How to Reconnect with Nature When You’re Stuck Inside

There is a lot of discussion in nature-loving circles about our increasing separation from the natural world. With the rise of city living and screen culture, many feel an acute despair of disconnection and suggest solutions like family nature clubs, outdoor exercise programs, and urban farming to help us get back in touch.

This is an inspiring movement that has left out an important point.

Of course more time outside is primary, but there is a way to alleviate the sense of lack, even when you’re stuck inside.

If you reframe this sadness of disconnection from nature as a longing for connection with the Earth herself, you simply cannot be apart.

You can think that you are. You can deny your essential connection, and refuse the relationship, but you cannot live on the Earth and be separate from her.

She is the essential support for our lives. Everything that makes up our lives originates from hers.  

The Earth is the source of our food, air, water, clothes, shoes, furniture, cars, and even the cells of our bodies. Someone may take the Earth’s raw materials and process them to a point that they no longer seem like they come from her, but they still do.

From this perspective, any lack of nature we may be feeling is based on our own neglect, and we can begin to resolve it by acknowledging the ever-presence of nature in our lives.

We may no longer gather our water from streams or pick our vegetables from the ground, but we can still remember that this is where they’ve come from. We can still be grateful for their presence in our lives.

And we can do this without leaving our homes.

When you wake up every morning, you can take a breath and say,

Thank you, Mother Earth, for this air to breathe.

When you stand at the sink and feel the water running through your fingers, you can say, 

Thank you, Mother Earth, for this water to drink and wash with.

When you sit down to eat, you can say,

Thank you, Mother Earth, for this food to eat.

You can even put on a pair of jeans and say,

Thank you, Mother Earth, for these pants to wear.

You can say thank you all day long.

In this way, we can do away with the sadness, despair, and longing and focus more fully on ways to increase the sense of connection.

We don’t need to be outside to recognize the Earth’s presence in our lives. But with this depth of relationship, we may be moved to put down our screens and step outside far more often.