Noticing Change

September 5, 2023September 7, 2023 / Laura Grace Weldon / 11 Comments

I always enjoyed a friendly chat with the nice people at our library check-out desk. Depending on who was doing the checking out, I knew to ask one person about her garden, to exchange sarcastic asides with another, and to alert a third about a novel I was sure she’d like. But a few years ago our library system installed self-checkout stations. At first they didn’t work all that well, often refusing to deal with books I’d put on order, so I’d have to go to the counter anyway. When I did, the people I’d long considered part of my life seemed impatient at having to check out the one or two books that wouldn’t go through. They’d repeat a sentence that was probably assigned to them—“Can I direct you to our self-checkout stations?”—even though I used those stations week after week. I’m sure they were assigned many more tasks to fill the time they used to spend dealing with patrons’ checkouts too. I don’t know if this change took away some of their workday variety. I do know I still miss our brief but lively conversations.

This sort of change happens so quickly that we can’t help but notice. But many changes – huge ones – are so incremental that we don’t readily see their significance. That’s true for individuals as well as entire societies.

We think we’re attuned to change, but even a silent minute-long scene can confound our noticing skills.

Did anything change? (I thought I was paying attention but didn’t do too well on this.)

Even close observers find it hard to discern changes around them when those changes are gradual. In the real world our attention is far more distracted. We miss subtle differences, even though noticing something “ordinary” as the sky impacts (and reflects) our mood and attitude.

Consider most people in human history. Chances are they were good at noticing. When a person spends time gathering food, hunting for game, weaving baskets, or engaged in myriad other hands-on tasks their minds have plenty of time to wander, wonder, and notice. It’s likely they were tuned to sights and sounds and changing seasons, connected to (and sometimes buffeted by) history’s encroachments. It would have been the same for those living 10 generations before them as it would continue to be for 10 generations after them.

In contrast, we’re tuned to a far more frenetic pace, so much so that with each screen scroll and each multitask we wire our brains to expect more distraction. To need more distraction. How do we use our in-between moments, those times when we might wonder and notice? We distract ourselves. People get out phones when standing in line, put a movie on for kids in the car, go for a walk or run with earbuds in, scroll social media while hanging out with friends or family. These behaviors are ubiquitous yet also significant changes to the norm from just a generation ago.

Talk about a norm change—those of us who are Gen Y or older remember how slow dial-up connections could be.

Now a few seconds’ delay in loading a site is exasperating, as if we’ve forgotten how mind-blowing it is we’re online at all.

There are consequential norm changes everywhere we look.

Farmers from the beginning of pastoral times followed time-honored, mostly regenerative ways. They saved seed from the harvest’s best to replant the next year, rotated and interplanted crops, left wild places like hedgerows and creeks, pastured animals where trees offered shelter, let fields go fallow. When my great-grandfather farmed they shared equipment and helped one another with harvest. They stood up for one another against bankers. They couldn’t have imagined today’s monoculture crops, intensive livestock practices, agricultural monopolies, and prosecutions for seed saving. Each change was considered progress until the baseline norms shifted so far that they were largely forgotten.
Working-class people of the 1960’s could commonly count on healthcare, pension plans, and paid vacations. They could typically buy a home and car while raising a family on one salary whether they were postal carriers, factory workers, airport employees, retail assistant managers, or worked in other fields. Their children could attend state colleges on what they’d saved from a teen’s summer job. This doesn’t account for significant limiting factors like racism or sexism, but it’s notable how much the norm has shifted. Many families rely on overtime or multiple jobs burdened by student loans, healthcare, and housing expenses without an assured path to retirement. One reason for this difference is the ratio of CEO to typical worker compensation. In 1965 that ratio was 20 to 1. In 2021 the ratio exploded with a ratio of 399 to 1. That has become our norm.
Children’s play was, until the last generation or so, largely generated by children themselves with minimal or no supervision. Children’s make-believe, for example, flourishes when kids have the time and freedom for self-directed play. Pretending develops creativity and fosters the sort of what-if thinking that helps kids mature into good decision-makers. Self-directed play includes sports of all kinds, which were mostly kid-run and unsupervised instead of of adult-run until young people reached their teen years. And children were typically free to play outside –in the neighborhood, at local parks, and in nature areas. This started young. A checklist taken from the 1979 book Your Six-Year-Old by child development expert Louise Bates Ames was meant to help parents determine if a child is ready for first grade. It includes a dozen questions including the following: Can he travel alone in the neighborhood (four to eight blocks) to store, school, playground, or to a friend’s home? The norm has shifted significantly. Many parents feel trapped by expectations that they monitor children’s play, enroll them in sports and enrichment programs from their earliest years, and keep them in sight for safety reasons. The range children are allowed to travel, on their own, has shrunk from six blocks to barely out the front door— although crime against children (and US crime in general) is far lower than it was in the 1970s and 80s. Children, on average, spend four to seven minutes outdoors in unstructured play, with one in five playing outside once a week or less. This too has become a norm.

