512 Project: Cultural Elements Introduction

[Music] I work with the San Bushmen in the Kalahari because I've searched the world for the most nature connected people and the reason I've done that is because one I like contests and I like to see who wins them you know but that's not really the reason I I was studying nature connected cultures from about 1979 and I was super curious one simple question that I've been asking since 1979 why are some cultures incredibly connected to nature and why are others not right it's my life it's all I know how to do is answer those two questions so don't talk to me about anything else so you think about that for a minute have you ever followed one question for your whole life and the deeper I pushed into that question the more I learned and it the question never ceases to engage me and continue to grow in in the infinite ecology of answers that I'm receiving but you know why I'm asking that question I'm not asking it for me I'm asking it for this young man over here and this young lady over here and this young lady over here I'm not asking that question for me I grew up nature connected I was blessed no no I had great amazing grandmother's Poland and Ireland they carried in their bodies understanding of how to connect children to nature they knew from their old cultural lineages how to do that they were rural people in their old country and when they arrived here they were rural people and I grew up you know running playing fishing you know gathering things for my grandmother to bake cook whatever I was trained as a naturalist since early boyhood and I was looking at the other kids around me and as they aged up and out of the woods they literally aged out of the woods at a certain point you know there was an age limit ceiling for the children in the forest that played together you know and all my friends were going into sports so I was thinking to myself that must be what I'm supposed to do next but in my body I could feel a conflict half of me wanted to do sports why because my tribe was going that way that's where my peers were going that's where I belonged and the other half of me was saying wait there's more there's something else supposed to happen with nature somehow somewhere there's something someone's supposed to fulfill something over here I can feel it right and when I was 19 I went off to university to study lineages of mentoring in traditional cultures because I could see growing up in New Jersey outside of New York City that that was all but extinct from our social behavior there was no such thing nobody even believed it existed the tracking lineage is also in direct harmony with the neurobiological unfolding of a human being and that's where I think the most important point is for us today you know I'm gonna live and die knowing things that the culture that we live in is not ready for you understand I've pushed this question far beyond anyone's desire to even think about any of this stuff mainly because I don't want this to go extinct the San Bushmen it turns out are the Grand Master's of nature connection they take this model of mentoring children in nature to the highest level of any people on the planet that I've discovered and the reason I can say that is because they want a hundred percent of the children to have this experience in a lot of indentity indigenous lineages around the world they look for the children who are predisposed to it and they kind of raise them almost like a separate class within the society but if they get enough of them in every generation the culture will regenerate whereas the son Bushmen it's a hundred percent everybody needs to have this experience every child needs to have it and the reason I believe that that is true is twofold number one the Sun people are the collective ancestors of all human beings according to all the DNA evidence now so they are the closest to the original human beings before westernization and their bloodline their DNA is found in every single race of people around the planet so for one thing they represent the collective story of all humanity I think that's one reason why it's important for us to pay attention to them the second thing that I think is important to recognize is that the Kalahari is one of the most challenging landscapes to survive in on the planet and whereas different ecosystems can be very friendly and very easy to interact with deep nature connection at the highest level may not be necessary for everybody because the land is so friendly and forgiving that it gives even if you're not paying as much attention as you need to be or could be but I think the Kalahari is absolutely unforgiving and the slightest error in judgment and awareness could cost you your life there's some of the most relaxed - easygoing people I've ever been with on the planet I mean literally when you're with them in this really quote/unquote hostile ecosystem they're absolutely in the most open relaxed loving hilarious space you've ever been in they're just they make it look so easy you know because it is easy for them and the reason it's so easy for them is because they are so profoundly connected to the natural world from the youngest age that they have everything they need to be in communication with what they need when they need it you know they don't miss anything they really don't miss anything they're superb trackers everybody in the tribe is an amazing tracker men women children because they have to be and I became curious why is it that this one culture connects everybody to nature so thoroughly and all the rest of the cultures around the world are on a gradation away from that and I kind of look at it this way maybe when our ancestors started to leave Africa they pulled a wagon of cultural things behind them right and as they traveled pieces fell off the wagon you know the further they got maybe the more stuff they lost but I'm telling you right now what's interesting about the deep nature connection research that I'm doing is that you find me a person on the planet doesn't matter where they live what their situation is whether they're urban suburban rural doesn't matter what culture they come from and there is not a human I have met and worked with yet on the planet and I've worked all over this planet who does not respond positively to the