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Mindful by Nature: Notes

Mindful by Nature
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Notes

table of contents
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. Note from the Authors
  3. Part I. Grounding
    1. Baseline
    2. Seeing the Unseen
    3. Perspective
    4. The Essential Question
    5. Blind Spots
    6. Listening to the Birds
    7. Fox Walking
  4. Part II. Deep Listening
    1. Matches in the Dark
    2. Uncertainty
    3. Pause and Presence
    4. Snow in Spring
    5. On Birch Bark Peeling
    6. Tracking Self
    7. The Earth Is Happy to Remind You to Be Mindful
  5. Part III. Leaning In
    1. Lost in Thought
    2. Concentric Rings
    3. Natural Navigation
    4. Is It True?
    5. Footprints of the Sun
    6. Go a Different Way
  6. Part IV. Wise Action
    1. Intention
    2. Walking with Coyotes
    3. Connection, Intention, and Attention
    4. Being Sensible
    5. I Looked
    6. The Curse and Blessing of the Tracker
    7. Going the Right Speed
  7. Part V. Coming Home
    1. Remembering the Sacred
    2. Tracking and Stories
    3. Exploring the Edges
    4. Harvesting Stories
    5. Mourning
  8. Afterword
  9. Notes
  10. Further Reading

Notes

Note from the Authors

1.Genevive R. Meredith et al., “Minimum Time Dose in Nature to Positively Impact the Mental Health of College-Aged Students, and How to Measure It: A Scoping Review,” Frontiers in Psychology 10 (2020): 1–16.

2.Melissa Anne Hatty et al., “Nurturing Connection with Nature: The Role of Spending Time in Different Types of Nature,” Ecosystems and People 18 (2022): 630–42.

3.M. Stücker et al., “The Cutaneous Uptake of Atmospheric Oxygen Contributes Significantly to the Oxygen Supply of Human Dermis and Epidermis,” The Journal of Physiology 538 (2002): 985–94.

4.Ron Sender et al., “Revised Estimates for the Number of Human and Bacteria Cells in the Body,” PLoS Biology 14 (2016).

5.Richard F. Gombrich, How Buddhism Began (Routledge, 2011).

6.Bhíkkhu Ñānamolí and Bhíkkhu Bodhí, trans., The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya (Wisdom, 1995), 145.

7.Tom Brown Jr., Tom Brown’s Science and Art of Tracking: Nature’s Path to Spiritual Discovery (Berkeley, 1999).

8.Wise action or right action (samma kammanto) is the fourth factor of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path.

Baseline

1.We first learned this way of thinking about baseline working with tracker Mike Kessler.

2.Daniel Pauly, “Anecdotes and the Shifting Baseline Syndrome of Fisheries,” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 10 (1995): 430.

Seeing the Unseen

1.Muhammad Usman Rasheed et al., “Tree Communication: The Effects of ‘Wired’ and ‘Wireless’ Channels on Interactions with Herbivores,” Current Forestry Reports 9 (2023): 33–47.

2.Nils Henriksson et al., “Re-examining the Evidence for the Mother Tree Hypothesis—Resource Sharing among Trees via Ectomycorrhizal Networks,” New Phytologist 239, no. 1 (2023): 19–28.

3.Morgan D. Hocking and Thomas E. Reimchen, “Salmon Species, Density and Watershed Size Predict Magnitude of Marine Enrichment in Riparian Food Webs,” Oikos 118, no. 9 (2009): 1307–18.

The Essential Question

1.This particular framing is inspired by the “sacred question” concept of Tom Brown Jr. and Jon Young in their classes.

Listening to the Birds

1.We are indebted to Jon Young for teaching us about bird language.

2.John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 211.

Fox Walking

1.We first learned the techniques of “fox walking” working with Tom Brown Jr. and Jon Young in their classes.

Uncertainty

1.This practice was originally created by Michelle McDonald, cofounder of Vipassana Hawai’i, in the early 2000s

2.Jon Kabot-Zinn, “Guided Mindfulness Meditation Series 1,” BetterListen!, 2020, MP3 audio.

Snow in Spring

1.Adapted from Christiane Wolf and J. Greg Serpa, A Clinician's Guide to Teaching Mindfulness: The Comprehensive Session-by-Session Program for Mental Health Professionals and Health Care Providers (New Harbinger Publications, 2015), 114–15.

Tracking Self

1.We learned of this metaphor working with tracker Mike Kessler.

Lost in Thought

1.Indigenous Knowledge for Disaster Risk Reduction: Good Practices and Lessons Learned from Experiences in the Asia-Pacific Region, ed. Rajib Shaw, Noralene Uy, and Jennifer Baumwoll (UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, 2008), 73.

Natural Navigation

1.Lera Boroditsky and Alice Gaby, “Remembrances of Times East: Absolute Spatial Representations of Time in an Australian Aboriginal Community,” Psychological Science 21, no. 11 (2010): 1635–39.

2.The term natural navigation as a name for this group of techniques was coined by Tristan Gooley. Jon Young calls them “aidless navigation.”

Is It True?

1.Ricardo Pinto-da-Rocha et al., eds., Harvestmen: The Biology of Opiliones (Harvard University Press, 2007).

Footprints of the Sun

1.We learned this name from the writings of Tristan Gooley.

Being Sensible

1.Dictionary of Psychology, “Salience Hypothesis,” accessed May 27, 2024, https://dictionary.apa.org/salience-hypothesis.

The Curse and Blessing of the Tracker

1.We learned of the concept of the curse and blessing of the tracker working with Tom Brown Jr.

Mourning

1.Charles L. Mohler et al., Guide to the Plant Communities of the Central Finger Lakes Region (New York State Agricultural Experiment Station Communications Services, 2006).

2.We became familiar with Tonglen working with American-born Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chödrön.

Afterword

1.Maria Lewicka, “Place Attachment: How Far Have We Come in the Last 40 Years?,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 31, no. 3 (2011): 207–30.

2.Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day,” New and Selected Poems, Volume One (Beacon Press, 2004), 94.

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