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Photo from Tony Howell.
From an article on Livescience.com:In our increasingly urbanized world, it turns out that a little green can go a long way toward improving our health, not just that of the planet.
That could mean something as simple as a walk in the park or just a tree viewed through a window. It's not necessarily the exercise that is the key. It's the refreshing contact with nature and its uncomplicated demands on us.
Here is how it works: Modern life -- commuting, computing, paying taxes -- can place a burden on our brains and bodies. In recent years, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Landscape and Human Health Laboratory and elsewhere have compiled evidence that suggests that a connection to nature is vital to our psychological and physical health because it helps recharge our brains so that we're better able to cope with the stresses in life.
In a 2001 study detailed in the journal Environment and Behavior, Kuo and her colleagues surveyed parents of children aged 7 to 12 who had been diagnosed with an Attention Deficit Disorder. They asked the parents to rate activities that seemed to alleviate their child's symptoms and which seemed to aggravate them.They found the children functioned better after a "green" activity (i.e. one that likely took place in a natural setting, such as fishing or soccer) than a "non-green" one (such as watching TV or playing video games).
Kuo and her colleagues think the improvement stems from nature's ability to capture our attention involuntarily, giving the hard-working, overtaxed part of our brain used to voluntarily focus our attention on more demanding tasks a break, essentially allowing it to recharge

When I was many years younger, I used to be hit hard by what later came to be known as SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder. As Autumn proceeded from its kaleidoscopic colors into rusts and browns, and finally into Winter's endless grays, my own spirits would slump accordingly. As the days grew darker, my moods followed along, bringing bouts of tears, withdrawal, and lethargy. By the time I crawled into late February, I would often be struggling with outright despair.
But, thankfully, that changed. Perhaps, it was in part that I fell in love with a man who truly revels in the cold time of year. And maybe as I got older, my hormonal changes helped. But the truth is that, long before I was perimenopausal, my Autumns and Winters were beginning to pass without loss of emotional equilibrium.
Was it just coincidence that this shift was in synch with the deepening of my Pagan spiritual practice? As I attuned myself to the seasons of the Earth, and embraced the cycles of life and death, growth and surrender, rather than dreading the darkening of the year, I learned to love it.
Don't get me wrong. ... I am well aware that for many people, it is a very painful and serious problem.
But I wonder if there could be any correlation between SAD and our culture's insistence that we ignore the natural waxing and waning of the light. Could winter depression be exacerbated by our refusal to allow ourselves, in the ways we might individually need to, to harmonize with the rhythms of the seasons?
Instead, I seek the beauty of the short days, I am grateful for the cold winds, and I embrace the silence. Nature Herself teaches us how to live in rhythm, and by following Her guidance, we might, in fact, be much less sad.
read more here...
This is not to say that periodic use of medication isn't helpful for people going through difficult times. But simply medicating ourselves because we're sad isn't going to help us get to the heart of the issue that is creating the sadness. Saturn cycles create depression and isolation, but the time spent alone in sadness that Saturn requires helps us to become stronger internally and better equipped to handle other difficult times. Pluto cycles can create depression at the loss of control we feel as our lives are turned upside down, but if we medicate ourselves we may miss the exhilaration of the regeneration that we are sure to experience on the other end.
The shaman helps others accept their changes or deaths on one level, and obtain rebirth and to develop familiarity on other and new levels. It is said that the shaman restores the road between earth and heaven, a road that has been temporarily lost or has become unclear or uncertain. Another way to say this is that the shaman knows the way from one state of being or chakra to the next state, and is able to guide or prepare the initiate for that journey. The shaman often guides the would-be initiate from an unstable or dangerous state of mind to stability and future productivity. In the esoteric literature, the Shaman traditionally escorts the souls of the dead away from their corpses and dying places and on into the next world. The shaman is capable of entering and holding an altered state of consciousness at will, and can act as an intermediary between the known world of the would-be initiate, and the supranatural, or "next", world.I believe that people are called to this work - it's not something that you can decide to do on career day. Any kind of shamanic work requires walking through the terror of your own darkness and it's not something most people would do if they could avoid it.
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