Since the shelter in place has been tightened, with beaches and now parks being closed, I'm posting some ideas for connecting with nature from your home. If you're feeling cooped up and zoomed out, these can help you get back in your body and feel into the real world, where it's spring and new life is burgeoning.
1. If you're able to take walks in your neighbourhood:
1. If you're able to take walks in your neighbourhood:
- Connect with plants and trees. What's budding? What's flowering? Do you smell the flowers or do you walk on by?
- Even if your neighbourhood has no parks or gardens, you can tune into pockets of weeds and wastelands--what tiny forests and miniature flowers can you find? What insects are out and about? What different kinds of birds can you spot?
- Enjoy the weather. Take a walk in the rain and celebrate the gift of water, letting it rinse your face and breathing in the moist air. Notice the scents of rain. If it's hot, find a patch of sun and bask like a lizard. If it's breezy, smell the wind like a horse or a dog.
- If you have kids in the city, join the bear hunt. (Grown ups might like this too.)
- If you're a morning person, get up just before daybreak and sit on your balcony or your front step or just by an open window, and watch the light return to the world. Try to feel into the way the planet is spinning toward the sun. What is it like to be up before the human world gets going? Can you hear birds? What other sounds do you notice as the morning progresses? As you transition into day, let your body stretch and ease into activity. How does the rest of your day feel after this gentle start?
- If you're a night owl, try consciously feeling into nightfall. Find a spot on your balcony, on your front step, or even sitting inside by an open window--anywhere where there is not much artificial light once night falls. Go there just before sunset, when there's still light in the sky, but it's dusky. Sit down and get quiet. Wait for night to fall. (If you're doing this outside, make sure you do it in a place where you'll be safe.) As the dark comes, notice how you feel. Is it scary? What is scary? What animal and bird sounds can you hear? How does the temperature change as it gets dark? What is it like to experience the world going into night? Did you get bored? What's it like to leave your sitting spot and turn on the light? Are you in a hurry to get back to the lit world? Did you want to stay in the dark? How was it to be alone in the dark?
- Grow plants from seeds you already have in your fridge or store cupboard. Plant pips from lemons or oranges. Plant a ginger root.
- If you have no soil, you can still grow plants. Grow a sweet potato vine, or start an avocado. Grow cuttings in bottles and jars of water.
- Kids can have fun growing plants from vegetable scraps, using carrot tops or the ends of lettuces and celery.
- How experimental do you feel? If you have a hot and sunny corner, you can try growing chillies from the seeds in dried chillies. Or try sprouting different beans out of soup mix, or seeds from bird seed and hamster food, and see what comes up.
- For best results, choose tea that is made of just one plant, such as peppermint, or chamomile, or just plain green or black tea. Or raid your kitchen herbs and make thyme tea. As your tea steeps, look up the plant online, so you can see what it looks like when it's growing. Smell the scent rising off your cup. Feel into where this tea came from: from growing aromatic plants, that were picked and dried and packaged. Look up the medicinal properties of the plant, and enjoy imagining its gentle influence on you.
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