Mark Berman

when I was doing some research for my book, Nature and the Mind, I ran across some interesting stories of people who grieved in nature with something called a wind phone.

And what a wind phone is, it's this big physical phone, but it doesn't have a line.

It's not connected to anything.

And people were putting these phones out in beautiful nature

to use sort of metaphorically to talk to loved ones when they were out in nature.

And I just found that to be really, really powerful.

And when you're grieving, it's not quite the same as clinical depression, but it sort of feels like clinical depression.

And people are gonna be ruminating and they're gonna be very upset not being able to talk to those loved ones.

I mean, I went through a time period about 10 years ago when...

all three of my living grandparents died within six months of each other.

And it was a very difficult time.

And often when you're feeling such extreme grief or you're having really, really hard difficulties, it can be really, really beneficial to turn to nature.

And so I did try myself to walk in nature in these times.

And again, because we're all a part of nature and

As our research has shown, being in nature makes us feel more connected.

It kind of can put things into perspective and interactions with nature are not going to bring our loved ones back, but I think being out in nature can help us to feel more connected to those loved ones and

more connected to the natural world.

We're all part of the natural world.

And unfortunately, death is part of the natural world, that we're all going to face that.

And I think that nature can kind of help to give us that good perspective.