Science has only begun to discover what the poets know...

me gazing up into a forest canopy, sitting at the edge of the creek at Kripalu, with a smiling and hopeful expression

I am invigorated by the scientific learnings which support the poetry which has been dear to me since adolescence.

Since then, I have felt, in a deep sense, that something is very wrong with my life, and possibly with the way humans live in general. Despite a personal conviction that sitting at desks for seven+ hours a day wasn't as enjoyable as the days the teacher called us outdoors, when you're a kid, and even a college student and young emerging adult, and then a clerical professional, being confined to a desk is normalized. The irony is not lost on me that I'm typing this at a desk right now. I have yet to break free.

In today's technology-driven society, we have become disconnected from the natural world, leading to feelings of isolation and disconnection.

In one of Mary Oliver's most beloved poems, she speaks directly to our need for belonging. Even if you've never heard of her, you have probably heard this poem or someone quoting it. It captured our attention in 1986, and it continues to weave its way through our culture tenderly. My patron saint, Mary, heard and noted the sound of our belonging echoing in the honking calls of wild geese as they fly overhead. I recall this each time I feel overwhelming despair; I remember how the world still moves.

The cool creek waters flow. The brown ants march back and forth, working away in their underground lairs. The coyotes sing, at times ominously, at times playfully, at the edge of light and forest, and the tiny spotted fawn curls to hide and wait for her parents under the unfurling shelter of the green ferns.

As a mental health professional with a special interest in our sacred connection to Mother Earth, I am front row to a growing body of research that shows a low sense of belonging is not just emotionally painful, but it is strongly linked with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. For example, several longitudinal studies with students show that feeling less belonging early on predicts higher depressive symptoms later. In older adults and with immigrant youth, belonging mediates or buffers against mental health decline. Studies with queer youth show that indirect benefit is found when increasing connectedness to like community, while direct benefits to mental wellbeing were found when increasing a general sense of belongingness to a wider and more diverse community.

This evidence supports the idea that meeting the human need for belonging to a diverse ecology—and remediation and reclamation of it in our daily lives—is a key component of healing and mental wellbeing throughout our lifespan.

Belonging is a terrain mapped by the poets. Belonging is a terrain being trekked by many of us in various ways.

Some of my favorite ways to practice remembering I belong are:

Singing outside to trees, lakes, and prairies.

Dippin' my dawgs (tootsies, feet) in a creek about it.

Sauna and cold plunge.

Sit spot.

Reading poems out loud to the wind.

Sitting around a fire.

Socially silent walks.

Meditation in nature.

Sense walks.

Would you like to come outside and play with me?

Rewild your time, steward your soul,

Nomi