(These are quick, nuance-free examples. They aren’t meant, for a moment, to cast earlier decades as good old days. Many aspects of these eras were oppressive and unjust. Many norms that have changed since are for the better including rights, access, information sharing, transparency, and other progressive improvements.)

In science, norm changes are sometimes called shifting baselines. That’s because we tend to measure a system against our own reference points. The term was popularized by fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly who noticed experts in his own field failed to identify how abundant fish species were (baseline population size) before human exploitation. Instead, they considered what fish population norms were at the beginning of their careers. They unconsciously shifted the baseline.

We do too. It may have been expected for our parents’ generation to settle in neighborhoods made lively by children playing outdoors from dawn to dusk during summers when birdsong was loud. That baseline shifted as adults worked longer hours, children stayed indoors, and the bird population dropped by 30 percent.

The term appears most often in conservation fields. Here’s how writer Jeremy Hance explains it in a Mongaby article. “If legendary conservationist John Muir returned to Northern California today there is no doubt that he would believe much of the wilderness he loved to be terribly, hopelessly altered: dams, roads, suburbs, etc. However, a native Californian may see parts of their landscape as perfectly natural: National Parks are often view by Americans as the emblem of nature—even with roads running through them clogged with traffic. This type of altered perception of nature occurs with each succeeding generation.”

Shifting baselines are both individual and generational. They happen to us all, often below our awareness. Small gradual changes around us happen all the time. Added work responsibilities without additional pay, the friend who seems withdrawn, more extreme weather.

I saw the video opening this post thanks to Rob Walker, author of a marvelous book: The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday. He writes, “Small change, and the ability to spot it, matters. These small changes, over time, often turn out to be a lot more important than today’s flashy distraction. What’s the smallest change you can notice this week?”

Outdoor Play is Sensory Play

August 8, 2023May 3, 2024 / Laura Grace Weldon / 2 Comments

“The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.” ~e.e. cummings

One street over in the neighborhood where I grew up was a small pond where ducks congregated. The ducks lifted from the water with reluctant quacks when we showed up. Despite summer’s heat, the pond was always cool. Aquatic plants waved their greenish fronds just below the surface and the bottom was lined with a thick layer of muck. My sister, a budding naturalist, speculated that the muck was made up of decayed plant matter. When we waded in, our feet sunk into that thick layer of soft goo, a squishy delight for our toes.

It might occur to you that we were standing in duck poo. You would be right.

It smelled a bit when the water was stirred up, but that didn’t bother us. My sister and I would crouch near the edge watching insects. Water striders scurried on the surface. Each of their steps made a faint impression in the water as if they walked on gel. Beetles, ants, and the creatures my sister called by the fairytale name nymphs scampered through pondside plants. She liked to let insects climb up her arms. I was impressed, but too squeamish to copy her. Most magical of all were the dragonflies, their huge eyes looking back at us as they hovered on iridescent wings. This seemed like a separate world.

Eventually we had to return home. Our mother, a registered nurse who strictly adhered to standards like rigorous hand washing and early bedtimes, didn’t miss what we’d been up to. We came home spattered and stinky. But her only rule was that we strip off our clothes and scrub ourselves. She’d call from somewhere in the house, “be sure to use the nail brush!” She didn’t seem to mind that we’d walked a block away to play in a bacteria-infested pond as long as we scrubbed away all traces afterwards.

My mother was on to something.

In her book Balanced And Barefoot, pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom writes about teachers, parents, and medical professionals who are alarmed by ever-growing numbers of children who can’t sit still or pay attention; who have trouble with coordination, balance, or sensory processing; who are fearful, easily frustrated, or act aggressively. She explains that these problems can be connected to an overly contained childhood, one that has become the norm. Restrictions begin in the earliest months, when babies spend hours each day strapped into strollers, car seats, and baby seats. As they get older their movements are curbed by passive indoor activities. Even outdoors, kids are often limited to low-challenge play areas or to prescribed movement in adult-structured programs.

