The Healing and Grounding Potential of Biophilia

Abstract

Love of nature involves going out into nature and building a beneficial relationship with other living things. Often this results in a person suddenly feeling grounded, centered, focused, and assured. Forest therapy is one way to find this sense of belonging and solace, but isolation and loneliness can still pervade even the most sacred of spaces. The authors posit that what all living things need is to feel important to one another. Sadly, the civilized world does not often grant that regard. Still, a silent companion calls from the wild to come home; this chapter is about several ways to answer that call and get back both one's regard for nature and one's own self-regard. Biophilia is a proven way through the pathless woods of depression, a trail unmarked by the signposts of civilization—where wildflowers with high hopes of loveliness still grow.