Reconnect this Autumn and Winter

We’re delighted to say that we’ve secured more funding from Sussex Community Foundation to continue our 4 week Reconnect courses offering more chances to get out into nature with others this autumn and winter.

This time of year can be so tricky for some but exposure to light, connection with people and the earth can be so helpful in warding off those winter blues.

We have courses running on nearly every day of the week so there’s bound to be one that will work for you or your clients. We’re also offering 2 gentler courses on Mondays for those who would love to join us but may have lower energy levels or less physical mobility.

For more information and to register for a place see Reconnect — Growing wellbeing

Practice: Touch and texture

For this week’s practice, we’re going to get a feel for nature — literally! We’re inviting you to explore all the different textures and sensations around you as a way to start waking up to nature with fresh eyes (well, fingers).

So we’re going to keep it pretty simple this week and offer you a game to play by yourself or with a friend :-).

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Nature texture treasure hunt

The game involves hunting for different textures in nature. Below is a list of texture words and your task is to find and experience as many of the textures as possible:

Here are some step-by-step instructions to play the game:

• Copy down some or all of the texture words from above, or print the image off to take with you when you go outside. Make your way to your preferred green space.

• Take a few minutes to sit down, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and tune into your sense of touch when you arrive. Feel your feet on the ground, the air on your skin, and the texture of your clothes.

• Open your eyes and pick a texture word from the list. Go explore and see what you can find!

• Once you’ve found a good example of the texture, take time to close your eyes and really feel it. What does it feel like on your hand or in your fingers right now? Really tune into the sensations and be curious. Do other words come to mind to describe the sensations as well?

• Create some keepsakes of your experience — maybe noting down some words or reflections, gathering objects, making drawings, or taking photos.

• Continue looking for other textures using the steps above for as long as you like. Pick a more unusual word for a challenge! Enjoy your treasure hunt.

Alternatively, you might like to pick a single word and use it as inspiration for a creative project — collecting only “spiky” objects, for example, and crafting with them; or taking photos of “rough” objects and making a collage.

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Share your experiences with us

Enjoy getting tactile with nature and don’t forget to share any stories, photos, or other creative inspirations that come out of this practice! Happy exploring...

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Practice: Writing haiku poems

This week we invite you into the magical and momentary world of haiku poetry writing! Haikus are short poems that traditionally focus on nature and the seasons. They aim to capture the essence of experience, the fleetingness of feelings and the beauty of briefness in just a handful of words.

So I’ve started with the wordplay already! If you’d like to join in the fun and write some haikus, then read on to learn how…

What is haiku?

Haiku developed as an art form in Japan, where it evolved from the practice of writing the first verse of much longer poem in a way that would capture the essence of the whole. Poets who could distil a richness of meaning into just a few words were much admired. In time, these short verses began to be written and read alone, and the art of haiku was born.

In the late 19th century, people began to write haikus in English. As Japanese is a very different language to English, they came up with a poetic structure to mimic the style of Japanese haikus. This structure uses three lines with 5–7–5 syllables for the first–second–third lines respectively.

To give an example of a haiku, this is the winner of the very first haiku contest in English in 1899 (!):

“The west wind whispered,
And touched the eyelids of spring:
Her eyes, Primroses.”

— R. M. Hansard

If you read this haiku and count the number of syllables on your fingers as you go, you’ll find out that it follows the 5–7–5 structure for the three lines. You might find this 5–7–5 structure helpful when you are writing your own haikus.

The most important thing, though, is that your haiku writing connects you more deeply to what you are experiencing and expressing about nature. A more “relaxed” style of haiku that doesn’t use such a strict structure might be more appealing to you. You’ll be happy to hear that many famous poets writing in English prefer to write haikus in this way.

Whatever the style, all haikus aim to convey a vivid image of one moment in time, capturing its beauty, fleetingness and essence.

Play around with both approaches and see what works for you!

“Nightfall,
Too dark to read the page
Too cold.”

— Jack Kerouac

How do I write a haiku?

Each person has their own approach to writing poetry, but here are some tips based on what works for me:

• Enjoy — Haiku writing is a process that can enrich your connection to nature. For me, this enjoying the experience of connecting and appreciating is the primary goal, not what gets written on the page.

• Experience – Good haikus are born from good experiences or at least rich ones. So spend time enjoying nature and you might find the haiku will come to you, instead of you having to chase it!

• Evoke — Haikus conjure up evocative imagery of colors, textures, forms and movement. Often I find these vivid elements come to me most clearly through mental imagery as I remember a beautiful experience in nature.

• Experiment — Don’t be afraid to experiment. No-one needs to see your haikus, unless you want them to. They’re very short so you can play around with many of them without getting caught in getting it “right” straight away.

• Essence — Haikus capture the essence of what you experience. They’re direct and immediate. So trust your instinct and your intuition, and see what comes!

Haiku writing as a regular practice

There are many rewarding ways to practice haiku writing. Here are some ideas:

• Writing a haiku each time you go for a walk in nature to capture the memory of what touched you the most;

• Writing a haiku at the end of the day to remember and bring to life what you appreciated or are most grateful for about the day;

• Picking a theme for your haikus each day or each week, such as “fleetingness”, “beauty”, “colour”, “animals”, “landscape”, or anything else that enthuses you.

