Belonging: A Journal of Nature Connection and Self-Discovery
Belonging brings together nature observation, creative practice, and personal reflection, offering thirty days of invitations to explore the living world and your place within it.
Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
The Shape of the Journey
Week One: The Art of Noticing
Begin by paying closer attention to the world around you. Through observation and curiosity, explore the details, patterns, and everyday encounters that can be easy to overlook.
Week Two: Remembering the Wild Self
Turn toward instinct, imagination, boundaries, and the parts of yourself that may have been set aside. Use the natural world as a starting point for reflection on who you are and what you want to make room for.
Week Three: Belonging to the Living World
Explore what it means to belong to a place and to participate in the living world. Consider the relationships that sustain you, what you might learn by looking more closely, and how appreciation can become care.
Week Four: The Art of Becoming
Reflect on change, possibility, and the person you are becoming. Through nature-based practices and personal reflection, consider what you want to nurture, what you are ready to release, and what may be taking shape in your life.
Practices for Everyday Life
Each day offers a different way to pay attention, from observing the weather and learning the name of a local species to reflecting on the parts of yourself you are still learning to understand.
A Glimpse Inside Belonging
Each day pairs a nature practice with thoughtful prompts for personal reflection. The practices offer a starting point for observation and exploration, while the journal prompts invite you to connect what you notice with your own experiences and questions.
Sample Practices:
- Day 3 - Your Inner Weather: Notice and describe the weather outside, then imagine your inner world as a landscape experiencing its own weather.
- Day 13 - A Different Perspective: Look at something in nature from a new angle, then reflect on the parts of yourself you may have learned to hide and how you might meet them with curiosity rather than shame.
- Day 17 - Learn the Name: Identify a local plant, tree, bird, or insect using a reliable resource, and explore how learning more about a living thing might change your relationship with it.
- Day 21 - A Small Act of Reciprocity: Choose a practical way to care for the natural world, then reflect on the relationship you want to build with it and how appreciation can become action.
- Day 22 - The Courage to Begin: Learn a beginner-friendly practical skill that helps you feel more comfortable in the natural world, then reflect on what changes when you allow yourself to be a beginner.
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Talk about who you are and what your brand is all about. You can use this text to share details about a product or announcements that you'd like your customers to see.
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Talk about who you are and what your brand is all about. You can use this text to share details about a product or announcements that you'd like your customers to see.
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Talk about who you are and what your brand is all about. You can use this text to share details about a product or announcements that you'd like your customers to see.
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Talk about who you are and what your brand is all about. You can use this text to share details about a product or announcements that you'd like your customers to see.
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Talk about who you are and what your brand is all about. You can use this text to share details about a product or announcements that you'd like your customers to see.
A Rhythm of Practice and Reflection
The journal follows a gentle rhythm, with every fifth day offering a moment to pause, gather your reflections, and consider what you have noticed so far.
Begin where you are
Belonging meets you where you are, making room for your lifestyle, your abilities, and the ways you feel most comfortable connecting with nature. You don't need special equipment, to travel far from home, or to set aside hours of your day. The practices can be adapted to your circumstances, whether you're exploring outdoors, looking through a window, tending to a houseplant, or reflecting on a place you remember.
If you're ready to explore your connection with the natural world and discover what you might notice along the way, Belonging is an invitation to begin.
To live in communion with the Earth, fully acknowledging nature's power with humility and grace, is a practice of spiritual mindfulness that heals and restores.
— bell hooks, Earthbound - On Solid Ground
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