WHERE IS THE BUNNY PLANET?, by Cindy Frantz

January 8, 2006

Order of Service -- Story for all ages: First Tomato (A Voyage to the Bunny Planet)

We have all had days like Claire’s -- when we spill our cereal, and get snow in our shoes, and the bus is late. Like death and taxes, bad days are something you can count on in life.

When bad days happen, where do you go to heal yourself? Where is your Bunny Planet? For me, the answer has always been Nature. When I was a girl, I would climb the hill behind my house, and sit on a big boulder. Or I’d walk down to a nearby stream and stare at the water as it tumbled over the stones. In college, I remember a bitterly cold day in January, when I had painfully ended a relationship. I went to the woods, knowing that was the only place I’d find any comfort.

I am not alone. Wendell Berry writes:

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water,

and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.

For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Nature is not just a healing places for writers and adolescent girls. There is a lot of scientific research backing up the idea that people in general benefit from time spent in nature.

One fascinating study looked at people in a low-income building, who were randomly assigned to one side of the building – which had a view of a natural area – or another, which looked out on concrete. These people were grappling with big issues, for example whether or not to give their newborn child up for adoption. The researcher assessed how they were coping with their issues. In comparison to residents whose window looked out onto barren space, residents whose windows looked out onto green space reported procrastinating less in addressing their major issues, found their issues to be less difficult, and reported their issues to be less severe and of shorter length.

In another study, they compared 2 different low-income buildings, again differing in the proximity to greenspace. There were differences in the amount of property damage and violent crime in the two buildings, based on police reports. More exposure to nature – less crime, less damage.

Other research has determined that dental patients report less anxiety when there is a large mural of a natural scene in the waiting room. Those with views of nature out their office window report greater job satisfaction, greater enthusiasm for their work, less frustration, greater patience, higher life satisfaction, and higher overall health.

These effects are not just subjective. Spending time in nature lowers blood pressure. Having a view of a natural scene from your office window results in fewer sick days and fewer headaches. Time in nature also improves mental functioning and performance on objective cognitive tasks– it seems to restore our limited ability to focus on important things and tune out distractions.

What counts as “Nature,” you may ask? It turns out that people get benefits from watching videos of nature, and from looking out a window our looking at a poster of nature. Walking in the real thing, of course, is the most powerful way to reap its benefits. A single houseplant does not seem to create measurable benefit – there needs to be a sense of extent to the experience to have healing effects.

And we don’t find every natural setting comforting. Nature is not healing when you get snow in your shoes, or when you are crossing a desert and have no water. Or when your home is washed away by a hurricane. For nature to be healing there must be a fit between us and the environment – we must be able to get our needs met, we must not feel threatened.

And some of us, of course, find nature more threatening than others do. For the first time in human history, huge numbers of people grow up seeing nature as at best an inconvenient place without electricity and climate control, and at worst a dangerous place full of stinging insects and wild animals. It is one of the perils of our modern, technological life, that keeps nature at an arm’s length – we are protected from many things that our ancestors suffered from, but we are also cut off from a treasure trove of healing.

Research shows that kids who grow up with a patch of nature to call their own grow up to be more proactive about protecting the environment. It may also be that when we give our kids that connection to nature, we are giving them a valuable coping tool.

When we raise little girls to be scared of bugs, or boys to view ants as things to burn under magnifying glasses, we are depriving them of a source of health and well-being, just as surely as refusing to let them eat green vegetables would deprive them of vitamins A and C.

It seems clear that Nature IS healing. Why? And how does this enrich our spiritual practice?

The first question is a psychological one, one I’ve thought a lot about. There are a number of reasons why nature might have the positive effects it does.

It may be that we are biologically programmed to respond to certain natural scenes with positive emotions. Research shows that certain kinds of scenes seem to have universal appeal – places that have some sort of openness about them, like a path through the woods or savannah spotted with trees. One can make visual sense of the scene fairly easily. But the space also has places to hide, and places to explore: The path curves, there are shadows under the trees, there are secluded niches. People are also drawn to scenes with water. All these features are arguably those that would have made a natural area safe and compatible with the goals of our early ancestors– one in which they could get their needs met, with little danger.

We also know that spending time in nature decreases self consciousness. Our modern American obsession with individuality is an aberration in the history of human culture. Never before have people thought so much about their individual selves -- who they are, how they look, what they have – in a way so disconnected from social and geographical ties. The presence of mirrors reminds us of our aesthetic shortcomings and advertising reminds us of our unattainable cultural ideals. all this serves to make us self focused and dissatisfied. Nature may benefit us because we can leave that behind and escape the tyranny of the self. The birds don’t care if you’re a little overweight; the trees don’t care what kind of car you drive.

Nature also changes our perspective. Watching squirrels gather nuts reminds us that food, water, and air are what life is really about, not picking up the drycleaning or returning phone calls.

All of these things are probably true. But I think the most important source of healing that Nature offers is the potential for Transcendance. We humans are the only species that has an awareness of our own mortality – we know we will die some day. One way to cope with this terrifying reality is to convince ourselves that we are connected to something bigger than our puny little selves. And we are. We are connected by the web of life; we are part of something so vast and so magical, we can at once drown our individual troubles and be raised up as an integral part of a beautiful whole.

How can we use this insight to deepen our spiritual practices? Here I have no answers; it is a question we all have to answer for ourselves. But I offer you a few thoughts.

On the simplest level, Developing a bond with nature means living the 7^th principle.

In a pragmatic sense, we are more effective agents of social change, more effective spouses, parents, friends – even board members and committee members -- if we are whole and healed. Taking occasional trips to the Bunny Planet will no doubt help us live out our behavioral covenant, and help us to treat each other with compassion.

I think most important, however, is to recognize and honor those aspects of our surroundings that in fact are integral to our being. Think of a walk in the woods not as a luxury or a trifle, but as a physical, mental and spiritual necessity.

Imagine if there were a Recommended Daily Allowance of Nature, endorsed by the National Institute of Mental Health. Schools and corporations would have to ensure that pupils and employees had access to natural light and views of green spaces. Unions would bargain for “nature breaks,” instead of coffee breaks.

The Bunny Planet is all around us. You need only find your way of connecting with it. It may be by watching the birds at a feeder in your yard; keeping a pet; having houseplants; collecting stones and feathers, gardening, watching the stars… But the Bunny Planet has been there all along.