Lessons from Nature

Laden with a chair, tarp, backpack and wearing all my winter gear, I moved slowly through the snow at Rose Tree Park in Media, PA., feeling full of promise. Excited to see where my nature journaling would lead me and what new insights I’d gain. As I walked into the interior of the park, I let myself be led by my unconsciousness, my gut, as much as possible rather than steering the direction with my mind. I tried to listen to my body as I walked and follow my body’s instinct. I traversed down an open hill and into the woods and quickly found myself feeling like I needed to lay down and make contact with the ground. I didn’t question this feeling, I just spread out my tarp and stared up into the sky. After taking in the sights and sounds around me, I noticed a beautiful beech tree spreading its bare branches out above me. As my eyes took in the entire view of the tree, I soon noticed it had a long scar near the base of its trunk caused by a lightning strike or some other trauma, making me think of the fact that despite the tree suffering some early damage in its life, it had still turned out beautiful. Immediately it clicked. This tree was serving as a metaphor for my own life. Reminding me that even if life starts out hard, it can still end up beautiful.

After an hour out in the woods alone, I packed up my gear and headed back to meet up with the other women in my group who had also been participating in this nature journaling exercise, so that we could share our experiences. I was the only person in the group who had done nature journaling before but after reading the book, “Nature Spirit Awakening in Nature” by Nancy Barrett Chickerneo, I was given the idea to do so in a group. I used ideas from the book to come up with a curriculum and picked the different parks we would visit to journal in over the course of 4 weeks. None of the women had ever spent time in the woods alone so I started with pretty open parks with lots of grass and moved into fully wooded areas at a local state park. What was amazing about the activity is that all of the women seemed to enjoy participating and they all also gathered insights helpful to them in their life. I really was unsure how well the activity would go over but the response was positive so we went on to do a second set of sessions in the spring.

 The idea of nature journaling – sitting outdoors in nature – feels almost too simple to give results. I mean seriously, what will come from simply sitting and writing? But step outside and suddenly there is so much to see and consider. With the women’s group, I borrowed some prompts from the Nature Spirit book which I believe were helpful as everyone was at the start of their nature journaling journey but most soon discovered they weren’t needed. Prompts or questions can be good if you go into nature with a difficult problem you are trying to sort out. It’s important to keep in mind you can’t force the question onto the wilds and expect an answer. But rather if you pose the question in your mind, let it seep into your body, quite possibly the natural world may slowly come around to soothing you with an answer in an elusive kind of way. Other times you may get an answer to a question you have held for a long time, rendering your present day question less important, as it softens a long held view of yourself.

The most important aspect of nature journaling is the sitting. I used to think simply walking in the woods brought me closer to nature and there is some truth to that but the hurrying along a path makes you miss many things nature may be trying to tell you. It’s kinda like trying to have a conversation with another person while doing an activity versus sitting across from them and having a deep heart to heart. It is the sitting and stopping and focusing that makes it meaningful. Of course you can just go sit in nature and not journal too but I find the journaling leads me down a path of greater discovery and records my findings so I can mull them over later. So get yourself a tarp or small folding chair, weather appropriate clothing, and some writing supplies and head out into the woods or your backyard - anywhere you can find nature speaking louder than man.