The push for academics, often starting in preschool, strips even more time from active free play, while elementary schools are increasingly limiting or eliminating recess. This is profoundly counterproductive. Reading readiness is strongly influenced by physical movement. So is grasping and using mathematical concepts.

It helps to understand just how closely movement and sensory input is related to development. In the first year of a baby’s life, her brain doubles in size. It reaches 80 percent of its adult volume by age three. Babies are born with vast numbers of neuronal links in their brains and spines, primed to be shaped by what they encounter. Unused networks are not activated and disappear. This is what neuroscientists call “experience-dependent plasticity.” Early experiences rich in movement (plus the nurturance and emotional warmth that set the foundation for learning) activate a wider range of neural connections. This is nature’s wisdom at work, shaping a child’s brain through experience so they develop what they’ll need for the world they’re born into.

Your baby squirms and cries after a few minutes in the high chair. He can be placated with a new food or a spoon to bang on the tray, but only for a few minutes. He wants to get to work on crawling. Your toddler resists being put in her car seat and sometimes cries until she exhausts herself. She wants to run, climb, and play. They’re both responding to an inborn need to learn through movement.

Gill Connell and Cheryl McCarthy, authors of A Moving Child is a Learning Child, clarify. They write that neural pathways developed in the first years of life,

“determine how a child thinks and learns, but more importantly, they will shape who she becomes… her passions and pursuits, triumphs and challenges, inner reflections, outer reactions, and outlook on life…all flowing through the neural network built by her earliest physical and sensory experiences.

With breathtaking simplicity, nature has created this move-to-learn process to be both dynamic and self-perpetuating, building the body and brain simultaneously. As such, the more a child moves, the more she stimulates her brain. The more the brain is stimulated, the more movement is required to go get more stimulation. In this way, nature gently coaxes the child to explore beyond her current boundaries toward her own curiosity to acquire new capabilities.”

Overall, today’s kids show decreasing core strength and flexibility compared to averages in the 1980’s.”The more we restrict children’s movement and separate children from nature,” Angela Hanscom explains, “the more sensory disorganization we see.” That’s why she advocates sensory-rich, movement-based outdoor free play. Chasing, rolling down slopes, climbing trees, playing with nature’s play-perfect loose parts like leaves and sticks — these and other experiences build spatial awareness, balance, fine motor skills, and bodily control.

Let’s hone in on one sensory-rich experience; going barefoot. Madeline Avci, an Australian pediatric occupational therapist, explains that walking on grass, stones, and sand develops body awareness, called proprioception. Nerve endings in the feet and toes promote the development of sensory pathways, building functional movement patterns while helping children move with a sense of their body in space. When we wear shoes, the quality of sensory information is diminished. A paper published in Podiatry Management details all sorts of ways shoes, including those with flexible soles, interfere with a child’s gait, development, and posture. Walking barefoot also promotes better biomechanics, a more natural gait, and less pressure on our feet. Bones in the feet are not fully ossified until the late teen years, so the more barefoot time possible, the more naturally the foot’s shape can develop. Of course few of us are raising our families in a beachside hut where walking barefoot makes sense year-round. But Katy Bowman, author of Move Your DNA, suggests that all of us try to walk on natural surfaces like sand, rocks, grass, or wood for 10 to 20 minutes a day whenever possible, and to go barefoot at home.

Neurobiologist Gerald Hüther notes that “the most important learning experiences come to us, essentially, by way of our bodies — which means that learning is always an experience of the whole body. At the same time, every learning experience involves emotions. We are only able to learn when the so-called emotional centers in the brain are activated. These centers release neuroplastic messenger substances enabling what has been learned to become anchored in the brain ….[via] emotional activation. The most enjoyable activation we know of is ‘enthusiasm.'”

It’s ridiculous that we need science to confirm the value of enthusiasm. This is the energy each child brings fresh to the world. What they’re able to explore and experience with the whole of themselves, magnified by the capacity for awe, remains with them.

Dr. Hüther gives an example,

“Children living in the Amazon forests learn 120 different shades of green and can name them all, using 120 different terms. Potential of that kind is either used in practice or is little used. Children here can at best distinguish light green, green, and dark green. How far a potential is actually used depends on how important it is .. in a given culture…The result is that what was once a possibility, this potential, …if not used, will just wither away.”

