The Green Prescription Club: September 2024
In September, let's embrace the night sky.
Welcome to The Feel Good Life! A newsletter about health, prevention, empathy, and hope. Join me, Dr. Mariana, as we explore all sides of good health and life. New around here? Get started.
Welcome to edition #4 of The Green Prescription Club!
What a journey, my friends. So far we’ve walked nearby forests, ventured out to discover new green areas and embraced the calming, soulful art of breathing. Our first three months have been a time of new experiences and deep insights. Step by step, you’ve discovered things about yourself you never knew existed and you never knew you needed - as we have found out through our monthly calls together.
Slowly, you are discovering the magic of what it means to go greener, what it feels to be prescribed nature rather than pills, and most of all, to embrace the power within you to accept the challenges and take yourself out of the routine. As a doctor, this makes me happy in ways I can barely express! It’s a mix of joy, pride and a sense of accomplishment for your willingness to choose yourself.
And today, we embrace a new journey together. One where we might even reach the stars…
Just two weeks ago, on August 12th, a Perseid meteor shower was forecast, as it is at roughly the same time every year. As excited as my partner and I get about sky phenomena, we were torn between hopeful and hopeless, as our luck depended entirely on the willingness of the Scottish skies to open - and the summer has been, to put it mildly, a complete washout.
Around 11:45 pm that night, we got a red alert notification on the northern lights app telling us that right now the chances were VERY high for the lights to make an appearance. In disbelief, we poked our heads through the window just to do a quick check of the cloud status and lo and behold…it was CLEAR! Absolutely clear skies full of stars! We grabbed our warmest jacket and raced as fast as we could to the nearby hill just a few minutes away from our flat. Maybe we’d get that lucky, to see the northern lights at the same time as a meteor shower. What?!
My neck had been playing up, giving me quite a lot of pain lately. A week prior I seemed to have pulled a muscle while combing my hair, which turned into a tight muscle contraction all over the left side of my upper back, neck and shoulder. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake it off after a week. A few days of resting and taking anti-inflammatory pills helped a little, but not enough to banish it completely. Oil massages at bedtime helped too. Putting aside my phone and avoiding scrolling in bed helped a lot, and yet, the pain lingered.
Despite it all, the neck pain wouldn’t stop me from climbing that hill as fast as I could…and all was well until I tried to look up.
- ‘AAAGH F@#k! My neck…’
As thrilled as I was to be doing this, my neck didn’t seem to agree. I carefully tried a few contortionist moves so that I could point my eyes to the sky while standing there - and it worked.
-‘There! AAAAAH! I just saw one! Right there, OMG!’
I got a glimpse of one Perseid meteor, then another, then another! Mike was always looking to the opposite side or being confused by seagulls flying by (did I mention he writes a newsletter about how to pay attention?) It was too amazing to miss so we stood there for at least 20 minutes so he could catch some lights too. My neck started struggling after a while - and as much as I wanted to keep hunting for lights in the sky, I was becoming annoyed by this lingering muscle pain. Let me enjoy these tiny once-a-year miracles, will you?
After half an hour, right before leaving and ignoring the night-damp grass, my partner just went down and laid on his back for a couple minutes. I wasn’t keen because, well, my neck. But then he convinced me and I did the same.
As we laid there, in the absolute silence of midnight, away from street lights and surrounded only by the vastness of nature and the night sky, something overtook me. All of a sudden, life felt different…calm, marvellous, magical. The entire sky opened up right in front of my eyes, my neck didn’t hurt (correct position!) and I could finally enjoy the view without any grumbling from my body or mind. I was able to just be; to feel part of the nothingness while feeling whole myself.
Silence. Gratitude. Amazement. Joy.
For a few minutes, waiting for the next streak of light to sear overhead, so many thoughts crossed my mind on how I’ve moved my life from a place of worry, stress and survival to achieve moments like this. I have been pondering about this lately, and this Perseid night helped me to see the patterns I had probably learned while growing up, now willing to work through them and become a better version of myself.
Lying there on my back, even though it was for less than ten minutes, gave me an “overview effect” perspective on my life and all the things I’ve been thinking about. Maybe it was no coincidence, maybe the stars indeed aligned letting me have such a deep moment.
The vastness of nature makes you feel small and also makes you feel a part of it. Have you ever considered that you are nature too? Your body and your mind being nature? Because they are. You are nature, sprung from it and still as deeply wired into it as the trees and plants in the earth. And I think it’s a mesmerising thing to feel.
