Richard Louv

RICHARD LOUV’S newest book is titled Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life. In it, he offers 500 ways to connect our families, our communities and ourselves to the natural world. His other books include Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder and The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age, from which parts of this essay are adapted. He is co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Children & Nature Network, a nonprofit organization working to build an international movement to connect people to nature. He speaks often around the world, including keynotes at the national conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the first White House Summit on Environmental Education, and the Congress for the New Urbanism. He is the recipient of the Audubon Medal; prior recipients include Rachel Carson, E.O. Wilson and President Jimmy Carter. You may follow him on Facebook and @RichLouv on Twitter.

31.4 Fall

Vitamin N For the Soul

By Richard Louv | October 31, 2016

“If one steps out on a starry night and observes one’s inner state, one asks if one could hate or be overwhelmed by envy or resentment. . . . Is it not true that no man or woman has ever committed a crime while in a state of wonder?” —Jacob Needleman from A Sense of the Cosmos

“All actual life is encounter.”—Martin Buber

MATTHEW, my youngest son, once asked me if a connection to a higher power is, in fact, an under-utilized sense—one that some people find activated in nature.