Healing with Nature: July is Park and Recreation Month

My cousin Chris grew up to be a cowboy and, as a teenager, competed in rodeos. He also hunted, fished, hiked, and celebrated the outdoors of our home state of Montana. I remember, as a boy, looking up to him when my father took us on camping and canoeing trips. Chris became a quadriplegic after a car accident when he was 18, but, despite his physical disability, spent the next 30 years as a passionate advocate for outdoor recreation opportunities for the disabled.

As a guest blogger for Caregiven, I want to use this opportunity to celebrate my cousin's life and how his passions helped him escape the confines of being "paralyzed" by living as an outdoorsman in Montana.

In 2012, he wrote beautifully about the return to his love of hunting in an essay for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation about the first elk he harvested after life put him in a wheelchair (but, trust me, this elk was not his last), saying:

I thought about how I had again become part of a distinct group, and experienced the sometimes unrecognized healthy quality engendered through the hunt. Basic human needs like nutrition and health are necessary, but experiences like this really fulfill you. I was not only surviving but fully living life. The term "hunter" was again part of my identity, and the morning's successes would help me look forward to the new adventures that lie ahead. I recently had read of the great conservationist Theodore Roosevelt experiencing the death of his mother and his wife on the same day. His response was to head west for time to hunt and to heal. For me, it exemplified the peace that, for some, occurs nowhere else but outdoors.

All seasons in Montana strike me as beautiful, with summer often as the exemplar. So this month feels appropriate for celebrating Chris' life mission: to bring outdoor recreation opportunities to people experiencing a disability or, at least, to show us that such recreation and experiencing nature as a reprieve is still possible even when physically limited. 

Celebrate Gardens, Parks, and Outdoor Spaces

July is also celebrated by the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) as Park and Recreation Month. The Caregiven team sees this as an opportunity to celebrate green spaces, forests, and any chance to be outside and feel grateful for nature's beauty. While recreating and spending time outdoors might seem too challenging for anyone with physical limitations, disabilities, needing care, or functioning as a caretaker, it's not a matter of how far you go or for how long or if at all. Instead, what matters most is the perspective brought to an appreciation of the natural world. Even if this means marveling at an aspen tree quaking in the morning breeze outside your window for five minutes, who can argue that's 8% of an hour well spent?

The NRPA's month-long theme for July 2024 is “Where You Belong,” and “celebrates the many ways park and recreation professionals across the country foster a sense of belonging in their community by providing welcoming and inclusive programs, essential services for all ages and abilities, and safe, accessible spaces to build meaningful connections.”

There's no limit on what parks can do to revitalize a community, just as there isn't on the power of a caretaker dedicating time to push their loved one in a wheelchair through a neighborhood park. 

Your story is yours, and we want to celebrate each story of connection to the natural world — this includes those of us lucky enough to live nearby national forests and parks and visit them. 

Healing in Gardens

Not everyone can quickly seek out a park or take time to watch trees sway on the Rocky Mountain forest ridgeline. Even in a city as densely populated as New York, however, many find that touch of nature in gardens — both public and private. Writer, neurologist, and all-around admirable human Oliver Sachs wrote a collection of essays titled Everything In Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales that included the essay "Why We Need Gardens” published after his death. Sachs notes that New York is "sometimes made bearable . . . only by its gardens," and would know, having spent 50 years living in the city. 

He writes of his experiences as a neurologist witnessing gardens affect his patients:

I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication. 

Sure, not everyone has easy access to a garden either, especially those in caregiving facilities or with limited mobility. But something as simple as a succulent set on a windowsill to drink in the sunlight can provide a touch of this necessary tonic brought on by nature.

Again, it's about taking time to observe that plant or dig in a small, raised garden or stare in a daze at the blue pines on a distant horizon that brings some peace of mind. I keep a section of ponderosa pine branch crowned by green moss (thanks to a rainy canyon origin) on my desk as a splash of calming green. We aren't separate from nature, even when experiencing physical limitations that seem to separate us or our loved ones from the over-scheduled and often false urgency of modern human existence. Stepping out of this oppressive illusion and into the present state of nature is the goal. 

In his essay, Sachs also notes that:

The role that nature plays in health and healing becomes even more critical for people working long days in windowless offices, for those living in city neighborhoods without access to green spaces, for children in city schools, or for those in institutional settings such as nursing homes. The effects of nature's qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological.

And the good doctor knew a thing or two about the workings of our brains.

This month, maybe instead of measuring your garden exposure time to determine its value, look instead to what's there and take however many minutes to appreciate that sunflower tall against evening light or the tomato plant on a deck claiming even a tiny piece of natural space back from the built environment.  

Urban Parks and Rural Recreation

Comparative scholarly studies have been conducted if you want to find supporting research on the differences between rural and urban parks. Rather than compare, I'd humbly suggest you consider these spaces equal and celebrate wherever you can find them. 

10-Minute Walks

In 2017, the National Recreation and Parks Association began a "10-Minute Walk" initiative to award grant funding to cities working toward a shared goal of "creating a world where, by 2050, everyone in U.S. cities — large and small — has safe access to a quality park or green space within a 10-minute walk of home." The campaign's mission is to support the specific needs of diverse populations getting equal access and inclusivity when it comes to parks. One of the differences for rural areas is a lack of public transportation to green spaces. The program wants to help create walking and biking trails safe enough for children to get to parks in rural areas and urban areas.

The NRPA teamed up with The Trust for Public Land and Urban Land Institute to raise funds that will support cities and towns to "develop innovative and equity-driven systems . . . to provide their citizens with more access to high-quality, close-to-home parks and public green space." 

Funding was awarded in 2019 to 22 cities, some rural, and some urban. Both Winooski, Vermont, and Bennettsville, South Carolina, stand out as towns of less than 9,000 residents, where 50% or more of these people are that 10-minute walk away from a green space. The success of these two towns shows the possibility of the initiative. 

Get Out There and Live Your Story

Although my cousin Chris died in April 2021 from the medical complications of his condition, his love of nature — one instilled and continued in me through those childhood experiences in the wild — lives on through his story. 

Almost always positive in perspective, he would champion the idea that everyone has a story to live, and you meet it by "getting out there," no matter how you define that phrase. 

Appreciating green spaces and the natural world we are so fortunate to be part of — be it a potted plant or a sprawling national park — remains available to most of us if we look hard enough and find gratitude for even the smallest of green spaces.