7 days. 7 themes. When Bethan Burton announced the dates for the International Nature Journaling Week she created, I could hardly wait! This was my first year attending it, and it left my naturalist soul humming.
First of all, Bethan made it so that the week was information-dense without being overwhelming; 2 workshops a day was the perfect amount to leave us satiated and yet still hungry for the next day. Second, having themes on each day allowed us to sink more deeply into those themes – words, pictures, numbers, “I notice”, “I wonder”, “it reminds me of”, and mindset – and process them more thoroughly. Moving at this pace allows us to integrate each piece more fully into our nature journaling practices.
Within all the richness of topics and techniques, two workshops stood out the most to me: Emilie Lygren’s “Words that Connect, Words that Shine” and Marley Peifer’s “Unlock the Power of Curiosity in Your Nature Journal”.
Words, Words, Words
Why those two? Words have long been my “bread-and-butter”. Nature journaling itself is only a few years new for me, but I have been playing with and exploring words since I was 3 years old. For many years, words were my only friends. And yet in spite of my deep connection to words, there is still room for me to grow.
Emilie’s workshop helped me rediscover my poetry roots – this time with a nature journal bent. It turns out that the core nature journaling prompt, INIWIRMO, is actually perfect for starting a poem! “I notice” can help us to look closer and truly experience the details of our subject. “I wonder” helps us want to know more, and that same sense of wonder is why we fall in love with our subject and with nature. “It reminds me of” brings in the power of memory and, with it, connection. Of course these would be the perfect recipe for poetry!
Once you’ve made those observations and insights about your subject, you can combine them or reorder them to create a poem:
If words are my “bread-and-butter,” questions are my “juice”. Like Fiona Gillogly, I can fill whole pages with questions, and doing so only increases my energy level. So when Marley offered new ways to examine and expand our questions, well, it felt a little like being offered nature candy. Playing with questions makes our thinking more flexible and stretches our brains beyond their previous boundaries. By doing that at every level and at every part of the nature journaling experience, to quote Amaya Shreeve, there can be “no end to the wonder.”
What Now?
Now that International Nature Journaling Week is done, it feels strange to go back to “Reality”, where we as a community don’t see each other twice per day or talk deeply about these topics. It would be easy for me to lose my motivation in light of the “post-adrenaline let down” feeling… But instead, I am reviewing my notes, adding things I thought of afterward, and looking forward to Marley’s next video – which is all about diving deeper into questions. I am keeping my brain and all the teachings from the past week active. Keeping that growth mindset.
For more information on “bread-and-butter”, “juice”, growth edge, and growth mindset, check out Marley’s class “Unlock Your Potential”, found here.
