Nature Journaling - Your Special Spot

Little Crum Creek Park, Swarthmore, PA.

Many times when I journal in nature, I tend to walk to where my unconscious mind tells me to go, following my gut and wandering until I feel called to stop, but much can be learned from taking another approach and visiting the same spot in nature each time. Going to the same place allows you to get to know the space on a deeper level and form meanings as you explore and reflect on what you observe. The Nature Awareness School’s Kamana Naturalist home study program calls this nature spot your “sit spot.” A place outdoors you can visit week after week. One requirement of your sit spot is that it feels special or has meaning to you. It should be convenient to visit – your backyard, a park, a flower garden etc…You should spend at least 60 minutes at your spot each week making observations and recording your thoughts in your journal.

There have been a couple of times when I have journaled in the same spot week after week and I discovered as I got familiar with the place, I spent less time taking in the many aspects of nature in the area I was observing, and more time going deeper and focusing on just one element of nature serving as a metaphor for my life. You may have a different response, finding you quickly sort through thoughts of your life and then get down to focusing on all the nature around you. The experience is different for all people. When I lived in the Philadelphia area, I began to visit a park offering a gazebo in a semi-wild area nestled near a creek. I’d head off each morning with my pup in tow and settle in at the gazebo and observe and journal. I loved this place as it brought me such peace and I was particularly captivated with the creek as it rushed by the gazebo.

Here is an excerpt of what I wrote in my journal the spring of 2014:

Gazebo in Little Crum Creek Park

“My visit to the woods and water has been all about voice. The creek running louder, speaking louder. The many bird calls. Nature speaks. I speak! I lost my voice from early training to not speak. Speaking meant recriminations, punishment. My thoughts, though no different than any other child’s, were not good. I was not good. But as I discover nature’s voice this spring, I am also discovering my own. It isn’t coming out smoothly and not everyone wants to hear what I have to say I suppose, but that is OK. As the creek babbles in fits and starts, depending on the rain that flows upon the earth, I do as well.”

The following week I wrote:

“My voice is louder now. As the creek roars louder with the spring runoff I find a similar flow as I empty myself of trying to live up to other’s expectations. This creek is screaming at me to let go. I will cry a bucket of tears in the letting go. Filling up the banks of this creek and beyond. Crying for what I lost due to my silence, but crying now too for what I stand to gain by speaking.”

These insights from the natural world allowed me to sort out my thoughts and create meanings for my life, thus untangling hurts from my past. Finding healing through nature. Another time I found myself writing in a special spot soon after I moved here to Michigan when I began taking a class at North Central Michigan College which required weekly nature journaling. For this project, I perched myself at Petoskey State Park on a dune overlooking Lake Michigan and visited my spot religiously week after week through the winter no matter how cold it was or how much snow was on the ground. Each week I was the only person out there which felt enlivening as I watched the lake slowly freeze over into frozen waves.

Frozen waves of Lake Michigan, Petoskey State Park

Here is a snippet of what I wrote during that time:

“I have been drawn to water my entire life, but it wasn’t until I was removed from the waters of my native state that I began to understand there were no substitutes. Neither the Atlantic nor the Pacific could quite captivate me the way Lake Michigan could. I simply understand her voice, the language she speaks, better than any other body of water. She reminds me of my youth, of the good times when I was free like I am once again today, reminding me that I am home. These waters have seen so much of my life. As a young girl splashing along her shore, a freshly minted teenager sailing with a beloved aunt and uncle, an older teen visiting with friends, a new mother showing her son the thrills of sand and water, and now an older woman searching for answers. I am tucked up on a high dune where sand and water meet woods. Wondering why I chose this place rather than right along the shore. Quite possibly I believe, it isn’t just water that holds the answers but rather it is all of nature which holds the keys. Raining now, I must go…”

My nature journaling spot overlooking a frozen Lake Michigan at Petoskey State Park

I find both of these passages interesting. At both the creek and lake locations my focus was only on water and I barely mentioned any other aspect of nature, the water distracting me as it served as a metaphor for my life. Bringing awareness and opportunities for growth as I moved inward. I believe given time in both of these places I would have started to look outside myself. To notice and begin to discover all aspects of nature around me. But quite possibly, I needed nature to heal me before I could move forward into noticing all the other beauty. Maybe time spent in nature ebbs and flows, leans into doing inward work and then moving outward again to be spellbound as one is able. A back and forth, darkness and light, a cycle, depending on where one is in life.