5.11 Chapter Summary

Listening to Nature Summary and Transition

This chapter on listening to nature summarizes research on the physiological, cognitive, and psychological benefits of nature for humans. Several theoretical possibilities suggest why nature is beneficial to humans including biophilia, stress reduction, and attention restoration. I suggest how we can expand our listening capacities to leverage these nature benefits by describing listening ideas and practices related to listening to plants, animals, and the four elements of earth, air, wind, and fire.

In the next chapter, I turn to the last verse of listening to the SONG of life, listening to the Goddess-God-the Divine. The following quote from the late Communication theorist and ethnographer Budd Goodall, Jr. serves as a transition from listening to nature to listening to the Divine by identifying “communication” as the primary link to both nature and the realm of spirit,  “. . . communication is the primary experiential source of all lived and imagined connections to all life forms and forces, as well as to how, why, and what we know about them.”^[1] Listening to nature is part of this communication, and it connects us to “all life forms and forces,” including plants, animals, and the elements as described in this chapter. “Life forms and forces” also include the realm of the spirit. “How, why, and what we know” about the spirit through listening is the subject of the next chapter.