Biophilia

Check out this video of Frank (from Exuberant Animal) talking about Biophilia:

The key lesson here is kind of subtle - rather than thinking about ways to "add Nature" to our lives - "Nature" being an outside influence - we need to recognize that we ARE nature and we are all inextricably embedded within it.

"Nature is the status-quo," as Frank says.

It may seem like a argument in semantics, but I think this is really important. Richard Louv makes a similar argument in his book "The Last Child in the Woods."  These days "Nature" is something we have to get in the car and drive to the nearest state park to see. We no longer spend any time scrapping about in the small patches of woods and fields in our own neighborhoods. And, consequently, what's happening is we're building a generation of kids and young adults who have a superficial respect for "saving the rainforest" but have, at best, an arm's length relationship with the natural world. They don't "know" it.

So, rather than figuring out how to inject more "Nature" in our lives, we should be identifying all the ways we've insulated ourselves and then do our best to remove things that over-isolate us from the natural world...aka isolate us from ourselves. It's all about integration - stripping away unnecessary things rather than adding on more.