Upon moving to the Washington/Baltimore area from rural Iowa three decades ago, Kitty and Tom Stoner were quick to observe the lack of nature in cities. Restlessness manifested in communities, adding anxiety to residents’ mental health. A growing body of research spurred the couple’s thinking. According to the research they studied, science has shown that simply being in nature—even in short visits—can improve wellness in lasting, meaningful ways. The couple created a nonprofit organization, Nature Sacred, to assemble a unique green model for community green spaces, honoring their roles as “sacred places.”
Nature Sacred’s vision is meant to serve as a healing process for people to regain balance and relieve stress by surrounding themselves in green spaces. Their Sacred Places are parks of greenery where people are encouraged to sit on their signature benches and enjoy nature. They have created over 100 Sacred Places and are continuing to create more. Nature Sacred also placed bright yellow waterproof journals underneath many of their signature benches as a social experiment to see what would happen if anyone saw or used them.
The couple’s daughter, Alden E. Stoner, is currently CEO of her parents’ company. Under her leadership, Nature Sacred transformed from a grant-giving organization to an operating foundation to improve individual and community wellness by expanding its existing 100+ community-led, contemplative Sacred Places nationally. Alden is also the producer of “Benchtalk: Wisdoms Inspired in Nature,” a collection of journal entries from the first 25 years of visitors to Sacred Places, that is already available for purchase.
Without signs or instructions about the yellow journals, Alden said she was unsure if anyone would even find the journal let alone write in it. After a few weeks, she came back and was amazed at what people were writing. “They were writing about gratitude and grief and love and loss. They were writing to each other, to the world, to someone in particular,” Alden Stoner said. “It was pretty extraordinary, so that became the model when we started creating more sacred spaces.”
All anonymous entries edited by Hasan Ali, “Benchtalk” is going to make dozens of people across the country will become published authors—and they don’t even know it! “The editing process was incredibly demanding,” Alden Stoner said. “There were so many beautiful [and] heartfelt [entries] that were cries for help where other people responded to those people.”
She shared a story about one of their Sacred Places at the University of Maryland, where someone “would write and say, ‘You are loved no matter what.’ Then they’d write the phone number for the on-campus clinic. The original person would come back and say ‘I’m still here, I’m going to make that call.’ ” Going through the entries, Alden Stoner called the conversation exchange a “cycle of humanity.” “Even if that person may or may not have seen it, the next person reading it might be experiencing something and that note will apply to them,” Alden Stoner said.
In addition to their paperback edition, Nature Sacred has published a hand-bound limited edition, featuring a handmade bench on the cover “so people can feel nature in [their] hand.” The limited edition’s interior pages are made from recycled paper and has rice paper, pressed with leaves, dividing the book’s thematic sections. There is a sense of hope in the book that Alden Stoner hopes will “awaken focus to people realizing that these nature spaces are something that they want, or want to provide for their community.”
To reap the mental and physical health benefits that nature provides, Nature Sacred’s website suggests that a person should spend 20-30 minutes of exposure. For Alden, she meets her quota by skipping rocks, paddle-boarding in the Chesapeake Bay, walking through the forest and Japanese wood carving. At home, she has her own sacred place where she has her own journal on a bench.
“My six-year-old son doodles in it, but so many [of the journal entries] are the kids, and kids have written some of the most profound things in [the published book],” Alden Stoner said. “You never know what you will find. It’s amazing what can happen when you close your eyes and just notice the sounds. Just noticing them for a minute or two will shift your thought pattern and some of them of what is actually happening in your body such as your cortisone levels drop.”
For those who live in places like New York that treat time as money, it’s often hard to find a minute to stop and enjoy nature. As someone who has been connected to nature most of her life, Alden Stoner finds “if we can offer a place and an opportunity to get a little bit more clarity to breathe in air, just for a minute, then whatever they encounter, they will bring a better version of themselves. It’s also in nature that you will find healing and connection.”
As the daughter of the company’s founders, Alden Stoner has been thoroughly involved in the behind-the-scenes of Nature Sacred. Her role in producing “Benchtalk” has aided Nature Sacred’s vision of creating more green spaces, allowing people to stop and enjoy nature. For some, “Benchtalk” is just a compilation of people’s thoughts and advice but for her, the publication of “Benchtalk” is why she does the work that she does.
“At a time when our world seems more fractured than ever, what I was surprised about was how much connection [the book creates] and how deep it is for our common humanity,” Alden Stoner said. “That’s why we came up with this book at this moment in time.”