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 is 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. Reflect and write on what you’re noticing. Connect with your own inner wildness.
Video transcript: Welcome to our unit that’s grounded in our sense of touch, of feeling into the world around us. This until we’ll be embracing our wild neighbors and claiming a place in what Mary Oliver called the family of things. Take a moment, before you dig in, to ground yourself to where you are right now. Take a full breath in through the nose, hold for a moment, and release out through the mouth.
This unit’s central poem is from Slouching toward Radiance: When Skin Meets Air
May this week of feeling what you feel be nourishing, life-giving, and allow enough room for peace.
Sense: Touch. Know. Start to build a relationship with parts of nature. Nature wants to know you, too. Declare your place in the wild family of things.
There are so many different textures in the natural world. From soft to sharp to scratchy to smooth, different parts of nature can all feel really different. This week we’ll use touch to explore.
Experiential Exercise:
Go outside and lay down on the ground — take a blanket to lay on if you’d like. (You can also do this exercise seated if that’s more accessible to you right now.) As you lay there, notice how you feel. Feel into all of the sensations that arise and simply allow them to exist. It may be tempting to wish the uncomfortable ones away, so when that happens, this is an opportunity to practice sitting with discomfort. How your body experiences touch is worth noticing. It is worth giving energy to. It’s not always easy to allow yourself to feel fully, so if this is challenging, that’s okay. That’s normal. If you can only manage a few moments at first, just stay still a few moments. Continue to practice, and you may find it gets easier over time.
Extra credit: Do this on a day when it’s hotter or colder, or maybe windier or wetter, than you’d prefer. Or lie facedown and get really up close with the ground!
Journal prompts:
Where do you feel pressure on your body as your body meets the ground? Where in your body do you feel held? Where is there discomfort?
How does laying still outside impact your mental/emotional state?
What makes you feel supported in this season? If you don’t feel supported, what’s missing?
What is it like to allow discomfort? How about pleasure?
What do you want to feel more often? What do you want to feel less often? What’s the best balance of discomfort and staying comfortable for you in this season of life?
Poetry Break:
Write a poem about touch/feeling.
Write whatever you wish, but if you need a place to start, here’s a first line:
Wind on bare skin finds me
……
Reading from Slouching Toward Radiance:
Feel free to leave a comment about your experience with any of the activities or prompts!1
Each week you will be provided with an activity, one audio or video segment, and several journal prompts. You’ll see, hear, touch, smell, and taste your way through these next six weeks, interacting with intention and curiosity.
Think of the recommendations and readings as a place to start. You are welcome to do the activities as written, or simply just go outside to do whatever you wish to do with your time as long as it’s unstructured and electronic-free.
(Break up the time commitment however you wish. Keep track on a calendar or in your journal. 10-15 minute doses are great! Keep in mind small sessions spread out during the week work well if you’re building a new routine…some days you might just stay out longer than anticipated..)
The most important thing is to pay attention and notice what happens when you do.
Additional reading that fits the theme:
Collisions of Earth and Sky: Declaring Your Place (In the Wild Family of Things), pgs 132-136.
Slouching Toward Radiance; When Skin Meets Air, pg 30 (Audio version above).
Thank you!