neurobiological benefits of what I've learned in my research but most people aren't ready to engage with the research at this level it's not going to be implemented in my lifetime I'm sure and therefore we have to leave it as a legacy I have to take it and organize it and break it down into categories because it goes for before a human being is born and it goes till after they die tremendous information about parenting about couples about you know love and conflict and conflict prevention it's all in there and then it follows a child through early from birth into early childhood into the teen rite of passage which is what we're focusing on this weekend here today and then it goes into young adulthood into adulthood Parenthood grand Parenthood and into the late elder stages and then they have things that they attend to for after people have left the lighted world and gone into the realm where all of us will have to go at the end of our breathing time on this planet and there's still things that they're doing to attend so where does this work begin you know it begins before birth before conception and it goes beyond death and there are you know most environmental education organizations are just trying to figure out how to have a meaningful day for five hours with young children that they may never see again they're gonna get on a bus show up and come and go they're like that's all I can handle right what do you mean before conception to post death we're probably not going to integrate that John here at the center I spent five years in Washington state training various members of the adult community to come together like a Orchestra to literally hold a greater community activity so yeah they have kids programs but those children are not in a program in isolation when those children come out a program they bump into elders in the parking lot and the elders work with them there you know and then they when they grow up to be teens they can get right into a teen rite of passage so they're literally tracing these children through life you know and I started wilderness awareness school in 1983 and you know I was just talking to one of the people that I mentored from the age of 15 yesterday he's 44 he's got children that are 11 and 13 I think the oldest one that I'm working with right now he's 50 I started with him when he was 15 I've been doing this for a long time and I'm watching these people grow through life I'm watching them raise their own children and I'm watching for nature deficit disorder and symptoms of disconnection in these children in these communities and what I'm seeing is the opposite I'm seeing children all over the world who are growing up with full connection attributes who are profoundly gifted people think oh they're like geniuses but they're not what they are is natural what they are is nature smart is Richard Louv writes about it it's lost on modern people they don't understand how that's possible and I can't wait for the culture to catch up so if I die without leaving this legacy for all of you especially these young ones then I haven't done in the world any favors I've given my entire life to research and even though the modern people aren't ready to actually receive it or do anything with it I still need to leave it because maybe these young people in the room will actually be able to pick it up and do something with it at a higher level than I was capable of because when I started really working with this and Jake swamp the Mohawk elder came and worked with us the one who taught us the gratitude opening he said to us you know this is really starting to take hold he said this work I think there's some hope here it looks like it's gonna do something really good and he said we should see the results in about 200 years he said he wasn't kidding the honess own a people are trained from young age to be statesmen and to be deliberate and to be thoughtful about the impact of their life on other people and they think in two hundred year blocks of time they don't they don't hesitate so that means he told me that my life was to build a foundation for something even though I want to put the roof tiles on and put the chair in the living room and sit by the fire he said I will not get to nourish from my life's work in my lifetime he said you're a foundation builder and if you think about it if you look out out the landscape of that were dealing with right now sociologically there isn't even a foundation we have to clear the brush he said all the children who are not being positively affected by this birthright as Richard Louv now says he feels it's a right of humans to have full nature connection if this is what it means to be healthy and happy as a human being it should be our birthright I agree with that he's moving a resolution at the United Nations level to get that on the books that every human is entitled to good air good water good food nature connection also because our nervous system requires it for health and happiness all the scientists are proving it it's completely known now in neurobiological circles and occupational therapy circles this is the truth of the human body the mainstream people aren't aware of that they don't understand it yet it's going to be 20 years before they catch on I might be too old to do this anymore at that point we're too tired of doing it I want to make sure that I leave a trail of breadcrumbs for people to follow if they want to implement structural changes at the at the society level there is no place in my research anywhere on planet earth where the spread of westernization happened peacefully and willing willingly by the people who received it it was always a moment of conquering and destruction of culture so what we live with is a legacy of disconnection and what we've done is we've built disconnection into our societal practices at multiple levels and so we live in a giant disconnect of ecology and it is not an accident that it's westernization that's also destroying ecosystems all over the planet and threatening life systems all over the planet people like the Sanh Bushmen don't destroy huge life systems in fact they're deeply concerned about life systems and they're really worried about things like global warming because they're aware that the rain patterns are changing they're aware that the plant communities