Enthusiasm goes a long way toward explaining why children and nature go together so well. Children are themselves magic — able to shape shift into a toad or hawk, to feel what it’s like to hop nearly hidden under leaves or to glide on the air’s invisible currents. While imagination is alive everywhere, it can’t help but flourish when surrounded by aliveness. The more natural an area, the more kids have a chance to have meaningful encounters with the life around them. In fact, kids play differently in a park with play structures compared to more natural areas like an overgrown field, a row of trees, or a small creek.

As Richard Louv details in Last Child in the Woods, kids confined to structured play areas have poorer balance and agility than those who play in unpaved areas. The social dynamic changes too. Older and physically larger kids dominate on playgrounds but in more natural areas, it’s the creative kids who act as leaders. In wild places, even an overgrown lot, kids are more likely to incorporate each other’s ideas into expressive make-believe scenarios using their dynamic surroundings—tall grasses become a savannah, tree roots become elf houses, pine cones become treasure. The essence of the child comes alive. Outdoor play in natural areas is more likely to include peers of differing ages and abilities. Regular outdoor experiences not only boost emotional health, memory, and problem solving, they also help children learn how to get along with each other.

Outdoor free play also inspires kids to challenge themselves. They are things to climb on and places to explore. In pursuit of fun, kids ignore minor annoyances like cold fingers, sharp briars, stumbles. Kids face and overcome fears. Such play is linked to greater social skill, resilience, and creativity.

And if you’re interested in academic test results, time outdoors has an impact there too. Here are a few encouraging studies.

Kids exposed to more nature had higher scores of working memory than kids who did not.
Simply going for a walk in a nature area, in any weather, can significantly improve memory and attention spans improved by 20 percent after people spent an hour interacting with nature.
Outdoor play is connected to a range of academic benefits including better performance in math, science, reading, and social studies; improved behavior and reduced ADHD symptoms; and increased student motivation.
If pre-college test results perk up your interest, the children most connected to nature are also most likely to score well in tests including the SAT.

We also know exposure to bacteria can be a good thing. Certain bacteria found in soil, Mycobacterium vaccae, have been found to boost the release of serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to positive mood and enhanced learning.

Dirt may improve our health too. For example, children who grow up exposed to a greater range of soil microorganisms have been found, in some studies, to have a lower incidence of asthma. Heck, even common bacteria on our skin have been shown to cut down on rashes and reduce inflammation when we’re cut or bruised. A child’s exposure to dirt is part of the body’s education, microbiologist Mary Ruebush explains in Why Dirt Is Good, “allowing his immune system to explore his environment.” (She adds a caveat, saying that the soil in some urban areas may be contaminated with heavy metals such as lead. That is indeed a wakeup cry. Soil is the structure we need to feed ourselves. When it’s poisoned, so is life.)

The importance of outdoor free play is getting a lot of attention these days. Playground designers, schools, and daycare programs are far more open to the benefits of outdoor free play with natural materials. It’s no surprise that children do better with natural sensory play, places for solitude, and opportunities for self-chosen challenge. This is a step in the right direction. A few steps farther and we’ll let kids back in nature herself to play in woodlands, fields, and beaches as well as back lots, mud puddles, and all the nature around us. It’s a step in the direction of wonder and delight, maybe even in the muck of a duck pond.

Shifting To A Kinship Worldview

August 30, 2022August 30, 2022 / Laura Grace Weldon / 6 Comments

I wake this morning to soft rain and lie there a few extra moments grateful that our flower and vegetable gardens are drinking in this blessing, until I remember horrific flooding going on right now in Pakistan with 33 million affected and over a thousand dead. In just the last few weeks torrential rains have killed people in Afghanistan, Sudan, China, Yemen, and South Korea. At the same time, others suffer mightily with drought including other areas of China, countries in the Horn of Africa, two-thirds of Europe, and nearly half of the U.S. All is this is brought on or intensified by climate change and about to get worse. A new study in Nature Climate Change says it’s now inevitable that 110 trillion tons of ice will melt in Greenland. This would cause a foot of sea-level rise. This doesn’t even include additional sea-rise from melting ice in Antarctica. Worse yet, the study doesn’t “factor in any additional greenhouse gas emissions” so it’s actually a current best-case scenario. Already we’re experiencing catastrophic storms, floods, and droughts worse than what climate models predicted. That foot high sea-rise could end up as a 20-foot rise if we don’t turn things around very, very quickly.

