COMMENT
Pay attention... naturally Aruna Sankaranarayanan
T
hough Covid-19 has taken a huge toll on human lives and has engendered unprecedented levels of economic hardship, we can’t deny that it has also bestowed some blessings on our planet. Pollution receded for the first time in years. Anecdotal reports of people sighting more birds from their balconiesor insects around their homes multiplied. Our frenzied lives are on pause. As we are cloistered within cemented walls, people are recognizing the power and pulchritude of nature. Hopefully, this hiatus will also change the way we view ourselves and nature and our place in the great cosmic order. By forging our relationship
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with nature within our local ecological niches anew, we can protect and preserve nature’s bounty while also radically altering our inner lives. In this article, I explore how attending to the natural world can deepen and widen our attentional skills and powers of perception. Back in 2008, in his book, Last Child in the Woods, author Richard Louv bemoans that the current generation of children, growing up in metros and suburbs are not as intimately linked to the natural