are changing they're seeing it in their lifetime this change in the ecosystems not to mention the fact that all the fences have been put up and the animals can no longer migrate and habitat loss and so on but those people have a deep concern for the earth if I take a Western child out of New Jersey and drop them into connection modeling they become deeply committed to caring about the earth I don't have to tell them that environmentalism is a good idea it boils up from within them and they become fierce adherents to environmental ethics they develop what's now labeled for grant applications responsible environmental behavior all right it's not an ideology that's something that we need to understand it's literally boiling up from the nervous system from the deepest place it is an intrinsic drive towards conservation it's not an ideology it doesn't require law in our modern times we're so worried about our disconnected neighbors destroying everything that we actually have to implement laws and hope that things like the Environmental Protection Agency can enforce them but the politics needless to say make the whole thing it's just giant jumbled mess and then all of the people who are working hard for conservation we all get mad and frustrated and complained each other in the back room about what's happening but the change has to happen in the nervous system of humanity it's not in the laws it's not in the ideology connection modeling and now you're getting a glimpse into the mad scientist that's standing in front of the room and you're getting a glimpse into the nature of this project that we're putting together there is something that we're all familiar with in modern times let's call it educational modeling and we might also think about vocational and career skills modeling and in the world right now that's a multitrillion-dollar sector it is absolutely highly leveraged it's supportive financially it's supported with universities with all kinds of systems to make sure that it's healthy and happy right that system is working really well everybody in the room is a product of that system we have been so completely immersed in it that we are it we are now carriers of it and it moves through to the next generation it has its own metrics it has its own processes then there's outdoor recreation modeling which is also related to health and fitness modeling so we can go outside and use science and vocation and an education to communicate about nature we can use outdoor recreation to play in nature to have activities like kayaking and hiking mountain biking whatever it might be these things move people's relationship to nature knowledge about an understanding of nature and recreational activity in nature that makes us feel good whether it's gardening or walking our dogs or downhill skiing whatever it is these two sectors of our world are trillion dollar fund it and they're both doing very well the Bushmen also have education and career and vocation training they also have recreation but they have a third model operating in their culture that I've identified and I call it connection modeling and in the Western world we have zero experience with it by and large there is no investment in it as a matter of fact if there's any hope that connection can occur in a school when there's a budget deficit it's the first thing that goes art programs music programs free play is no longer allowed in school people can't go out and play anymore in climb trees all the things that could leverage connection are eliminated because they are absolutely systematically and whole system-wide undervalue right but the connective modeling is what I'm here to record it's what I'm here to document and it's what I'm here hoping that enough adopters will pick up pieces of this and leverage them and study them and watch the impact on the children because I already know what's gonna happen I already know what will happen if you use it it'll work and it will surprise you because even if yourself you are not connected and didn't come from a connected background like a Sun Bushman if you use these simple models they work right before your eyes even though you don't know why they're working and that's because it's talking to our nervous system in a particular way that has a different process a different set of metrics a different set of needs and different outcomes so you can't use voce training to get recreational outcomes you can't use recreational fitness modeling to get educational outcomes they can dance together and help each other in the same way you can't use connection modeling to get education you can't use recreation to get connection these things require different approaches different processes and this is what I'm documenting that third quadrant connection modeling and what we're doing with this project it's quite defined we're just getting the ground work which is get the stories out get the principles out get them into 20-minute sound bites put them on video put them on audio have them transcribed so that the research team can take it further and then we'll be looking for sponsorship and Co funders to make it into online training media that way I think I've done my job and I won't go to the grave thinking well I should have told people about what I figured out right and you know what's interesting about all this stuff I take no credit for it because I learned it from other cultures who just before the last of the wisdom keepers died out they managed to get some of this down and I had the good fortune to be mentored in a traditional lineage to have cultural lineage in my and my both my parents family growing up enough remnants to connect to a child in nature and then I also got to be mentored by and befriend traditional indigenous people all over the world most many of whom that trained me are now ancestors so I I feel a burden that they gifted something to us that they really fully intended to go out to everyone else so this is what we're doing restoring nature connection behavior in humans is not an easy task I don't know why I signed on to this I have to talk to somebody when I get up to the other side I want my money back [Music] you [Music]

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Length: 20min 9sec (1209 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 08 2017