Go outside more than you think you should. Get intimate with what resides outside your front door, in the weedy patch between the two abandoned houses down the block, at the neighborhood park. Learn to love what’s out there and let it love you back. Bring little bits of it inside. Keep going back out.
This series, which lasts six weeks in total, is intended to stimulate a sense of wonder and cultivate appreciation for the natural world. The idea is to spend at least five hours per week outside (or more if you so choose). Engage in experiences that stimulate wonder, creativity, and mindfulness. Explore one of the five senses each week with a week at the end to integrate. Reflect and write on what you’re noticing. Connect with your own inner wildness.
It’s May 4 today, the tree blossoms are starting to bloom, and there are new scents swirling around in the air and rising up from the newly thawed ground. Sun-warmed pine needles, freshly turned soil, the boggy smells of the shallows around the edges of the lake. This week we’re tune into scent and all the doorways doing so can open into feeling fully alive and present to a place.
No video this time—rather, what follows are a number of different activities to try.
Sense: Smell. Get close to things. Close enough to be truly aware of what is right in front of you.
Many creatures use their sense of smell to navigate terrain, find food, and even get to know one another. This week we’ll be using our sense of smell to tap into wildness and more fully harmonize with the self.
Core Experiential Exercise:
Get close to some water–ideally a wild body of water like a lake, bog, stream, or puddle is ideal. (If you’re in a rainy area, you could even put out a bucket to catch some rainwater.)
Put your nose close to the water. What does it smell like? If you’re outside near a body of water, what other smells are present, and possible, because of the water’s presence?
If you had to describe the scent of wildness, what words would you use? Say them out loud, or write them down.
How is water life-giving for you right now? (Be specific.)
Extra credit: Make time to witness the sunset. Face west, and as the sun starts to sink, close your eyes and let yourself witness via scent. What do you smell when you stand outside as the sun sets?
Reading
(that, and the experiential exercise, was a small preview from my next book which is forthcoming in 2027…)
Additional Activities to Try:
Activity 1: “Becoming Animal”
Head outside to a park, on a trail or just into an open area. Engage your sense of smell as you walk. Find scents you enjoy, such as flowers, grass, soil, trees...consider the fact that everything has a unique smell, and that some animals rely totally on their sense of smell to identify things and to find food. Then identify some scents that you don’t much care for, and practice allowing them to exist, too, as they influence your decisions on where to go next.
Engage your sense of smell and imagine you’re an animal. What shifts when you allow smell to inform your next choice?
Activity 2: Uncovering Life Near the Ground
Find a decaying log (or large stone, old boards, garden bed, patch of leaves or similar type environment).
Carefully turn the log over (if possible, or just get close to it). Observe what’s happening around, under and within the log.
What life is present? What sorts of things do you smell when you are close to the ground? What does “earth” smell like to you?
Activity 3: Cook with Scent Central to the Experience
Get some really good tomatoes, or oranges, or herbs–anything you enjoy eating that has a strong scent.
Schedule an appointment with yourself to mindfully wash and prepare the food in whatever sort of way you want to–an actual recipe, or perhaps just an artful array of various aromatic foods.
Prepare the food, and notice how it fills your nose with its aroma. What happens when you truly engage with how it smells? How does the experience of eating shift when you are fully present to what happens BEFORE you eat?
Additional Journal Prompts:
What smells make you feel alive?
What does peace smell like to you? How about safety?
What scent brings you to a place dear to you?
What would it be like to truly sink into the experiences you want to be present for fully? What would change if you did?
Poetry Break:
Write a poem about scent.
Write whatever you wish, but if you need a place to start, here’s a first line:
Wildness smells like…
Upcoming Events:
Join me on Sunday, May 31 as I lead a session for Alignment. 4pm CDT, online, free. We’ll explore some simple movement practices, and I’ll read some poetry and offer some reflection/journaling prompts to help with living intentionally, and in alignment with true wellness.
"If you had to describe the scent of wildness, what words would you use?" I'm stumped at the moment on this one, but I love it! Pretty sure it would take a second cup of coffee under the sun to reflect on the aromas of the late spring heat on the stone steps, as well as my wild bare feet.