Nature/Nurture: A Photo/Video Exploration
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Title: "When the Heart Pays Attention Nature is Life:
A Mindfulness Exploration in Six Chapters"
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Watch it on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/ztb-dtiyVT0

The best way to experience "When the Heart Pays Attention..." is to do so unhurried. I invite you to arrive gently into the presence of nature and allow it to do its healing/nurturing work. For fun, you might want to consider this as a form of guided meditation while in nature. Give it a try and see what happens. 

I invite you to watch this 24-minute photo/video essay from my hikes in nature. All photos and videos were taken by me using only my smartphone camera. “Nature/Nurture" is informed by the intersections of mindfulness, Japanese inspired Shinrin Yoku (Forest Bathing), as well as principles and invitations from Forest Therapy. Nature/Nurture is an embodied experience, a gateway to presence, awe, positive emotions, and connection. To be present in nature, to “inter-be”, is to allow nature the time and space to speak back, to tenderize the heart, to widen the portal of our consciousness, and to suggest epiphanies and insights. “Nature/Nurture” is an invitation to see, sense, and experience nature as having personhood, as volitional, as having rights, as relational, as imbued with agency and dignity. Nature as subject. As voiced. As story-teller. As healer. 

I include the medium of photography as part of my “Nature/Nurture” experience and often find myself drawn to taking tight close-in shots – the “the skin of nature.” I refer to this artful way of seeing and sensing as ‘deed-o-baz-deed’ (“to see and see again” - an homage to my Persian roots). It amplifies the haptic, sensing, immersive, relational, and nurturing experience of being with and in nature. 

I would love to hear from you about your experience watching “When the Heart Pays Attention Nature is Life.” Send me an email and let me know how it landed for you? Did anything shift for you? Was there a chapter that you felt drawn to or that touched you in some way? What did you notice about your inner landscape as you watched this photo/video essay? Perhaps a lot happened. Then again, perhaps not much shifted and that’s OK too! You can reach me at [email protected].

If you would like to support this and future Nature/Nurture projects please consider making a donation. You can do so by clicking DONATE.