I get up to let out the dogs and make coffee. I quietly appreciate my dear spouse who kneels on the kitchen floor trying to entice our 16-year-old dog to eat a few morsels of meat which my husband regularly buys and cooks for him. I look out the window, delighted to spot a great blue heron in the pond.

I try to stay in the moment, just watching this creature’s prehistoric-looking countenance and admirable patience as it waits to spear a fish, but here it comes again, my awareness of what we’re doing to this beautiful planet. Nearly half the world’s bird species are in decline due to degradation of their habitats as well as to climate change. In North America alone the bird population has dropped by nearly three billion birds, a decline of 29 perfect since 1970.

Okay, I’m going to stop with the reality overflow. I simply want to acknowledge this is how the day goes for many of us. We’re fully enmeshed in our ordinary lives — getting to work on time, stopping at the grocery store, making supper, keeping up with family and friends, trying to pay bills, hoping to get a better night’s rest than the night before. At the same time we carry the weight of guilt and anxiety over the state of the planet.

E.B. White, author of much beloved books such as Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, as well as The Elements of Style co-author, once said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” I have to disagree with the late Mr. White. I don’t think we can save it without truly, wholeheartedly savoring it.

Savoring, for me, is about awe. It’s about seeing relationships between what is and sensing the expansiveness of what’s just beyond our rational minds. It’s about connection. It’s about what my friend John C. Robinson calls partnering with Creation.

For many, many generations we humans have been told we are separate from our past, our bodies, our communities, our inner promptings. Even more unbelievably, we’re told we are separate from Earth itself. We’re told its normal on this planet to extract what we want from the labor of others, even from the natural resources essential for future generations. We’re told life is a competition, a constant struggle to ensure our needs are met. Maybe we’re also told we should advocate for others, typically those so similar to us that they share a religion or a language or zipcode. The materialistic “needs” of some impair the very essential needs of others for food, water, shelter, medical care, and justice. This spoken and unspoken worldview is pressed into our awareness from the time we are small children. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez, in their new book, Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth (library link) explain there’s a disconnected Dominant Worldview and a connected Kinship or Indigenous Worldview. To shift into the connected worldview, it’s time to decolonize our minds. Here’s a look at hope.

A few related hope-inducing books I’m (very slowly) and reading:

Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science (library link) by Jessica Hernandez
Active Hope (revised): How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power (library link) by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health (library link) by David Montgomery and Anna Biklé
Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution (library link) by Peter Kalmus

And this offering of this poem of mine about connection, recently published in About Place Journal.

SNIPPING PARSLEY

“Language is a tailor’s shop where nothing fits.” – Rumi

I can’t fit words around
a feeling I carry
sweeter than sadness
sliding past the shape of questions.
As I snip parsley from its blue pot
I consider how
each injury a leaf suffers
triggers an electric charge,
the way an alarm flashes
as a building is breached.

When very young I knew for sure
everything was its own kind of awake.
Honeysuckle vine and bees visiting it.
Air trapped in a room, the room itself.
Dark watchful eyes of animals,
wild speech of water,
still presence of stone.
Everything, far
into unseen universes,
awake beyond our small knowing.

Although thank is too weak a word
I want to thank this parsley plant.
Is it enough to notice each leaf’s symmetry
before the soft green shush under my scissors?
Is it enough to taste the transfiguration
we call photosynthesis?
I can’t put it into words,
but can almost summon
lost memories of an original
language we once held in common.

Darkness

January 25, 2022 / Laura Grace Weldon / 8 Comments

“Darkness deserves gratitude. It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.” ~Joan Chittister

“The moon is a loyal companion.

It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light.

