Hello dear friends!
If you somehow came across my “Tiny & Chaotic Guide to Nature Journaling” zine you’ve come to the right equally chaotic corner of the interwebz.
“Observe the lilies, how they toil not, neither do they spin: and I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these”
For most of human history, survival was dependent on keen understanding of the surrounding plants, animals, and environment. The tides, when to expect rain, planting and harvest times. Great myths and parables were passed down to contain knowledge in a way that tied truth with observation of the rhythms on earth and the heavens above, and the human inclination for patters and storytelling. Culture sustained us. Culture was what, in a way, kept us in balance with the world around us, and we can see the ebb and flow of cultures as they went into and out of balance with their neighbors and the natural world throughout history through their rise and fall. As technology surpassed culture as the tool that enabled us to survive, we have found new ways to harm ourselves and the world around us, to the point that we are now poisoning ourselves just to avoid scrubbing a pan.
Culture is what became who we are, and what we will become. If our culture is life-promoting, we can continue a vibrant existence, where many types of people, plants, animals, and other forms of life can all thrive together, as long as no-one starts using up too many resources. If our culture out-competes all other life forms, it may thrive for a time, even seem to flourish in it’s triumph over Nature, but this can only last a short while, as we slowly kill the very environment that we depend on for life. How could this happen?
The simple act of careful observation — not just seeing but trying to understand the natural world around us can help us gain perspective, gratitude, and grow our understanding of how we all are connected to the plants, animals, the earth itself, and eachother. A slight shift in season, a missing pollinator, or even a Silent Spring can easily be ignored by many today, as we live, work, and die in climate-controlled isolation.
Don’t get me wrong, I love air conditioning as much as the next person. But, when I retreat into my cool home on a hot day, I remember being with my great-granny, aunts, and cousins, sitting on the front porch in the heat of the day, drinking iced tea in the summer in Georgia, gossiping between jobs, and saying hello to passers-by. I remember sitting in the dirt at sunset with Hawaiian aunties on Kaui’i, shucking peas and peeling garlic, talking story as the birds began to sing to the sunset. What has our comfort cost us? It has cost us connection, connection with each other and with the earth.
Nature journaling is a simple way we can train ourselves to reconnect with the environment around us, or perhaps even inoculate ourselves against the sickness of the modern late-stage capitalist society in which we find ourselves.
My nature journaling is usually just random notes on my phone or sketchbooks, sometimes I remember to use i-Naturalist which is great for tracking plant and animal sightings over time. I enjoy sketching in my garden, but I am terrible about being systematic in any way.
A better way (if you don’t lose or misplace everything!) is to have a dedicated notebook or sketchbook, and to take notes and/or draw your observations, press flowers, leaves, etc, and make sure it is all clearly dated! That way you can easily reference past entries, and being to see the patters and changed emerge over time (hopefully years).
The idea of attempting to “document nature” is very overwhelming! Just choose ONE thing to regularly observe to start. I recommend finding at tree and get to know it! Become friends with the tree, and get to know it intimately, as you know your partner or best friend. Get to know it’s likes and dislikes, it’s friends and enemies, appreciate the way it glows in the sunset, and the birds who nest in it’s branches.
Find a tree you walk by daily, and begin to record:
- When did the first buds begin to emerge?
- What animals live in and around it?
- Draw it’s flowers and leaves, or press them, or making rubbings.
- What other plants, mushrooms, and lichens grow on it?
- What do the leaves do when it rains? When there is a drought?
- When did the leaves begin to change color? When did the last leaf fall from it’s branches?
When you sit down to draw or write before a plant outdoors, take a few minutes to simply observe and take in with all of your senses. What does it smell, taste (if safe), feel, sound, and look like? As I sat in the garden at Potomac Vegetable Farms a couple weeks ago for my own little workshop, I became entranced by the delicate way the little flower stems of the plant I sat before curved in and out perfectly, in and out, forward and back. Talking to others as they sat observing, they had similar moments of delight while spending time with plants they had seen before, but hadn’t necessarily taken the time to truly observe.