Over time, a regular practice of haiku writing can gift you with a set of poetic gems threading together your experiences over the days and weeks, and reminding you of the good times.

Share your haikus

Good luck and we wish you many moments of connection and appreciation in your haiku writing. Enjoy exploring this practice.

And don’t forget, we’d love for you to share your haikus with us!

“Haikus are easy.
But sometimes they don’t make sense.
Refrigerator.”

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Practice: Finding a spot to sit and enjoy nature

Where do you like to go to enjoy nature? Where is that special place for you?

In your garden perhaps, or on your balcony? Or maybe down by the seafront, on the Downs, or in the woods?

Practice for this week: Sit spot

This week we invite you to explore the practice of connecting with nature at your favourite “sit spot”. And if you don’t have one yet, then don’t worry, there is plenty of time to try out alternatives and choose one!

“...when we ‘lose our mind’ and ‘come to our senses’ in the fullest possible way, the chattering, texting, e-mailing, twittering mind will eventually quiet down and almost silence itself. This is a sacred and connected silence... It's like a deep, still pond reflecting the stars of the night sky.”

Jon Young in “What the Robin Knows”

A sit spot is a place we can go to just to look, listen, sense and feel the natural rhythms of nature. Tuning into these rhythms can be a great way to relax our body and mind, and open ourselves to all the surprises and treasures that nature offers.

Choosing a sit spot

How do you find a sit spot? A sit spot is somewhere you feel comfortable, where you can be relatively undisturbed, and where you can watch nature unfold. This could be your garden, the beach, a bench in the park, or a chair by your window with a view of the trees and birds — or many other places besides. Feel free to explore different spots if you want to before choosing one.

Choosing a sit spot that is easy and quick to get to (ideally within 5–10 minutes of your house) is very helpful for when you want to revisit the same spot. The sit spot is somewhere you are invited to return to regularly as a place to connect to nature and drop any worries and business for a little while.

How to practice with a sit spot

So how do you practice with a sit spot? Here is some guidance:

• Go to your sit spot — aim to spend 5–10 minutes there at first. Once you feel more comfortable, you can try longer, but there’s no rush. Set a timer if you like so you can offer your full attention to what is here in front of you.

• Make yourself comfortable, and put your phone on silent or turn it off if you can

• Check in with yourself — How does your body feel? What emotions are you feeling? How is your mind right now? Just take a moment to say hello to yourself — no need to change anything.

• Tune into your senses. Close your eyes to begin. Feel the weight of your body on the seat or ground, and the air on your skin. Listen to the sounds around you — the rustling of the leaves in the trees, the birds chirping, the waves rolling in and out. What can you can smell? — the musty earth, the salty air, or wood smoke perhaps? Now open your eyes and explore the colours and forms around you — take in the tiny details right next to you, and then the sights far away.

• Get curious about the world around you. What can you see? What can you hear? What is making that sound? Are there any birds? Is the wind blowing? Where is the sun? Take time to recognise the plants, the animals, the rhythms, the movements of the world around you.

• Towards the end of your time, take a moment to feel into what you have received. You might like to draw, write a poem, or gather a few eye-catching objects to deepen your connection to your sit spot and to give you a reminder of your experience to take home.

• Finally, acknowledge and thank your sit spot — by pausing to enjoy it for a few more moments, by offering water to a plant or tree, or leaving a bit of food for the animals — whatever feels right to you.

We wish you many delightful and healing moments at your sit spot!

You might also find it helpful to listen to this podcast by the Inner Pathways to Sustainability project, which explains the sit spot practice and includes a guided practice that you can listen to when you’re there.

Don’t forget to share your experience with a friend or with the Grow community online on Facebook or Instagram — post your drawing, poem, a photo, or simply a few words about your sit spot experience! We would love to hear how it was for you.

Reconnect with us

Each one of us will have had our own unique experience of lockdown. For some it has been a time for pause and reflection, time to slow down. For others it’s been a lonely old time and for still others who have working to keep all our key services going it’s probably been a hectic and stressful time.

For myself, I’ve been very grateful for the chance to stop and take stock. Grow life this year was looking very busy in March with Artists Open Houses, Natural Wellbeing courses booked every month, digital storytelling workshops and of course our core, most special programme - the Season.

As we went into lockdown, we stayed connected with the Season that had already started via Zoom and like the rest of the world we wondered if Zooming was the way forward. However whilst this may have become a new word in most of our vocabularies, we took the decision that real connection - with nature and with others - was what we were all about.

So as we all start emerging like buds after a long hibernation, we’ve decided that real connection is what we need to continue doing. Obviously meeting in large groups is still not an option for us, so instead we’re going to dip out toes gently in the water and start running some small groups for shorter times and over a shorter period…but more of them, thanks to some wonderful recent funding from Brighton District Nurses Association Trust.

If you would relish the chance to reconnect with nature and with others then join us for our Reconnect Sessions. 3-4 hour sessions once a week for 4 weeks in safe, supported (and suitably distanced but always connected) groups.

We’ll travel together to some beautiful spaces around and outside of the city, spend time in nature and just enjoy the beauty that has been growing all around us while we’ve been locked down.

And some day we’ll start doing all those other wonderful things again together…but slowly…and when the time is right.

It’s a glorious summer out there right now…..come and join us. To register your interest visit our website http://www.growingwellbeing.org.uk/reconnect and fill in the online form