A Nature Journal - Using All the Senses

 “Frog calls and the sound of intermittent splashings drew me to cross the brook on stepping stones that seemed to have been set out for my passage.  A short push through tall, thick growth brought me to an opening at the edge of a pool where the lowering sun cast an otherworldly light across dark water.  It glimmered in dragonfly wings and sporadic silver-beaded sprays tossed up by leaping frogs.  Sweet songs from unseen birds drifted on the still air.  Everything was new to me, every sight, sound, and smell a new experience. “  David Carroll from Self-Portrait with Turtles

Begin your Nature Journal on location.  Let the subtlety of your landscape soak in.  

Choose several locations: a park bench, a rock ledge at the beach, a forest or any location where you can sit for 15 to 20 minutes at a time. 

Capture what the landscape sounds like. 

Touch and smell provide a visceral jolt to writing.  

Find out the names of plants, animals and natural forms you observe.  

Free write and let the words direct you.  

Many questions will surface:  Who am I?  Why am I here?  What is my responsibility to nature?  

You will discover how nature teaches rhythms and reverence for change from the migrations of animals to the blossoms of spring.

Try these warm ups:

l. Listen for the sounds of the familiar in your garden: water running, a bird song, dog barks, and wind in trees. What sounds do you identify with home?

2.  Imagine the scent of an orange grove in blossom or a peach tree in the sun. What scents move around you?  What will the sound of rain add? Can you combine the senses in your writing?

3.  Gail Brandeis encourages writers to describe eating a blackberry recklessly. Bring a fruit or vegetable to eat during your journal keeping.  Can you add taste to your writing?

4.  Give flavor and texture to your writing with visual imagery that moves away from the ordinary. Barry Lopez uses raucous purple, coy yellow, prosaic blue, belligerent red. 

5.   Consider the mental senses: pain, fear, love, play, humor, psychic capacity, reason, time and intuition. Can you translate these with concrete descriptions?