The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”

~ Tahereh Mafi

“When we open to the pain of our world, we discover our interconnectedness in the web of life. This is the gift of dark and dangerous times: to find again our mutual belonging.” –Joanna Macy

“Logic and sermons never convince,
The damp of the night
drives deeper into my soul.”
~Walt Whitman

“Meditating under the solemnity of the night sky… a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.” ~Victor Hugo

“i want to be
in love with you

the same way
i am in
love with the moon

with the light
shining
out of its soul.”
~Sanober Khan

“Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking, loving, and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning.” ~Elie Wiesel

“There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind.” ~Hannah Senesh

“I don’t think existence wants you to be serious. I have not seen a serious tree. I have not seen a serious bird. I have not seen a serious sunrise. I have not seen a serious starry night. It seems they are all laughing in their own ways, dancing in their own ways. We may not understand it, but there is a subtle feeling that the whole existence is a celebration.” ~Osho

“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.” ~Vincent Van Gogh

“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb- time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.” ~John O’Donohue

Originally appeared in Braided Way: Faces & Voices of Spiritual Practice

Sister Trees

September 1, 2021 / Laura Grace Weldon / 6 Comments

“One thing I’ve learned in the woods is that there is no such thing as random. Everything is steeped in meaning, colored by relationships, one thing with another.” ~Robin Wall Kimmerer

I have a thing for dead trees resting in the branches of living trees. I’m sure forestry management types consider this a potentially dangerous situation, but I find them beautiful. I cherish the music these tree partners make in the wind, almost like whale songs rising from the woods.

When I shared some pictures on social media, poet friend RC Wilson responded, ”Mark Twain indicated that a tree limb in the river that oscillated up and down in the current, like the arm of a man sawing wood, was called a sawyer. Seems like some of the music you describe is a rubbing sound caused by the wind moving the living tree so that the dead tree rubs against it like the bow of fiddle. So how about fiddlers? Yeah, ‘widow maker’ acknowledges the deadliness of that arrested potential energy, so watch out for widow makers when you set up your tent, but also listen for song of the fiddlers that trees have sung forever.”

Friend and former colleague Shay Seaborne wrote that she sees the living tree as a “tree death midwife.” I think she’s got something with that midwife observation. As Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, said in a recent NPR interview,

Dying is a process, and it takes a long, long time. It can take decades for a tree to die. In the process of dying, there’s a lot of things that go on. And one of the things I studied was where does their energy — where does the carbon that is stored in their tissues — where does it go? … About 40% of the carbon was transmitted through networks into their neighboring trees. The rest of the carbon would have just dispersed through natural decomposition processes … but some of it is directed right into the neighbors. And in this way, these old trees are actually having a very direct effect on the regenerative capacity of the new forest going forward.
This is a completely different way of understanding how old trees contribute to the next generations — that they have agency in the next generations.

One of my favorite current jobs is serving as editor of a publication called Braided Way: Faces & Voices of Spiritual Practice. A few years ago we published an unforgettable essay titled “Old Mother Tree” by Suprabha Seshan, who lives and works at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary in Kerala, India. She wrote,

There are as many stories as there are beings in this forest. Worms, ants, spiders, trees, epiphyllous liverworts, laterite nodules interpenetrated with alga, maggots, eggs, seeds, filaments of fungi; waters bearing beings, beings bearing water; lung cells, and skin cells talking to the air, and air talking to the leaves; multiplicitous symbionts forming composite entities, the whole forest is alive. There is nothing that is not part of life, where do the elements end and organisms begin?
…Around me are crowds of beings but there is no waste. Everybody is food for somebody else. The innumerable myriad beings transform their world, the forest. They create it and eat it, make love in it and die in it. Their bodies are worlds for other beings. Individual presences are palpable, even though there are so many. They are all apparently independent, and carrying on with their individual lives. They are also interdependent. This creates a whole. And a constancy.

I see these gentle partner trees from the highway, on hikes, and in the quiet backlots of what our species calls “undeveloped” lots. They fill me with a quiet peace each time.

“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” ~ Robin Wall Kimmerer

Primary Experiences in Nature

December 3, 2018December 4, 2018 / Laura Grace Weldon / 15 Comments

When my mother was a little girl, a favorite aunt took her for a walk in the woods to spot wildflowers each spring. It was a tradition my mother upheld each year when she had her own children. She’d talk in whispered tones as she pointed out snowdrops, violets, jack-in-the-pulpit, trillium, and spring beauties. My father was a more avid nature lover and often took us for walks in the Cleveland Metroparks where he let us lead the way on hikes, climb on fallen trees, and skip stones in the river. These were pivotal experiences for me.

But time I spent in nature without adults left the biggest impression. I’ve written before about how the woods behind our house enlarged my imagination and sense of wonder. A more unlikely place I held dear was right next to the library parking lot. Many times after we picked out books, my mother let us go outside while she stood in line to check out. We’d go down a small incline where a tiny stream wiggled past. Most of the year it was just a trickle coming from the open mouth of a drainage pipe, but to us it was mesmerizing. We’d crouch at the edge looking for insects and tadpoles. We’d drop in leaves to see if they’d float away. We’d add a rock to watch water riffle around it. Most exhilarating was after a rainfall, when water poured from the pipe. We were careful not to get too close because we’d lose this privilege if we got our shoes wet. Each visit to the stream was brief, ending when our mother called us to get in the car.

