Late last February, Westminster's Student Honors Council invited Hikmet Loe and Russ Costa to lead a discussion around issues of nature and mental health. They called the discussion "Embodied Landscapes, Embodied Minds, and Restorative Nature" and asked Hikmet and Russ to talk about their experiences in nature and links to mental health. Respecting Honors College tradition, Russ and Hikmet grounded this concept in texts, art and photography from around the world. You can see the images Hikmet and Russ discussed below.

Ansel Adams: The Tetons and the Snake River

Stock photo of the moon from Getty Images

Tropical Paradise Beach by Belle Deese on WallpaperUp

Joseph Turner, Rough Sea With Wreckage at the Tate Gallery

Denali (20,310') in the Alaska Range. [Photo] Bradford Washburn Collection, Museum of Science

Andy Goldsworthy, Pebbles around a hole, Kinagashima-Cho, Japan (1987)

Frederick Church: Cotopaxi

Hikmet Loe: Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, west of Las Vegas, Nevada, January 2020

Jeff Nichols and Brent Olson co-direct the Institute for Mountain Research and our 2018-2019 Mountain Fellows are Katie Saad and Naomi Shapiro. Our theme song is “Home” by Pixie and the Partygrass Boys. As Naomi likes to say, “They are awesome and you should check them out.”

Special Guests: Hikmet Loe and Russ Costa.

Sponsored By:

• Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah: The Institute for Mountain Research is housed at Westminster College, at the base of the Wasatch Mountains in Salt Lake City, Utah. At Westminster, You are someone who is always looking to get more out of life, who yearns for the freedom to explore. You want your college experience to be someplace where you matter. Where your education isn’t just about landing your first job, it’s about starting a meaningful life.
• The Honors College at Westminster College.: What if your classes were designed around the concept of helping you practice the habit of thinking? Of helping you develop an authentic writer’s voice so that—as Irish poet Seamus Heaney once remarked—your words have "the feel of you about them?" Of helping you challenge yourself to such a degree that you learn new things about yourself? If these questions appeal to you, then you’ve come to the right place.

Links:

• Pixie & The Partygrass Boys — Our theme music comes from Pixie and the Party Grass Boys. They are awesome. you should check them out.
• Gentle - Purple Planet Music — The interstitial music for this episode is "Gentle" by Purple Planet Music.