The Path from Trauma to The Power of Nature: An Interview with Banning Lyon

Our guest today is Banning Lyon, author of The Chair and The Valley: A Memoir of Trauma, Healing, and The Outdoors. An account of the abuse he suffered after being hospitalized in a psychiatric facility at age 15 and the long journey toward joy and awe that followed, his memoir was published this spring by Penguin Random House. He first wrote about his experiences in 1993 for The New York Times and, more recently, for the Washington Post.
Based in California’s bay area, Lyon is an outdoor educator and backpacking guide whose engagement with nature was a key force in his recovery. His website is banninglyon.com.
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[@AceRa-i7n]

You are so right, more nature is what we need, it’s the only thing that has helped me in any way 💯

[@AceRa-i7n]

It’s definitely a LIFE LONG PATH 💯

[@jennytaylor3324]

Here in England I went through something very similar at the same age c.1992. I wasn't restrained or thrown in a borstal of the kind described here, but I went in terrified and desperate, but hopeful, and emerged after 3 weeks sicker, more out of touch, and full of psyche drugs. It was more like a 4 star hotel with no locks on the doors and meds. They didn't give us any 1-2-1 talking therapy. It was an expensive private facility, and the idle, clueless b@stards running it were asleep at the wheel, and didn't want to be woken. I witnessed older adults shuffling about after ECT treatments, a la One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and it was clear to me that nobody was getting well. At the time my folks and I HAD to trust them. What I've heard about those 'wilderness' programs in the US sounds very like what this guy went through.

[@ninafirmament1]

Worship Jesus Christ ASAP! THERE IS NO MOTHER NATURE - ONLY FATHER GOD! The time is running out for you all to repent! God bless from Europe - the last battle!

[@AceRa-i7n]

😂 mother nature is who you are and is all around you 😂 stop with your nonsense idolatry of male ego. We are both male and female, you can't negate half of humanity.