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@blauestunden / blauestunden.tumblr.com

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For many, their spiritual or mystical experience seemed to be of supreme importance, but they were unable to discuss it with their families and friends for fear of ridicule or being thought mentally unbalanced. This research has revealed in fact that there is a widespread taboo in our society against admitting to such experience…. If nature is inanimate, then experience of a mystical connection with a living presence or power in nature must be illusory, and so it is best not to pay too much attention to it lest it have an unbalancing effect on the rational mind. But if nature is alive, such an experience of a living connection may be just what it seems to be.

—Rupert Sheldrake in The Return of Nature

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I've known so many people who had extraordinary experiences in nature but didn't want to tell people for fear of being thought weird or even being kept from promotion if they had a science or nature job. But you sit with them on a summer evening as the fireflies come out maybe having a beer, or in one case sit with them in a little boat watching a muskrat on a pond as the sunset light grows dark and they'll start telling you stories from their hearts. And then they say, "please don't tell anybody that!" Or, "I've never told anyone that story before." Extrapolate those I've heard in my lifetime out to everyone who has spent time in nature and you realize that the world view we're making by consensus is missing key data. As Sheldrake says, these experiences may be just what they seem to be.

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