EvoWell is
a space devoted to the discussion of groundbreaking thought and
discovery in the fields of ecopsychology and biomimicry. What are these fields and why such fascination with the subjects? In 2011 I was struck
down with a flare-up of a chronic pain condition that I’ve had since I
was 12. In my quest to heal I was tasked with creating a list of
restorative activities that I could engage in, in order to help manage
the pain. Although
I had been practicing yoga off and on for ten years, I evaluated all my
other routine activities and surrounding environment as I shifted my
perspective about how my body, and ultimately Self, travels through this
physical space of our world. Recognizing that my list of stressors
versus restorative habits was heavily weighted towards the latter, I
began to adjust the balance; I questioned – What had I done in the past
that was comforting and restored a sense of calm and ease to my mind and
body? Contemplating my most fundamental life-shaping experiences – as a
soccer player, as a child who grew up in a relatively rural area of Maine near the
coast, and as a person eternally curious about the night sky and
Universe at large – I found that the further I reflected, I could count
the ways in which my most memorable life experiences happened in the
Great Outdoors. It led me to wonder, what was I missing now? I generated
a list of possible healing activities, guided by silent meditation and
journal writing, and found myself returning to scenes of play, work and
rest in Nature.
Originally, I thought the name of this blog would be Kear: The Call of the Hawk. The sound, "kee-eeeee-arr" is derived from the shrill call of a buteo, or hawk. Plumbing the
depths my imagination for a unique name one Sunday afternoon, I was
desperately trying to conjure up a word that evoked the feeling that Nature
would be speaking through this space. As it happened, I paused and
fully listened to a piece of music that was playing and noticed the
songwriter employed birdsong in the background. Recalling the sound I
had heard wandering through one of my favorite DC parks just a week
earlier, and inspired by my own spirit animal, the Hawk, I quickly
googled “call of a hawk” to discover this audio courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology; take a listen. I feel compelled to keep this explanation alive on the site via this post in order to honor my original inspiration.
