In September 2019 I started the habit of keeping a nature journal with the simple conviction to stick with it. It really began with one question. “What kind of person will I be if I commit to this?”
A Person with the Habit of Attention
My husband and our oldest daughter are the kind of people who can identify and spot animals at a glance (especially out in the wild). Historically, I have been the person in our family who is still trying to see what they’re looking at 30 seconds later after the animal has moved on. That is slowly changing the more we get outside and through my journaling. I start to know what shapes to look for and my hearing is getting sharper. I find myself asking questions and pointing things out instead of always being the one listening to others’ interesting finds. I physically experience God’s creation with newness.
A Person Who Shares the Joy of the Seasons
Journaling has helped me recognize signs of the seasons and share them with others. The girls next door, who come over after school, take walks around our quarter acre lot with me or our girls and can identify our flowers and trees. One of them said, “You guys have so many plants growing in your yard!” and I responded, “Yes, and we all get to watch them grow all year round, don’t we?”. I told them my husband was really the one who taught me all this and one said, “He taught you. You teach us. We can teach our children some day!” Keeping an eye on all the growth together reminds me of one of our favorite books, Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert. Through collage art, she shows how mother and daughter go through the seasons of bulbs sprouting, bushes being planted, and seeds shooting up beautiful flowers.
A Person Who Integrates Disciplines
I’m an English major — an arts and humanities lover through and through. I can read, paint, draw, and write for days without strain of boredom. I never took physics or chemistry in high school because I thought there was a chance I would get a low grade –I took ecology instead. In college I took two environmental science courses at a community college to avoid any higher science. In hindsight, I wonder if my running away from “science” was actually the slender thread of a dormant interest in nature. Once I began homeschooling, I started to dabble in drawing and painting wildlife with the kids. Admittedly, it was more about the art than the plants and animals, but nature journaling has changed my perspective entirely on science. When you journal nature you learn more about physics, chemistry, botany, geology, and the list goes on. You ask questions you didn’t know you needed to ask which lead to more questions. You notice patterns you never saw before. Your brain starts doing this automatically. Nature journaling opened up a part of me that never appreciated math or science in the ways I do now.
A Person Who Is a Better Artist
Drawing and painting when out in the wild or even from a computer screen makes you a better observer. Your eyes start to see more nuances in color, texture, shading, and proportion. Building a discipline of seeing the same things over and over like a leaf or a bird helps layer your memory to spot it again. Your memory improves so that your hand knows the right amount of pressure for a pencil or brush. It knows how watery your paint needs to be to get the right consistency. Both my husband and I have said the more time we spend in journaling the more payoff we see in our improvement.
A Person Who Cares More about Stewardship
I don’t think it’s possible to spend time outside (as much as is necessary to journal, at least) and not care about God’s handiwork in a more intimate way. Seeing firsthand all the ways plants and animals are helped or harmed by our footprints makes you more sensitive to the urgency of creation care. At least twice a year, my girls and I go on a “trash walk” down the street behind our house. It has ditches that invite all manner of litter. It helps us recognize that stewardship can also mean cleaning up a mess we did not make.
As it is officially spring (and almost summer!), I hope these thoughts will give someone reading an itch to start journaling either by themselves or with their kids this year.
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