I taught my first nature journaling workshop via Zoom this month, and that was a great experience. Thank you to everyone who joined me for my first workshop and to my friends who gave their time for a practice run beforehand. I really enjoyed guiding people through the “I notice, I wonder, this reminds me of prompts” and it was so fun to see some of the participants’ work at the end and to hear them reflect on the experience.
So I’m a bit sheepish that I didn’t journal as much as usual this month. Partly that’s because winter is in full swing here in Chicago, and partly because my attention has been directed elsewhere.
But I’m inspired by this interview with Kristin Link on the Journaling with Nature podcast (every episode is always so good). Like me, she loves sketching outside but she’s also finding ways to nature journal indoors during winter. So I’ve decided to make a nature journal entry each day, even if it’s just a note about what birds I’ve observed from my window throughout the day, or a simple drawing of snow on the tree branches outside. As Link says, “It’s less about the artwork, more about recording information and observations.” A nature journal can be broader than a field sketchbook. And, as podcast host Bethan Burton says, that it can be whatever you want it to be — whatever serves your purposes.
I also appreciated what Link said about the spiritual aspect of connecting with nature. I know that I felt the most fully human this month after spending chunks of time just observing grazing Canada geese and various waterfowl interacting in a patch of open water in a mostly frozen harbor.
