Increasingly The Evidence Suggests That People Benefit

Time In Nature Is Not Leisure Time; It's An Essential Investment In Our Chidlren's Health (and Also, By The Way, In Our Own).

Unlike Television, Reading Does Not Swallow The Senses Or Dictate Thought. Reading Stimulates The Ecology Of The Imagination. Can You Remember The Wonder You Felt When First Reading The Jungle Book Or Tom Sawyer Or Huckleberry Finn? Kipling’s World Within A World; Twain’s Slow River, The Feel Of Freedom And Sand On The Secret Island, And In The Depths Of The Cave?

Prize The Natural Spaces And Shorelines Most Of All, Because Once They're Gone, With Rare Exceptions They're Gone Forever. In Our Bones We Need The Natural Curves Of Hills, The Scent Of Chapparal, The Whisper Of Pines, The Possibility Of Wildness. We Require These Patches Of Nature For Our Mental Health And Our Spiritual Resilience.

Now, My Tree-climbing Days Long Behind Me, I Often Think About The Lasting Value Of Those Early, Deliciously Idle Days. I Have Come To Appreciate The Long View Afforded By Those Treetops. The Woods Were My Ritalin. Nature Calmed Me, Focused Me, And Yet Excited My Senses.

Nature-the Sublime, The Harsh, And The Beautiful-offers Something That The Street Or Gated Community Or Computer Game Cannot. Nature Presents The Young With Something So Much Greater Than They Are; It Offers An Environment Where They Can Easily Contemplate Infinity And Eternity.