A Life-Changing Book

This book has changed my life personally and professionally. It enables the reader to understand why so many things in our culture don't make sense and why many of our perceptions from early childhood were right on. Through a series of lessons and activities in nature, the reader can actually experience how natural systems work and what it feels like to align with the natural order of things. The reader can reconnect with innate sensory awareness that enables us to see life more clearly, make more satisfying decisions and drop addictions and behaviors that are not serving us well. I have incorporated the principles of this book into my career counseling practice with the most dramatic results. Clients gain clarity more quickly about what they want to do in life and are more committed to the career paths they chose. Although it is easily accessible for a popular audience, I also use this book as the basis for a Continuing Education Course for psychotherapists, nurses and other helping professionals. Every professional who has taken the course has found the book to be most useful to them in helping patients find more harmonious ways of relating to others and to the world.

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Michael Cohen's book RWN is full of historical fantasy.

When I first got this book, Reconnecting With Nature, RWN, I was quite intrigued. As a Sierra Club member I love the outdoors and support conservation efforts. However reading further one finds little ring of truth in RWN. Cohen is writing fantasy and trying to pass it as fact and history.

I totally agree with M. Cohen that exposure to nature is good and healthy and everyone should be out in nature as often as possible.

My problems with Cohen's book are the following:

1. He feels that modern technology is THE cause of human suffering. This is false. The Buddha wrote about the nature of human suffering at 500BC. Certain there was no modern technology back then.

2. He presents a romantic fantasy that people of long ago lived with nature and connected to God and lived happily with no suffering. This is false. He gives American Indians as an example. Reading about the American Indians reveals that their history is filled with wars and killing. Hardly the picture Cohen paints. Ken Wilber refers to people like Cohen as eco fascists. Personally I feel the term fascist is a bit strong but I would call Cohen an eco fundamentalist or fanatic.

3. He equates Earth's nature with God. This is false. Earth's nature is a manifestation of God, but is not God. God is much more that physical nature. Ken Wilber explains this beautifully in his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.

It is wrong that Cohen instills a hatred of technology. Certainly technology has created problems for people like pollution and stress. Whenever humans solve problems other problems are always created. Then those problems then need to be addressed, this is the natural flow of human events. Before modern technology people suffered greatly. Just a century ago women often died in child birth. Children often died before adulthood. People usually had ten kids so maybe a two or three would live long enough to have kids of their own. Is this what we want to return to? Not me.

RWN may be a good book for meditation practices but for high level wisdom there are must better books out there, e.g. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber. Pathways to Joy by Swami Vivekananda. Any book by the Dalai Lama or any Buddhist monk.


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Simply the best

This book gives you little tasks after each chapter to really get you in touch with the nature that surrounds you. It opens up a new universe that we are all too busy to see in our own back yard or even a potted plant. Take time to connect with yourself and let nature take its course.

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