Page 49 - The Bulletin #135 Summer 2021

POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLBEING:
Since the last Bulletin, wherever we But I’m now focusing on what changes its specialness in our lives. As I suggested in
the previous article, Nature is the first place to look.
In my last year of school, I received a prize on Speech Day – a beautiful copy of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. I knew nothing about it and it looked far too heavy in content to interest me at the time. I placed it on the shelf but kept hearing about the impact it had had on Man’s contact with nature. When I finally read it I found myself taking more of an interest in the broader world. I had travelled but never dug deeply enough into the essence of where I was:
the ultimate nature of a thing especially
as opposed to its existence. Superficial observation rather than immersion.
Carson wrote a further book – The Sense of Wonder – where she said “Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties or mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment
were in Victoria, we were locked down.
For Melburnians this was one of the harshest lockdowns in the world—for much of it we couldn’t get beyond 5 km from home, for all of it we couldn’t leave town itself. We literally couldn’t go anywhere, see someone, care for family, take a break from life. The essence of life is connection and touch—a hug, a kiss, a shoulder massaged,
a foot rubbed. It was a loss of what it is to be human. We were fully masked and distanced!
In that Bulletin I spoke about the wonderful power and positive impact of nature.I was willing everybody to be ready to hit the world of nature and get a good mental “fix” by doing so. Judging by the traffic I’ve experienced going down to Geelong and beyond a couple of times recently, we are all like escaped lions. We are getting our fill of Life Again (which is exactly the reason I chose this name for our Foundation 8 years ago).
we are going to make now that we are emerging from our COVID bubble — and praying that we don’t go back there ever again. The word that comes to mind best for me is WONDERMENT. I love other powerful words such as awe, curiosity, fascination, amazement, marvel but none captures the humanness of Wonderment. It’s almost like watching the world through a child’s eyes and imagining all of their first experiences. Their womb has been their lockdown and suddenly they enter the world and start to look around their environment and “see”. Maybe they don’t say “Wow” but somehow I expect that they feel Wow!
Sadly, as we grow older in life, we have too many conflicting experiences weighing in on us to be able to recapture the power of this early feeling of wonderment. We have stopped looking or actually stopped really opening our eyes. We have become blind
to what’s beautiful and too rational to rate
THE BULLETIN – Civil Contractors Federation VIC SUMMER 2021 49
A MESSAGE FROM LIFE AGAIN
Nature, Nurture or Both?