(This post supplements material in Chapter 5 of Connect with Nature)  The recent report of yet another mass shooting in a school in the USA brought to mind the experience of Kyle Jeter, a science teacher at a high school in Florida, USA. In 2016, Kyle succeeded in having newly available space in the school […]

(This post supplements material in Chapter 7 of ‘Connect with Nature’). This image is from the record of an intriguing project undertaken by Wendy Moore, a polymer clay artist of international standing. What you are looking at is a dead eucalyptus leaf gathered by Wendy on one her bushland walks, a card matching a colour […]

(This post supplements material in Chapter 11 of Connect with Nature). I recounted in my last post how a couple of doses of nature in the form of visits to my village gardens ‘cured’ me of a case of nature deprivation brought on by a long hospital stay. The visits, or at least the opportunity […]

(This post supplements material in Connect with Nature, chapters 8 and 10). I recently experienced the effects of acute nature deprivation. It happened this way. For four weeks, I was confined to a hospital room battling a cluster of abdominal infections and septicaemia, triggered by cholecystitis (gall bladder inflammation). For three of the four weeks, […]

(This post supplements material in chapters 2 and 3 of Connect with Nature.) I have been working on a project that got me thinking about bushwalking leadership. I have been leading bushwalks for decades – about two a month during my most active years. Some of my bushwalking leadership was in the context of training […]

(This post updates material in Chapter 11 of Connect with Nature.) In 2013, choosing to call my blog, Our Green genes, was something of an act of faith. I was inspired to call it that by Edward O Wilson’s biophilia ‘hypothesis’ that humans are innately or genetically disposed to be interested in and attracted to nature. […]

(This post supplements materials in chapters 3 and 10 of Connect with Nature). According to one of my early bushwalking mentors, ‘Americans hike, New Zealanders tramp, Britishers ramble, but Aussies bushwalk’. I was reminded of this when I read Dr Evelyn Lewin’s recent Sun-Herald magazine article (January 30,2022), ‘Take a hike’. Evelyn, a general practitioner and […]

(Material in this post supplements Chapter 12 of Connect with Nature) Becoming nature connected has opened my eyes and heart to the importance of indigenous people for the future of humanity. I acknowledge this in the last chapter of my book. Connect with Nature, where I speak of the ‘Earth-centred wisdom’ that sets indigenous cultures […]

(Material in this post supplements Chapter 12 of Connect with Nature) The death occurred on December 26, 2021 of Professor Edward O Wilson, an acclaimed biologist, foremost naturalist and pioneering thinker. Widely regarded as Charles Darwin’s successor, Wilson transformed my understanding of myself, others and what it means to be human. My writing over the […]

President Bill Clinton said that there were two kinds of people—those that have seen the Taj Mahal and those that haven’t. I suspect he was highlighting the stunning beauty of the place rather than suggesting that people who have seen it are a breed apart.