Pause the dishes; the wallpaper is talking

There are lots of observations to be made from a single fern frond. Photo by Chloe Van Loon

Lichen felt like "soggy popcorn," a fern frond was “spikey, like a needle,” and also tasted like “mint,” a fallen pine twig felt "lightweight."  These were all written observations by third- and fourth-graders within a small patch of Myrtle Phillips bordering forest, participating in my nature journaling lesson. But what these students were doing wasn't just sketching or writing; they were participating in a dialogue. 

Nature journaling is fundamentally an act of noticing; that is what the students were asked to journal: “what do you notice” about their choice of something in the forest. Noticing is one way —and I’d argue an incredibly easy way —of connecting with nature—or rather, how we allow the natural world to communicate with us. 

We fall so easily into the routine of passing through the landscapes we frequent, typically only prompted to notice nature when something unusual, or charismatically cute diverts our line of sight. Richard Louv sums this up as: "habit dims sight and sound." We all have habits, like hazily staring out the kitchen window while doing the dishes, treating the view as static wallpaper rather than a living, biodiverse community. We look, but do we really see?

This past week, for whatever reasons, instead of glossing over the hemlock branches out my biggest windows, I felt compelled to pause and trace the delicate branching patterns of its needles. Later that week, on a walk to look for slime molds, I barely covered any distance over the span of hours. But the miniature worlds I uncovered could never have been seen at a normal walking speed. A standstill or snail’s pace is far more conducive to noticing the often unnoticed. 

Stopping to notice invites us to engage not just our eyes, but our ears, our touch, and sometimes, even our taste, num num. Slowing down isn't just an artistic or ecological pursuit; it is a restorative one. A growing body of research shows that the explicit act of "noticing" nature—actively paying attention to the details of a flower, the texture of bark, or the flight of a bird—reduces cortisol levels and positively benefits our emotional well-being.

As much as this is an invitation to join me, it's also a personal PSA to step beyond our comfort zones and habits to dive deeper into our usual views and the natural communities we frequent.

If you aren't sure where to begin, take a prompt from nature journalers to guide your mind:

What do you notice? (Look for coloration, textures, patterns)

What do you wonder? (Why does bark curve that way? Where is that chickadee flying to?)

What does it remind you of? (Does that lichen look like soggy popcorn to you, too?)

As you sit with these questions, shift the lens inward: What are you noticing right in front of you that you’ve missed ~27 times before? What do you notice about how you feel in this stillness? What are you noticing about the act of noticing itself?

Listen closely. Nature has a lot to say to you. . . if you listen. 

Written by: Chloe Van Loon

#flora #fauna