Early Sunday morning, at a time when many people are either in bed or at church, a small group of adults met by the Maumee River at Farnsworth Metropark in Waterville to focus on the healing powers of the more-than-human world.
The group responded to invitations from Metroparks Engagement Accessibility Specialist Madison Lindsay to participate in exercises designed to reconnect them with the environment that are part of a program called Heart & Sol Forest Therapy.
“You are a part of nature, not apart from nature,” she said in explaining why she prefers the coinage “more-than-human world” to the term “natural world.” Participants in Sunday’s program were invited to observe movement in nature, to consider the textures all around them, to find and focus on a single insect, and to imagine placing things they wanted to get rid of into the stones, sticks, or leaves they collected and then to fling them into the river…