Not long ago I drove back to look at that spot. I found a tiny ditch between two parking lots, something I wouldn’t even notice unless I was looking for it. But because my siblings and I were free to investigate it on our own, it was elevated. It was a Special Place.

Such places are around most of us, no matter where we live. And kids can find them! It might be a rampantly green area behind an apartment building where it’s hard for mowers to reach. Trees to climb and small hills to master on empty city lots. A mini meadow or woods at the end of a cul-de-sac. A ravine or other backyard area left wild.

These places may seem inconsequential to adults, who tend to view nature as somewhere else, somewhere pristine and unspoiled. In reality nature is constantly around us and in us. Giving kids freedom to explore, observe, play, and get dirty allows them to make these tiny places a whole universe.

As Richard Louv reminds us in Last Child in the Woods, even small natural areas are better than playgrounds and manicured parks. They call up a more resilient and engaged way of being. When children spend time in natural areas their play is more creative and they self-manage risk more appropriately. They’re more likely to incorporate each other’s ideas into expressive make-believe scenarios using their dynamic surroundings—tall grasses become a savanna, tree roots become elf houses, boulders become a fort. Their games are more likely to incorporate peers of differing ages and abilities. Such outdoor experiences not only boost emotional health, memory, and problem solving, they also help children learn how to get along with each other in ever-changing circumstances.

And free play in nature helps children develop a kinship with the natural world. When researchers asked 2,000 adults about childhood nature experiences, they found those who participated in activities such as camping, playing in the woods, hiking, and fishing were more likely to care about the environment. Taking part in structured outdoor activities such as scouts and other education programs had no effect on later environmental attitudes or behaviors. The lead researcher, environmental psychologist Nancy Wells, surmised that “participating in nature-related activities that are mandatory evidently do not have the same effects as free play in nature…”

Time in nature, even a small patch of it, lets kids center themselves in something greater. As John Muir wrote, “Wonderful how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us, but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.”

The Land Remembers

May 21, 2018 / Laura Grace Weldon / 5 Comments

There was a small forest behind our house when I was growing up. Stepping from lawn to woods felt like stepping into another world, one teeming with mystery. I couldn’t articulate, but fervently believed, that everything — plants, rocks, water, and creatures —spoke in a language just beyond my understanding. I liked to go alone to a special place, a small rise between two trees next to a tiny stream. I’d sit there silently, hoping creatures of the forest might get used to me, might even come to accept the wilted iceberg lettuce and carrot peelings I was allowed to bring. My offerings were always there the next day where I’d left them, like an answer to a question.

I liked to imagine living in those woods, although I didn’t know how to weave baskets from reeds, how to make a shelter, or what plants might ease illness. I certainly couldn’t imagine eating the creatures I hoped might be my friends. (I was also afraid of the dark and entirely unable to go a single day without library books…)

Of course I returned to the world of mowed lawns and store-bought food. I’d walk back as if I were part of the forest, trying to keep my footfalls from making a sound despite twigs and dry leaves because I imagined that’s how Native people walked, when they lived in the same place, when the largest trees might have been saplings.

Every place I stepped then and step now is a place walked by people before me. As Chelsey Luger writes in YES Magazine, “You cannot find a corner of this continent that does not hold ancient history, Indigenous value, and pre-colonial place names and stories. And every place we occupy was once the homeland for other people, most of whom didn’t leave willingly.”

Now, thanks to collaborative mapmaker Victor Temprano’s efforts we can easily find out more about who lived where we now call home. Mr. Temprano is mapping Indigenous languages, treaties, and territories across North America on the website and app Native Land. Simply enter the name of your town or its ZIP code. An interactive map will color-code your inquiry, showing hyperlinked data on the area’s Indigenous history, original language, and tribal ties.

According to the map, I currently live on the land of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (called the Iroquois Confederacy by the French, the League of Five Nations by the English) and the land of the Potawatomi Nation. These peoples were uprooted by Indian Land Cessions from 1784-1894, and beyond. (See a time lapse map of how 1.5 billion acres were taken from Native inhabitants.)

