Biophilia - Our Innate Affinity with the Natural World
Notes from my front stoop
This week, as part of our new Unwinding Club offering, we have gathered collectively to meditate every morning. Just before we begin each session I plonk myself down on my front stoop, an old wool blanket warming my knees, ready to gather energetically. (The sessions happen via a conference call, which I know sounds a bit weird, but it works!) And each morning as we come together, I find myself coming into balance.
If you’d like to try a group meditation session, don’t forget every Sunday I host a free 15 minute Heart Lock-In session from 8:30pm - 8:45pm. You can find out more about it here (including how to join.)
This week feels like the perfect time to explore balance, in particular our inner balance, as the daylight and darkness of our outer world comes into equilibrium with the spring equinox.
I can sense the potency in the cool, damp morning air as I perch on my stoop, birds chirping and tweeting, making brave sporadic excursions to the seed feeder just a few feet away.
The beauty of taking the time (in our case just fifteen minutes) to experience a felt sense of balance at the beginning of each day, means that later on, when life inevitably throws her curve balls at us, we can more easily come back to balance again. It’s a hard thing trying to find balance with the sh*t hits the fan if we don’t have a steady reference point to lean back into. Not only this, but a steady habit of coming into balance, means we’ll start to increase our ‘balance baseline’. Over time, as our balance improves we’ll naturally surf the waves of life without falling off quite so much.
Meditation isn’t the only way we can find balance, you might choose to simply push pause for a few moments enjoying your morning cup of coffee, or take a few steady deep breaths, perhaps read a poem, or listen to a calming song, even dust off the cobwebs with a shake out maybe- all of these take but a matter of moments.
Personally I would suggest that whatever option you choose, do it outside, or at the very least next to a flung open window or door. Being in, and I would say in particular, relating to nature changes us at a physiological level. Studies have shown that time in nature — as long as people feel safe — is an antidote for stress: It can lower blood pressure and stress hormone levels, reduce nervous system arousal, enhance immune system function, increase self-esteem, reduce anxiety, and improve mood - essentially, brining us into balance. Studies aside, I’m sure we all have a felt sense of this truth.
Biophilia is the term coined by the Harvard naturalist Dr. Edward O. Wilson to describe what he saw as humanity's innate and genetically determined affinity for the natural world. You can dive into some research about it here.
