One of the advantages of being the person who is organising the online nature connection sessions that we're running is that I have to attend them all. This week we hosted Scottish Badgers and the Scottish Wildlife Trust talking about Wild Wellbeing. In fact they weren't just talking about it, they were demonstrating it - with a roving reporter coming to us live from the snowy woods.
Although I have spent much of the last year thinking about all the different ways that you can connect with nature, it was great to hear about it from a different (expert!) perspective and even better to be part of a group sharing ideas and experiences for getting outside and to watch other people being inspired! Not to mention the opportunity to learn something new.
Keep Learning is one of the Five Ways to Wellbeing. I'd not thought about the Five Ways for a while so it was good to revisit them, and realise once again that almost all of the things that we do in nature fall into one of the categories:
Connect
Be Active
Keep Learning
Take Notice
Give
One of the activities that was suggested in the session was writing Nature Notes. Just one sentence about nature every day and by the end of the week you can arrange them into a short poem. I'm so excited by this idea. My sentence for yesterday was "snow dusting the grass like icing sugar". Although obviously I was disappointed not to be living somewhere that I could have instead built a snowman!
If you missed the Wild Wellbeing session then there is going to be another one, right at the end of March when Spring will here. Watch this space for booking info.
In other news, an article that I wrote back in the autumn was published in Mental Health Matters magazine
this week. If you find yourself a bit bored with going a walk just now, then you can read the article here (page 16) and have a think about some different ways to walk.
Another way you can connect to nature is to read about it. Healthy n Happy's CamGlen Book Club radio show have chosen The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett as their book for February. It's an old classic, loved by children and adults alike. I've been diving into it for the first time in 40 years this week, and oh my word, the descriptions of nature and of gardening are wonderful. You can get the e-book for free here and if you'd like to join a zoom group to have a chat about it, we'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email!
Finally - do keep your eye on the front page of our website, we've going to be promoting a lot of new sessions over the next few weeks. From birds to butterflies and bogs, hedgehogs, stargazing, forest bathing and photography - there's something for everyone.
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