“Possibility is for the self what oxygen is for breathing,” wrote the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Meaning: when you can’t see a way forward for yourself or for the world, what you need is a sense that something new can happen, and that another life is possible.Welcome to PloughStack’s Possibilities.
We’re Disconnected from Nature
Here in New York, summer has almost arrived. The sun is out, the strawberries are ripening in our small garden plot, and our annual family bird list is growing ever longer.
As our agrarian title probably indicates to most readers, we at Plough are no strangers to the outdoors. (We even run an internship each summer that combines publishing and agriculture.)
However, many people today are increasingly disconnected from nature.
A 2025 study shows that people’s connectedness to nature has decline 60 percent since 1800. As the Guardian reports:
The modeling predicts an ongoing “extinction of experience” with future generations continuing to lose an awareness of nature because it is not present in increasingly built-up neighborhoods, while parents no longer pass on an “orientation” towards the natural world.
This decline mirrors a similar decline in the usage of words related to nature in books and publications:
While there is inherent uncertainty in using nature-related word frequency as a proxy for nature connectedness—given that linguistic trends may reflect broader cultural shifts or genre biases—the model’s alignment with this proxy is nonetheless remarkable. The ABM, which simulates human interactions with nature in an increasingly urban environment, closely mirrors the historical use of nature words in cultural products.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average US adult spends around 90 percent of their time inside.
The Nature Cure?
Studies, such as this one from 2014, have long documented the mental and physical health benefits of being in nature.
Research suggests that contact with nature can be beneficial, for example leading to improvements in mood, cognition, and health…. [Our] meta-analysis shows that being connected to nature and feeling happy are, in fact, connected.
This week, the New York Times encouraged readers to get outside for their health.
We should add some leafy “greens” to our proverbial plates — by getting out into green spaces. Research suggests that being outdoors, even for short periods, can improve your health in many ways, among them reduced stress, better mood and higher levels of focus and memory.
The “Nature Cure” which includes practices such as “forest bathing” has been held up by many as a useful practice to optimize your health.
Dr. Suzanne Bartlett Hackenmiller, an obstetrician-gynecologist based in Cedar Falls, Iowa, began guiding patients in her practice through the Prairie Woods in Hiawatha Iowa…. She became a certified guide through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy three years ago and tries to tailor her offerings based on the group she is leading. “I generally get a sense of where people are at. For some, it’s best for me to stick to the science, but others may literally want to hug a tree. The traditional tea ceremony at the end might turn some people off, so I’m conscious of that and adjust accordingly,” she says.
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
— The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
Against the Nature Cure
The problem with the “nature cure” is not that it is wrong or ineffective. Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul, I account it high time to get out into the June sunshine.
However, descriptions of the nature cure tend to explain the benefits of the natural world in the same extractive way that those who exploit the natural world do: Nature is a resource to be used, not a relationship to be nurtured.
Polly Atkin’s essay for Plough, “The Myth of the Nature Cure,” is the inspiration for today’s newsletter. As she writes:
The nature cure is only another iteration of the ways in which we exploit our environment for human gain, in which we seek to mine the hills and dredge the seas for the green gold of well-being. If we go to nature expecting it to heal us, we are not going to it for its own sake. Our relationship becomes entirely transactional. We expect medical treatment from it, not companionship…. I never want to go to the lake and expect it to fix me. I would not ask this of any friend, human or otherwise. So why would I ask this of our nonhuman neighbors I claim to love so much? I love nature for itself, not for what it gives me. To care only for what it gives me is not love.
