Reviving the Garden
LIFE is by design dynamic, ever-changing and self-balancing. Within our environment, challenge is a stimulus, and balance and harmony is possible through adaptation and community.
Today’s intense societal, technological, and environmental pressures are creating a toxic environment – and our youth are the most vulnerable. To survey the inner landscape is to reveal an alarming decline in mental and emotional well-being.
According to the 2023 Centers for Disease Control Youth Risk Behavior Survey (1), 40 percent of students reported experiencing “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness”, and suicide was “seriously considered” by 20 percent of students.
While exploring the roots of this mental health crisis in “The Anxious Generation” (2), psychologist Jonathan Haidt identifies an increase in major depression among teenage girls and boys between 2010 to 2020 – an increase of 145% and 161% respectively. Haidt also notes a 2022 study that revealed an increase in anxiety among high school students – with rates of anxiety surging from 34 percent to 44 percent between 2012 and 2018 among 37,000 Wisconsin students.
How do we leverage the wisdom of nature to address environmental challenges of this internal landscape? How do we support resilience and quality of life for our youth - the most tender and precious beings in our Garden?
The wisdom of Nature reveals the essential role of communication, and interconnection, to the well-being of the individual and the ecosystem - from a macro- to a micro-level. In the plant kingdom, there is the unseen electrical signaling by which challenges such as drought and disease are addressed, as well as the observable adaptations including “shade-avoidance responses” with sunflowers, and “crown shyness” with trees. Gardens, too, prosper, when cultivated with knowledge of interdependent relationships that promote balance and health, such as with the “Three Sisters”: corn, beans, and squash (3).
Despite the overwhelming research supporting nature-based play as fundamental to cognitive, emotional, and social development, our youth today spend, on average, six hours a day inside the classroom, and play is not a basic right. Recess is generally an elementary phenomena, and for the 88 percent of schools in the United States that do provide recess, nearly half withhold recess as a disciplinary measure (4). With academic achievement as the primary indicator of student “success”, standard-based education reform has been the major driver for change within public schools for the last forty years. With the current crisis in mental health, it is clear we are under serving today’s youth and must find ways to support pathways of connection to nature, while expanding our view of, and accommodations for, experiential learning.
How do we revive the “Garden for Children” (5)?
Communication. Interconnection. Adaptation. Community.
A testament to the power of communication and community, are the people of Illinois who united in service to our youth, pioneering legislation that passed in August 2024; Public Act 103-0764 (6), effective January 1, 2025, is an amendment to the school code that mandates the curricular integration of at least 20 minutes, weekly, of “relaxation” activities in holistic support of students’ well-being, including mental health. The 20 minutes are to supplement, and not substitute, recess. Activities cited within this code include “mindful-based movements, yoga, stretching, meditation, breathing exercises, guided relaxation techniques, quiet time, walking, in-person conversation, and other stress-relieving activities”. This mandate is a powerful choice that elevates the importance of tending the roots of well-being, while supporting experiential learning and empowering our youth with self-care practices that promote health and vitality, focus and clarity, and a greater sense of one’s connection to self, nature, and community.
Communication and community is essential to our ability to evolve, and thrive. When we are receptive to compassionate listening and collaboration, and unite with a shared purpose, we can co-create in ways that serve the Highest Good of All beings. During these times of challenge, and especially as we are confronted with the daily pressures that trouble our minds and our hearts, it is important to remember: we have the power to find harmony and peace each moment we choose to anchor our awareness on our breath. Our breath connects us at once, simultaneously, to our innermost being, and to that which is greater than our self, infinite and eternal; within the space of this centerpoint, we are nourished and strengthened, imbued with a quietude that allows us to meet challenge with grace and resilience. Reviving the Garden is a choice, and it is a commitment to a belief in the power of self-love. May we continue to uphold our values as we express the vision of health and well-being to which we are committed, and may we be guided as we take inspired action to nurture the foundation, the soil, the garden, the Earth of our own becoming - and for the seven generations.
(1) - https://www.cdc.gov/yrbs/dstr/pdf/YRBS-2023-Data-Summary-Trend-Report.pdf(2) - Haidt, Jonathan.The Anxious Generation. New York, Penguin Press, 2024.(3) - Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass. Canada. Milkweed Editions. 2013.(4) - https://papren.org/prevalence-of-recess-and-supportive-practices-at-u-s-public-elementary-schools/(5) - In 1840, Friedrich Froebel founded the first Garden for Children, kinder (child) garten (garden) to nurture innate qualities of curiosity and creativity, and to facilitate communication and exploration through the freedom of play and self-directed, nature-based learning.(6) - https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=103-0764