First of all, let me start out by saying I don’t mind when someone reminds me that I need to look at things from a different perspective. Doing so is healthy and helps me be more open to new ideas which helps all of us learn. BUT there are helpful ways of going about that; I guess that’s what prayer, meditation and religious observances are all about.
Second of all, I like Prevention Magazine alot because it puts important health messages and methods out of the medical box and into the hands of you and me.
Yet today I read the Reflections column by Ardath Rodale called “A New Kind of Journey” which is anything but new and clearly a bunch of hockem dalderdash. Here’s a sample of her suggestions to “create detours in your amazing journey”:
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Look at, feel, smell the magnificance of a flower. :rolleyes:
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Marvel at a sunrise or sunset.
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Discover cloud images painted in the sky.
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Smell the clean air after a rain, or the pine in the woods. :o
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Open your ears to hear the birdsong and the crickets at night.
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Hug a tree, and feel the sap rise up in the trunk. :eek:
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Dance with joy on the dew-covered grass. :mad:
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Listen to the wind whispering through the trees. [too bad there isn’t a barfing smilie]
I have nothing against any recommendations to get back in touch with nature. I have lots of silk plants in my house and I am the shadow of death to flora. Check out my last attempt at horticulture: two shriveled orchid stumps. If it’s sunrise time - I’ve gotten up too early or to bed too late. Sunset means that I’m stuck in traffic. Dance on wet grass? God, my lawn is soaked after three days of tropical rain storms and feels like the soggy sponge in my sink.
The killer suggestion was to hug a tree and feel the sap rise up the trunk. :eek: First of all, have you ever tried to get sap off clothes? Not an easy task. Second, the image of throbbing sap up a phallic symbol tree trunk provokes other, more Freudian images in my mind. 
Third, [hold on, Hi Opal], the term “tree hugger” is not exactly a word that an environmentalist would actively embrace.
Oh, please take this woman out and have her shot. Then let’s all go over to the beach, get all sandy, eat BBQed shrimp, slather on the sun screen and have a blast.