Writer Alydia Catherine Ullman travels to Tintern Abbey, the setting of Wordsworth’s great eponymous poem, and reestablishes her relationship with the natural world, the Lord, and her sister:
Traveling to Tintern did not teach new truths; it pulled back veils. That hilltop moment was a reassuring message that the Lord is good, his world beautiful, my sister a precious soul, and this life meant for a love that ever deepens and renews. And these relationships, shared loves, and promises to keep knowing each other actually do make the whole world more dear. Or at least, that is what Wordsworth concluded. His closing lines address Dorothy, declaring that he loves beauty and nature more because of her:
Nor wilt thou then forget, That after many wanderings, many years Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, And this green pastoral landscape, were to me More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
One man who definitely has a right relationship with nature is Wendell Berry. Writer Anne Ryan writes about his Sabbath poems.
These poems are a record of Berry’s Sunday morning habit, walking his small hillside farm in Kentucky, and, if inspiration strikes, writing a poem about his thoughts. Berry explains that he is a “bad-weather churchgoer,” preferring, when the Sunday weather is nice, to be out walking in the woods, over hills, and along streams.
Like Berry, Nathan Beacom believes that the way to conserve the natural world is to start to love it.
The real challenge is to learn to take threats to the environment personally, that is, to feel in a concrete way the threat to the particular places that we love and not to global abstractions. Conservation originates in love: love of family, of home, of country, of creation, even self-love, to start with. Without being in nature, how can we love it? Without loving it, how will we be galvanized to protect it?
Writer Hadden Turner points out that the the birder has inherited man’s original task: to name the creatures.
Naming is an act of love … because knowing the names of the creatures around us enables us to see them…. Whereas to the casual observer that group of winged creatures are just a bunch of birds, to the birdwatcher each individual speaks the name of its kind. Once each species has become visible and distinct through a seeing that leads to naming, its particular traits can become visible and known. Each species has particular requirements – its ecological niche – which need to be provided for it to flourish.
As Saint Francis describes in The Canticle of the Creatures, our relationship with nature ultimately brings glory to God.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather, through whom You give sustenance to Your creatures. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water, who is very useful and humble and precious and chaste. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom You light the night, and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong. Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces fruit with colored flowers and herbs.
Further Reading
Water at the Roots: Poems and Insights of a Visionary Farmer. In a society uprooted by two world wars, industrialization, and dehumanizing technology, Philip Britts turns to poetry to reconnect people to the land and one another.
My God and My All: The Life of Saint Francis of Assisi. Legendary author Elizabeth Goudge retells the captivating story of the world’s favorite saint.
Plough-Share
Reader Megan from California responds to Galen Watts’s essay, “The Gods of Modernity”:
The author states, “There have been murmurings about a Christian revival, about youth flocking back to the churches. What should we make of these claims?” I would urge everyone to go forth and seek the answer! My own experience quite surprised me.
In early 2024 a friend and I began meeting once every other week or so, our children tagging along, seeking to extend on-the-go hospitality to members of our community and perhaps find opportunities to share the good news or encourage other believers. We would find some corner of a busy plaza or park to tuck ourselves into with a little table (beautifully decorated by my friend) with free literature and a sign reading “Free Hot Chocolate, Free Prayer.” (As the weather warmed up, we switched to lemonade.) When we first spoke to a teenager, I was surprised at the level of openness he expressed. Lovely conversations took place, with the chance to bear the burdens of other believers through prayer. Each journey forth brought us in touch with a new believer or two! The assistant pastor at our small church began to get involved, and was soon invited to the local high school to disciple believers. A youth discipleship group has started at our church and is going strong. And every week, our prayer chain rejoices over new family members in Christ – at first a few, but within months, over one hundred!
Praise God!
Do you have any comments or questions – or new possibilities? Send them our way:
Thank you for this thought provoking article. I agree that we would do well to stop treating nature as a commodity and instead focus on our symbiotic relationship with the natural world. I have been encouraged by the flourishing of forest schools in cities like London and the growth of projects like Incredible Edibles in towns and villages here in the UK. I do think there is a growing (re) awareness in the developed world of our interdependence on nature. David Attenborough’s recent Secret Garden series has, I feel sure, inspired many to both appreciate and nurture the richness and diversity of wildlife in their back yards.
Amen! 💚