My hope is that you will take a few minutes out of your day and spend some time in nature, simply observing and appreciating the sounds, sights, smells, texture, and tastes which surround us and make our lives full. There is beauty all around us, and it is still free for those willing to experience it. But what a shame it is that we are creating a world where many rarely if ever get the opportunity to witness the sunrise, taste fruit fresh from the vine, smell a wildflower, feel the soil between their toes, or hear birdsong in the morning.
I want to share a few resources, although all you really need is yourself and some times spent in communion with nature. Don’t discount the value of just quietly sitting before a tree, shrub, or flower, waking up in time for the sunrise, or taking a walk at sunset, and simply observing with an open mind.
- iNaturalist
- local DNR website: Maryland Wildlife Species , Virginia Wildlife, West Virginia Plant & Animals
- Peterson Field Guides – I know we can easily snap a photo & usually get a correct ID, but learning how to accurately identify a plant by it’s general shape, bark, leaves, nuts, flowers, etc., is very fun and a valuable skill to learn! Some of my favorite memories from my childhood are of my father teaching me how to identify the trees in our neighborhood, and it’s a skill I think we should value and pass on to the next generation.
- The Naturalist’s Notebook by Nathaniel Wheelwright – Beautifully illustrated guide to nature journaling which includes a 5 year calendar for recording daily observations.
- Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock – published in 1911 for school teachers, this is an amazinging dense tome is absolutely fascinating and humbling to go through. It makes me realize how far we have strayed away from an intimate understanding of the world around us.
Materials: Any simple notebook and pen or pencil will obviously suffice, but I do have some favorites for those who would like to invest in a nice notebook or sketchbook and writing implements for recording their observations! - My favorite sketchbook is Hand-Book journal co.’s linen covered sketchbooks. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, I am partial to the small landscape and square journals.
- My SO prefers Traveler’s Notebooks. If you keep a variety of notebooks or sketchbooks for different purposes, but would like to have them all in one place, a traveler’s notebook might be the perfect option for you! You can have one book with multiple journals inside th, along with a bag for pencils and pens, and a variety of other accessories. We discovered this notebook at a little stationary shop in Honolulu way back in 2014. It the cost is too damn high, it’s a very simple design to DIY, especially if you alter the design for 8.5×11″ paper.
- For drawing and writing, my favorite easily accessible pencils are the classic Ticonderoga #2H pencils. Erasers and lead are both great. If you prefer a refillable mechanical pencil, I recommend the Pentel Sharp Drafting Pencil .
- If you are lucky enough to live near a Korean grocery store, they might have a section dedicated to stationary. Many of my favorite pens are often bought at Lotte or H-Mart, both often have a nice selection of stationary including very fine ball-point pens, which are otherwise hard to find in the US. There are many types which are refillable, so you only need to buy the refills instead of the the entire pen when you run out of ink.
- Read poetry and old books if you feel that you lack the vocabulary to describe the beauty and nuance of the natural world. So much precise language has been lost, and I would love to bring that back!
- If you are religious, study your holy books with a mind for how nature has informed religious thought and life. I have regained an appreciation for the natural world in large part thanks to a renewed interest in reading the bible. So much of scripture is inspired by careful observation of nature. If we destroy nature, we destroy the handiwork of the Creator. It is so sad to me that many don’t seem to respect or value the beautiful work of the God they claim to worship.
Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
let the sea resound, and all that is in it.
Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;
let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.
Can the heavens rejoice when they’re filled with smog? Can the earth be glad when it’s being strip mined, poisoned, deforested, and paved over? Can the sea and all that is in it resound when it is dying? Can fields and everything be jubilant when it is poisoned repeatedly, monocropped, or paved over? Can the trees of the forest sing when they’re cut down to make way for data centers and strip malls?