Natural Systems Solutions

Reconnecting with Nature
for Sustainable Lifestyles, Organizations, and Communities

Natural Systems Solutions' Vision and Mission

• To inspire people to let their natural Attractions build an empowering Retreat for their psyche and spirit into their daily lives.
• The healing ability of all living systems is a natural biological inheritance of humans, and is available to our psyche and spirit.
• To further the process of healing the Earth through healing ourselves, for only as we heal can we begin healing Nature, healing our communities, and healing our spirit.
• To help develop the healthier environment and healthier population that healthier and sustainable local communities and local economies depend upon.
• To help people learn to overcome feelings of environmental despair, isolation, stress, and harmful addictions while learning how to build healthy, empowering and responsible relationships -- to Nature, to society, and to their own and other people's inner nature.

   We must learn how to nurture Nature, so that Nature can nurture us. We must learn to live in ways that allow all others to live as well.

   "The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think." Gregory Bateson

   To help people reconnect with Nature's organizing intelligence that keeps the rest of the universe in a sustainable balance. We enable people to experience, at the very deepest of levels, that they are an intimate part of the natural environment, and to remember how to think the way Nature works.

   To help facilitate the creation of a peaceful and sustainable future based on ecological wisdom and social justice through personal well-being and empowerment, by building strong and mutually supportive community relationships, by restoring and improving the health of the environment, and by providing a non-hierarchical framework for the networking of individuals and organizations.

   This mission revolves around and embodies core values that people of good will hold in common. These values are reflected in the four pillars of the Earth Charter: 1) respect and care for the community of life, 2) ecological integrity, 3) social and economic justice, and 4) democracy, nonviolence, and peace. These values are firmly grounded in the four core principles of natural systems--mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and increasing diversity. These are used by ecosystems to stay healthy, vibrant, and resilient.

   Our goals, which address the environmental crisis, human health and social issues, and the enhancement of the quality of all life, are directed toward three distinct but interconnected sets of relationships: within individuals, within the community, and within the environment.

   The first step in achieving our goals is the facilitation of a shift in consciousness that leading-edge thinkers in the life, social and physical sciences today say is needed in order to ensure that the Earth stays habitable for life as we've come to know it. This shift readily occurs when people experience a process which reconnects their multiplicity of innate senses with Nature. A process founded on this philosophy, known as the Natural Systems Thinking Process (NSTP), was developed and has been refined by Dr. Michael Cohen during his more than 40 years as an outdoor educator and counselor. His experience includes founding and directing the National Audubon Society Expedition Institute, the Trailside Country School, Project NatureConnect, and others.

   Using the NSTP, people acquire more than a merely rational understanding of life. They begin to actually sense and feel their connections to the Earth and the Web of Life that sustains them. Because this shift includes the social senses that satisfy so many of the emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs that make being human both enjoyable and fulfilling, the NSTP also results in building responsible relationships with other humans--including an impulse toward social justice and inclusiveness.

   Another direct effect of this shift in consciousness is that, as people's frame of reference toward the natural world changes, their motivation to modify personal behavior to preserve the natural world greatly increases. For example, after experiencing their intimate connection with the web of life, people 'naturally' start recycling or do it more consistently--not only because they think they should, but because they actually want to. In a psychologically subtle way, not doing so becomes unconscionable.

   Our specific goals include supporting concerned and caring individuals and groups who are working towards ecological integrity, social justice, personal healing, growth and empowerment, rebuilding community, and promoting peace. These groups--each working on a unique path toward a common goal of a just and sustainable world that we can pass on to our grandchildren without guilt or recrimination--can all benefit from the natural process embodied in the NSTP. What the NSTP has to offer can strengthen these group's internal organizational relationships and decision making, provide a powerful psychological tool they can personally benefit from and also use to motivate others to support their work, and generate public awareness of and interest in their organizations by helping their cause and goals make sense to the public.

   We also act as consultants to the business community. We can help organizations in the areas of business process re-engineering to build healthy workplaces and a healthy workforce, intelligently enfold technology, streamline and strengthen internal communications, provide management training on ways for teams to reach natural consensus, and in becoming positively contributing community members by instituting clean production, zero waste and other environmentally friendly and socially responsible initiatives. These initiative have the added benefit of improving the bottom line.

   If you would like to schedule an introductory consultation session or arrange a presentation or workshop for your group, please contact nature@attractionretreat.org or give Dave or Allison, co-founders of Natural Systems Solutions, a call at (520) 887-2502.