Community Highlight: Wild Grief Virtual Hike Habits

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Wild Grief Virtual Hike Habits are an opportunity to come together for grief peer support and nature connection from the comfort of your own home.

This Virtual Hike Habit will start with an opening circle via video chat, similar to the opening circle on our in-person hikes. We will introduce ourselves, share who we are carrying in our hearts, and offer some activities for your individual walk/hike. We will then ask everyone to find a place close by to be in nature for 30-45 minutes. This could be a walk around your neighborhood, a sit spot in your yard, or even just opening a window to feel the fresh air and see the sky. After our time in nature, we will reconvene for a closing circle.

February Hike Habit (virtual)
Saturday, February 13, 2021
11:00 AM  1:00 PM

This event is free and open for anyone to participate. Please register below!

This event is at 8AM HAST/10AM AKDT/ 11AM PST/12PM MDT/1PM CDT/2PM EST. Wild Grief is located in Olympia, Washington, but love it when folks join from other time zones!

Black Lives Matter

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The attack on Christian Cooper while birding in Central Park so painfully reminds us how inequitable our access to nature is. The recent killings by vigilantes of Ahmaud Arbery (1994-2020). The killings by police of Breonna Taylor (1993-2020), George Floyd (1976-2020), and Tony McDade (1982-2020) a Black transgender man, remind us yet again that this inequity is driven by deep-seated systemic racism. Previous killings and examples of institutionalized violence are countless and have been ongoing[1]. Other police killings include Amadou Diallo (1975-1999) and Eric Garner (1970 – 2014) who was a horticulturist at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Manuel Ellis (1986-2020) was killed by the police and loved by many. Manuel was from Tacoma, and he was a young father who loved his daughter and was a talented musician at his church.

We mourn with the nation and stand with the protestors to cry out against the ceaseless injustice.

Nature and Health (N&H) is committed to the institutional practice of diversity and equity. We honor, value, and strive to embrace diverse and equitable learning environments, promote access, justice, and opportunity for all. Diversity and equity expand our collective perspective.

N&H acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples of this land, the land which touches the shared waters of all tribes and bands within the Suquamish, Tulalip and Muckleshoot nations. We have a responsibility to acknowledge our Indigenous connections, as well as, histories of dispossession and forced removal that have allowed for the growth and survival of this institution. We recognize that the social construction of ableism, institutional racism and cisgender shape history and society. We engage with community partners with multiple systems of knowledge, activities, experiences, and ideas. N&H actively weaves our commitment to diversity into education, organization, outreach, practices, policy, and research approaches.

  1. Note: this does not intend to convey a comprehensive list of police brutality and killings.

#BlackLivesMatter #NatureandHealth

NYT article ‘Running while Black’ by Kurt Streeter

Publication in Press

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Focusing Attention on Reciprocity between Nature and Humans

Can be the Key to Reinvigorating Planetary Health

Usha Varanasi
Usha Varanasi

Usha Varanasi, Ph.D., College of the Environment, University of Washington

In Press, Ecopsychology Journal, http://home.liebertpub.com/publications/ecopsychology/300/overview
Mary Ann Liebert Inc., Publishers

This timely essay raises the importance of shifting individual and societal attention to preventive and precautionary measures to maintain human and ecological health. These measures require strategic rather than reactive approaches to human health and ecological crises. This essay points to the growing body of research that nature (wilderness to green and blue space) is necessary for people’s physical, mental, and emotional health. Such evidence should persuade the public and policymakers to proactively conserve ecosystems, reducing the need to rescue depleted species or repair and restore their degraded habitats. It concludes with a plea for focused attention on reciprocal healing of both nature and humans, which can occur only if our interaction with nature–be it wilderness, an urban park, a garden–is frequent and respectful. The author suggests that the nature-and-health paradigm may be the game-changing strategy needed to sustain grassroots awareness for halting, and hopefully, reversing the trajectory of decline in planetary health. Our very survival depends on redefining our relationship with nature with deep reverence and empathy. In summary, purposeful attention and respect for nature across all parts of society can reinvigorate planetary health.

Nature and people in wilderness, green, and blue spaces
Photo by Su Kim

Here’s a Mental Health Tip to get you Through Coronavirus Quarantine: Find Tranquility in Nature

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Corinne Whiting · Seattle Times · April 13, 2020

Featuring Kathleen Wolf, Nature and Health researcher

Mike Siegel, The Seattle Times
Credit: Mike Siegel, The Seattle Times

At this bizarre moment in time, most are digging deep into internal “toolboxes” in an attempt to retain some semblance of zen. Maybe you’re experimenting with meditation and yoga, crafting and cleaning, or indulgent wining and dining, shared with a Brady Bunch-esque setup of telesocializing friends.

Yet there’s one thing two University of Washington scholars guarantee can bring relief: nature. And thankfully, Seattleites have abundant access to this healing resource. There’s more good news: Even if you can’t experience the budding trees and chirping birds in person, connecting through a window or computer screen brings welcomed benefits, too.

Kathleen Wolf, a research social scientist at UW’s College of the Environment, cites widely sourced evidence — spanning some 40 years — that emphasizes the importance of nearby nature experiences for both our physical and mental health, and “deep, compelling” research that proves these experiences to be restorative.