It only took five minutes of looking towards the sky while laying on my back to make me feel a kind of magic about being human. Completely present in myself, in the moment, free from worries or merciless self-judgment, reminding me how I am a tiny part of all this greatness, but also a manifestation of it, too.
It only took a few minutes for the cosmos to show me this bigger picture of human existence, and to lift me above my negative thoughts, to realise how life can be lived with ease and gratitude - one of the most powerful reminders I’ve had lately of how existing in this complicated world, with all its troubles and struggles, can still feel like a gift and a blessing.
Which is why I want to use September’s Green Prescription to bring a similar experience to you.
An invitation to bring you back to yourself. ❤
This month, I want you to hug the sky and embrace the stars!
In September, I am prescribing you Stargazing.
By definition, stargazing is the art of observing the stars.
Astronomy is considered one of the oldest natural sciences. China has the earliest evidence of professional star observers, with records going back 5000 years. There are records showing us how the Babylons in Mesopotamia (1000 B.C.) where already observing the movement of celestial bodies. Their knowledge spread to Egypt where amazing advancements were made. Later on, the Greeks took sky studies to another level, attempting measurements and star-positioning using just the naked eye. During the Middle Ages, Asian and Middle Eastern scholars continued the Greeks’ legacy, studying and developing their methods even further.
By the time the concept of stargazing was coined in the 1600’s - thanks to the invention of the telescope - a stargazer would be considered as someone who would either: 1) study the stars like an astronomer or astrologer, 2) daydream or 3) someone who was an impractical idealist. Little did they know who much looking into the sky would mean in the upcoming centuries.
Thankfully we have come a long way since, and not only can we now gaze but also learn, embrace and even travel to space these days.
It has also been proven that stargazing has benefits for our brain, positively impacting our physical and mental health. Due to feelings of awe, community and a deepening sense of self inherent to sky watching, happy hormones such as dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin are naturally boosted:
“Experiencing awe is beneficial for our mental health, according to Mampho Ledimo, a psychology and sociology student working on a project called Astronomy for Mental Health.
Feelings of awe have been shown to reduce inflammation, lower the heart rate and increase the presence of the hormone oxytocin, boosting positive emotions.”
~ BBC Sky at Night Magazine
Access Your September’s Green Prescription:
Download your Green Prescription in the button below, and then please continue reading the next section for further instructions and inspiration. ⭐
How To Stargaze?
There are many ways you can practice stargazing this month. Let me guide you by giving some examples:
⭐ You can choose to stay home or go out. Maybe out to your terrace, balcony or garden if you have one, and why not, grab a pair of binoculars and a comfy throw on the way. How about having dinner with a view?
⭐ If you don’t have a garden or terrace, you can still enjoy the night sky simply by grabbing your fave drink and sitting by the window on a clear night, wrapped in a cosy blanket while your song plays on the background. Open the window, feel the fresh air on your skin, close your eyes for one deep breath and exhale slowly. Feel it all. Love it all. Be present in that tiny moment.
⭐ Maybe you want to call a beloved one to enjoy silently together.
⭐ Here’s another idea: how about next time you take your dog out for a night walk, stop for a couple of minutes to look up and enjoy the night sky in silence.
⭐ Or maybe you might want to go on a quick drive and just park somewhere safe to enjoy the view.
⭐ If you want to take it a bit further, why not find a nearby stargazing group activity, maybe even a night sky festival to go and share the experience. Or it could be that you have been wanting to learn more about space, so why not search for a course. Even though it’d be group or community activities, you’d be amazed at how much silence you can find (even within a group of people) whenever there’s sky and stars involved.
⭐ If you’d rather learn on your own, here’s a really cool guide by NASA on how to do skywatching.
Whatever your choice, make it as simple and enjoyable as possible.
The important thing is that you carve a little time to just be. Neck or back pain, you say? No problem! Like me, just recline comfortably or lay on your back (bring a blanket or sleeping bag). Have fun, be quirky, look for the calm and silence within, and enjoy your own company for as briefly as five minutes. Repeat as many times as you want, whether daily, every other day or weekly.
In this month’s Green Prescription, there are no timeline or schedules. No tasks or great challenges to be discovered. I won’t give you big facts or tons of interesting links for you to learn from, not today.
This month, all there is…is YOU.
So, now go Be, you beautiful star. ⭐
Much love and until next time!
Dr. Mariana
Access and download your Green Prescription here:
Ps. As always: if you have any questions about the Green Prescription, feel free to email me at thefeelgoodlife@substack.com.
I’ll be opening a September Thread for those of you who are active on the Substack app. We will be able to stay in touch, comment and get the conversation going in there too.
Have a great stargazing month ahead!
Love,
Dr. Mariana
