on keeping a nature journal
Back in April or March or sometime when it was still too cold for me to feel sane and all I could think about was warmth, I started keeping a seasonal journal. A practice I’m sure I did not make up, but one that did seem to appear to me fairly intuitively. What started as innocent note-taking each day about the flowers I saw and the vegetables I noticed at the grocery store became something a lot deeper, fast.
These notes grew into many things: the starting points of my essays here. The Daily Rest Studio class ideas. A way to anchor myself deeply into the local climate that threw my body like a twig off the edge of a waterfall last year. Most importantly, these notes became a source of delight. They sharpened my attention. They gifted me an anchor and a reminder of how much quiet abundance I am (we all are) surrounded by, at all times.
So much is possible, when can teach ourselves to see life emanating from this place, instead of constant worry and fear. Below, how to keep a nature journal and why I think it’s deeply beneficial for writers, yoga teachers or anyone playing in the creative or healing realms.
How to keep a nature journal:
To be honest, this skews more toward a why than a how-to, but here is how I play with it:
You can use a seperate small notebook or keep a section within your multi-use notebook for jotting down at least a few lines, most days.
The real beauty and the benefit of this practice comes from it being outside of the notes app. I love using a fountain pen, moleskine or MD paper and stickers, too (one of the perks of living in Japan is constant access to seasonal stickers and I cannot tell you how good it is for the adult spirit)! Today, I’m also making a stop at a local store to buy coloured pencils, too. You can write, draw, analogue photograph or paint - whatever you prefer.
I started this practice by noting down the flowers in my (very suburban) neighbourhood and the vegetables I saw front and centre at the local grocery store. This soon naturally expanded to textures of wind and air and light, sounds I was hearing (recently - cicadas, sparrows, wind chimes, crows before the rain) to conversations, ideas, colours and foods I ate.
Whenever you have a moment, jot even a few words or lines down. If you keep writing, great, if not, also great. One of my entries this week was two pages long, and last night’s was simply:
The bell crickets are becoming very quiet. Too quiet. In ancient times, people used to keep them in a cage inside for their sound. Tbh I get it. A raccoon ran across my path this evening, from the temple to the street. I thought it was a weasel. Earlier today, a butterfly flew directly into my face.
These few sentences may seem like nothing, but they are deeply meaningful moments to me that I could very easily forget. As someone who is constantly straddling business operations and creativity, technically both a CEO and a writer, bouncing from legal documents to poetry, taking these small notes frequently, makes pulling together these long, rambling, fragrant and real pieces I love to write and share with you all here so much easier.
We are all busy people, teetering on the edge of completely outsourcing our most precious resource to something unseen, growing at a terrifyingly rapid speed. Our attention matters more than ever before. It takes effort to keep turning it toward what we actually care about. What we pay attention to is how we see the world.
Why keep a nature journal?
𓇢𓆸 It helps to connect deeply with the environment you live in. We can all check the weather app or know the general climate of our city or state, but what about your micro environment? What about the trees and the flowers on your doorstep? If the birds and insects know it so well, why don’t we?
𓇢𓆸 I have experienced extreme delight on difficult days because I have practiced attuning my attention to noticing these small moments and shifts. The position of the moon through the window as I stretch on the tatami floors. The resilience of the sunflowers and hibiscus in the extreme and endless heat of summer. The unexpected reappearance of tiny roses in late September.
𓇢𓆸 If you are a writer, this will add significant texture, personality and depth to your work. Since I began this practice only a few months ago, I have taken a lot of inspiration from my nature journal. I have been a lot more consistent writing here, even though my life has been busier than ever before.
𓇢𓆸 If you are a yoga teacher who teaches any type of seasonal practices (moon classes or yin yoga, for example) this is an invaluable way to embody what you are teaching and start teaching intuitive, deeply impactful classes rather than mentally checking your notes or googling what pose might suit this time of year.
𓇢𓆸 It makes home cooking and eating vegetable more sweet and enjoyable. When you’re attuned to these changes, it feels really fun to prepare simple meals including vegetables, herbs and flavours of the season. In a world with an extreme level of health information overload, this is both soothing and empowering.
𓇢𓆸 Paying attention to the natural world teaches us to pay attention in general. The more I lean into noticing the intentionality of the seasons, the more I want to do the same in my own life. Interestingly, this extends to the clothes I own, the makeup I wear, and the scents I decorate my home and body with. All this to say:
𓇢𓆸 This practice fuels meaningful curation. I love to think of putting an outfit or a home together as an act of curation and art-making. The more our attention is refined, the less meaningless stuff we want in our homes, and our lives. Instead, it feels right to have one winter beautiful coat (I’m still on the lookout for mine, please send ideas!!) instead of five average ones, a fragrance for January, and another for October. We reach for quality, something we are excited to see and hold again next season, rather than replace in a rushed search to find ourselves through another purchase or style exploration (we were there all along, we were just distracted).
Example from my nature journal:
The cosmos flowers blooming in the empty lot close to my home. Cosmos remind me of my father, and our relationship that finally bloomed with the flowers when we planted them together, back in 2021. That was the year I made the decision to temporarily move back home at 31 years old. It’s the best thing I ever did and the memory of that time still fuels me to this day.
Spider lilies popping up a few houses down. In the space of two weeks, three friends tell me their grandmother has passed. It’s like the flowers know and are sending them forward into the next world
A young girl (around three years old) walks down an outdoor shopping street carrying a single red apple in a fashionable plastic sleeve
I am handed a coffee cup with have a good time :) written on the lid when I am having a bad day
The last desperate cry of a high summer cicada as we taught the final class on Kokoro. A moment that moved my dear friend Keito to write a poem
The smell of roasted sweet potatoes seeps out into the streets
Purple and red hues taking over the flower shop, and me being so into it. Am I maturing from a summer to an autumn girl? It couldn’t be!
A deep and quiet fatigue that requires my attention as much as the rest of it all
And an October poem, written sipping a silky macchiato outside in the sun, for the first time in months