Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/124273
HEALING CREATION LET NATURE BE THE TONIC FOR TRAUMATIC TIMES Story and Photos By Fran Palmeri Contributing Writer Feeling depleted by the news from Boston last tionist John Muir could hardly wait to get out week, I abandoned my schedule and took to "in heaven's light." On his thousand-mile walk the woods. to the Gulf of Mexico, he convalesced from malaria at Cedar Key, lying beneath the "ample At Sleeping Turtles Preserve in Venice, I stepped out of the van onto a carpet of wild- arms of live oaks listening to the winds and flowers — frog fruit, blue-eyed grass, day- the birds." flowers. On the trail around the lake, beautiful scenes presented themselves. A giant sulphur butterfly circled 'round and 'round me. Dewberries ripe for the picking were sprinkled along the path. Recent experiments have shown that brain function can be improved by a visit to a green space. Being close to trees builds the immune system, protecting people from cancers and other diseases. Daniel Janzen a conNature can be a restorative tonic! "In the servation biologist says we will be "at the top woods we return to reason and faith," Ralph of our game" with occasional forays into a Waldo Emerson once wrote. The conserva- green world.