Practice: Making magical memories

Hello everyone :-) This week we will be exploring how to make magical, multisensory memories of your favourite places. We all know how special it is to have even one place where we feel we can relax and just enjoy being there.

Where do you like to be?

For me, it’s a little patch of woodland on the Downs. I like sitting on the musky, soft ground or against a tree, feeling the coolness of the air and the shelter of the leaves above me. I can get lost in listening to the dancing of the raindrops on the canopy when the skies begin to open. The smell of the earth is grounding, somehow. This place helps me to feel held.

By taking the time to sit and really soak in all the different sensations and impressions of a place, you can begin to paint a vivid memory that lives inside you wherever you go. This memory becomes like a friend that you can bring back whenever you need to comfort and delight yourself.

---

How to make your memory

Below are some simple invitations and questions to help you to experience all the richness of your place and build your memory. So have a play and see what finds its way into your magical memory:

What can you see?

Take in the whole picture – what view do you have? What things make up the view? What can you see close up? What shapes and colours can you see? What are the plants and animals that live here? What can you see that you like?

What can you hear?

Close your eyes and explore the sounds around you. Which direction does a sound come from and how far or near is it, do you think? Do you know what makes each sound? Which sounds do you like?

What can you touch?

What can your hands touch? Spend time exploring the different textures and shapes – rough or smooth, soft or firm, wet or dry.

What does your body feel like?

Feel your feet, or bottom, or back on the ground. Can you become aware of your whole body? Can you feel the air on your body?

What can you smell?

Reach around yourself and explore the different smells in your place. Try smelling the air, plants and trees, the ground, yourself.

What can you taste?

This is a tricky one! Be adventurous, be safe.

How does it feel to be here?

What emotions do you have? What thoughts come up while you are here? Is there anything you want to try to remember? Any words of wisdom for yourself?

---

Caring for your memory

Visiting your place to make your memory is like planting a tiny seed in your mind or heart. With regular watering, the seed can grow into a beautiful flower.

So explore ways of caring for your memory. Perhaps you’d like to journal about all the sensations you experienced, either after the practice or in the evening before you go to bed? Or perhaps you can bring the richness of the memory back creatively — by writing a poem about your place, making a drawing, or crafting little objects from your place out of coloured paper or other materials.

All of these ways of caring help to foster a special connection with your place. With regular care, the memory can stay alive in your heart and mind, like a friend you can call on when you need them to remind you of the beauty in the world.

---

How was it for you?

That’s all for this week, but we’d love to find out how you found this practice. Please share your stories, photos, creative inspirations and joys with us! Take care and enjoy building some beautiful memories.

---

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 :-).

---

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.

---

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...

---

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.”

---

Practice: Capturing autumn colour

Practice: Capturing autumn colour

Hello friends, we hope you’ve had a good week with plenty of time in nature. For this week’s practice, we invite you to look around you and capture some of the amazing colours on display as we journey deeper into autumn.

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

— Albert Camus

How can I join in with this practice?

For me, autumn is one of the most beautiful and magical times of the year. The colours on the trees are changing, the air is becoming crisp, and the sun begins to cast long, dramatic shadows as its arc sinks lower day by day.

Autumn is a unique and precious time of year to slow down and reconnect with the natural beauty around us, and that is exactly what this week’s practice helps you to do through the medium of autumn colour. So how does this practice work? Here’s some step-by-step guidance to get you on your way:

• First, gather whatever you’ll need to capture those beautiful colours — it might be a sketchpad and coloured pencils, some watercolours, a bag for collecting beautiful objects, or a camera (perhaps on your phone) for taking snaps (or indeed several of these!).

• Make your way mindfully and gently to a place where you like to enjoy nature — this might be your garden, a local park, or even a spot in your house where you can look out onto a natural space. Wherever it is, you can slow down a little to enjoy the journey — no need to hurry to get there.

When you arrive, take a few minutes to either sit or stand and feel your body, your feet on the ground, and the cool air on your skin. It might help to close your eyes to tune into the sensations fully.

• Now, begin to look around you and explore what’s there — What grabs your attention? Where do your eyes and your feet want to take you? Begin to slowly explore what’s around you, taking time to soak in the details of what’s around you — the leaves, the branches, the berries, the tiny objects on the ground, or whatever else draws you.

• Allow yourself to fully enter a space of wonder — if it helps, you can imagine yourself as a child playing in nature. What treasures can you see? Spend as long as you like amusing yourself this way! Capturing this wonder is precious already.

“All the wonders of life are already here. They’re calling you. If you can listen to them, you will be able to stop running.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

• When you feel ready, prepare whatever you brought with you to begin capturing some of this beauty for your own and other’s enjoyment later.

• Now, find the beauty that calls you and capture away! Start drawing, painting, collecting, photographing, or whatever else you have chosen to do. Engaging with how to really bring out the beauty in what you see creatively can be a rich and rewarding experience in itself.

• After you’ve finished capturing, take some moments to appreciate your experience. again to feel your feet on the ground and the air on your skin. Look at whatever you’ve created or see it in your mind’s eye. Experience those colours again and know that they are captured inside you as well as on the page, phone, or other medium.

Share the beauty you capture with others!

There are so many amazing forms and colors out there waiting to be captured — what will you find? We’d love for you to share your stories, photos, artwork, or anything else inspired by this week’s practice with us on Facebook or Instagram!

Remember to wrap up warm and wishing you much joy capturing the colours of autumn.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

— Lao Tzu

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.