We need nature connection for our minds and bodies to be grounded in the present. 

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You only have to step from a busy high street and into a park to know that our state of mind is intimately connected to the landscape around us. It is something that has been recognised throughout the ages, has often been forgotten by medicine and science, but is increasingly coming to be integrated into our intellectual understanding of the world.

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As Carl Jung wrote towards the end of his life, "People who know nothing about nature are of course neurotic, for they are not adapted to reality".

 

This connection between mind and natural landscapes is also something that I have come to recognise as fundamental to our wellbeing. I believe this so strongly that I have written a book about it and now dedicate my time to helping connect mine and others' minds to the landscape around me.

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In the past, environmental schemes tried to tame and control our wild landscapes. These approaches were often a disaster. With the recent recognition that the earth’s ability to rewild itself exceeds our own capabilities, we have started to see the emergence of environmental schemes that have allowed landscapes to create their own sustainable ecologies.

This is the same for our minds. While talking therapies are a lifesaver for many, they can neglect that which is beyond ourselves. When we put ourselves in the right situation, we find that rewilding is not only possible with landscapes, it is how our minds can also heal. Recognition of this connection is also the cultural change that might save us and the world from the sixth extinction.