrison Township where I reside near Jefferson and Fifteen Mile Road. Whether I ride my bike there first thing in the morning dawn, or strolling and praing in the evening, a connect with the Divine is a certianty. Stress falls away like water rolling downward.
As the path meanders near the Clinto River Spillway, walkers each Monday at 6:45 pm are led close to the reflective water and thick pastoral green foliage. It's a physical, emotional and spiritual Connect.
MacAdam tells of connections between the natural world and the recovery process of mending, and restoring.
In his October, 2005 newsletter, MacAdam writes of nature and restoration:
" . . .The way we notice these things is through being here, again and again. Though I've gazed to the top of the Catalinas hundreds of times from Sierra Tucson, only today did I first notice the aspens...Each time Inotice a change, the natural sourroundings seem less inert and more alive. This is exactly what we ask the paitents to do; show up, again and again - what do you feel? Pay attention what's going on inside you? At first, in nature and our inner world, the view can seem boring, cloudy, even scary. Instead of staying in one place, we'd much rather plan a trip to some exotic locale or grasp for the emotional escape of our choosing. But when we do stay, little by little, we start to notice that what we thought was dead is very alive. And being human, we have a natural affinity for that which is alive - we care about it. . .When iner drives tell me it's time to numb out again, I'll do everything I can to protect this growing, living heart inside of me."
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