Journal 4: Mindfulness in Nature

 1. 

2. For supporting me to live, I give thanks to the soil that provides a home for the microorganisms and nutrients allowing plants to grow.

3. Doing silent observations, not looking for anything in particular, I noticed things on a larger scale. I paid attention to the different levels of the forest present, thinking back to our discussion on class of how forests grow. I noticed more small shrubs on the ground, mainly Polystichum munitum, Ranunculus repens, and Mahonia nervosa. Scanning my eyes upward I noticed small trees, mainly young Thuja plicata and Acer circinatum. The highest level of trees was composed of Alnus rubra whose branches did not extend far down their trunks. Noticing sounds, I heard the flowing creek, crunching leaves and snapping twigs under my feet as I walked, splashing as I pulled my shoes out of the mud, wind rustling leaves and branches and whistling through, and bird calls. As for touch, the ground was pretty muddy so I couldn't take my shoes off, but I felt the soft mud under my shoes as I sank down, the cool, smooth, damp rock that I was sitting on, the soft and squishy moss on a rotting log, the soft bark of the log compressing under my weight. I rustled the crisp fallen leaves around the ground to see what I could find in the dirt and felt the cool damp dirt. The smell was the same the fresh air when the sun shines after rain, damp moss and bark.

4. I've practiced many breathing and mindfulness exercises in my daily life, often in times of overwhelming stress or anxiety. However this exercise felt more intentional, to pick a time and a place to set aside for myself and experience nature. Something about being in the outdoors is very grounding, and helps me realize the things looming so large in my head are not the end of the world. Being outdoors even helped calm my fears rooted in reality, which this week mostly consisted of the election results. I think this weeks assignment taught me that my journal site has become a safe space that I can return to, experience nature, and calm my anxieties even after this quarter ends.

5. As a biologist, I tend to prefer scientific approaches over more creative ones. Doing this exercise without a specific goal in mind I was able to look more at the big picture of what I was seeing. It brings to mind a discussion from an anthropology class I have taken, that scientific data cannot be truly objective because each observer comes into an experiment with their own preconceived notions and particular viewpoint. In relation to Haskell's quote,

What lies beyond the theories we impose on nature? This year I have tried to put down scientific tools and to listen: to come to nature without a hypothesis, without the scheme for data extraction, without a lesson plan to convey answers to students, without machines and probes. 

Theories we impose on nature are rooted in our experiences and viewpoints. Coming into these journals with an idea of what I should be focusing my observations on that week means sometimes I miss the larger picture of what's going on that allows this complex forest system to exist. Rather than focusing on detailed observations and species identification, practicing mindfulness allowed me to both observe more clearly and enjoy my time observing a little bit more.