I don’t know much about the people whose land I occupy. I don’t understand the language of plants, rocks, water, and creatures. I am still trying to listen.

“I keep having these recurring dreams where I’m on a plane or train and all the people around me, Native and non-Native, are speaking different Indigenous languages. I hear Paiute, Lashootseed, Diné, Catawba, and they’re feeding their babies wild rice and smoked fish. I’m dreaming about a modern world that doesn’t erase its Indigenous intelligence, but rather embraces the rich complexity of Indigenous culture.

This can be actualized if we all bring our hearts and minds together. The land we walk on is Indian Land, whether it be suburban cul-de-sacs or city streets. Echoes of Indian existence are all around us. It’s up to us to listen.” – Matika Wilbur

Blessed By Weeds

April 29, 2016 / Laura Grace Weldon / 9 Comments

natural weed control methods, benefits of weeds

Nature doesn’t appreciate the bare earth method we call “weeding.” The soil we count on to grow food and flowers isn’t just a blank medium for our use. It’s a fragile, complex, living system that’s home to bacteria, fungi, and other life forms busy beneath our feet.

Left alone, nature brings forth plants of all kinds that improve the soil’s ability to foster life. We call them weeds. They seem to spring up without reason other than to frustrate us. But nature has her reasons.

~Many of these plants boost the presence of mycorrhiza. This beneficial fungi massively improves a plant’s ability to use the soil’s water and nutrients while providing protection from certain pathogens. Mycorrhizas are found in more than 90 percent of plant families but their presence is inhibited by too much fertilizer and can be destroyed by excessive digging, tilling, and soil compaction.

~Many of these plants help to break up heavy soil with strong root systems, aerating and improving drainage. This makes the ground a better home for the plants we prefer to grow.

~Many of these plants improve soil fertility. Two common categories of weeds are dynamic accumulators and nitrogen fixers. Nitrogen fixers are able to capture atmospheric nitrogen, and due to a symbiotic relationship with soil bacteria, these plants “fix” critically important nitrogen in the soil. Dynamic accumulators draw trace elements and other nutrients from deep underground and transport them closer to the surface

In places where soil is poor, the right plants to correct those particular deficiencies tend to spring up. In fact, botanists know that weeds are an indicator of soil properties such as pH and mineral levels. That’s nature’s wisdom at work.

Then we come in, gardeners and farmers, doing our darndest to get down to bare ground between rows of plants. Bare soil isn’t a natural state. The eroding effects of wind, water and sunlight wreak havoc on naked dirt. That’s where weeds pitch in, acting as protective ground cover by holding moisture and preventing topsoil loss. Think of weeds as self-appointed caretakers for vulnerable humus.

Weeds benefit more than the soil.

~In bloom, they attract natural pollinators such as bees, moths, and butterflies. They also provide habitat for many other helpful insects which balance out the pests you don’t want in your garden. Nature likes diversity.

~Plants we call weeds have been used for eons for food, oils, herbs, seasonings, and medications. Might as well celebrate dandelion season by frying up some dandelion flowers or making dandelion lemonade. And during most of the growing season you can pluck some lambsquarters, plantain, purslane, chickweed, or other edible weeds to incorporate in your meals. (Identify them carefully and only pick plants that are not exposed to herbicides.) These foods are highly nutritious, and free for the picking. Weeds are the ultimate way to eat locally.

I want to understand the weeds that nature bestows on me. For example, I’ve learned to respect the fierce tenacity of thistles. Around here they can quickly grow taller than I am. And I can’t help but adore the beauty of those delicate flowers atop such a prickly stem.

They’ve visited most fiercely in our front flower bed, one that was mounded up from subsoil left when our septic system was excavated. Nature knows the soil there isn’t very hospitable to life. That’s exactly why thistles flourished there. I’ve augmented that bed with cow manure dragged from out back, stacked it with layers of straw and mulch, and pulled out as many thistles as I can before my strength gives out.

Thistles are dynamic accumulators that work to bring up deep nutrients and their long roots break up poor soil. Because they’re been actively improving the soil, fewer thistles appear in that bed every year, as if they’re completing a job started nearly 19 years ago. Other weeds are now taking their place, surely just as necessary.

But respect for weeds goes only so far. It’s not possible to grow peas, lettuce, and other delicate plants in a jungle of weeds. Besides, I am a ~~low energy~~ lazy gardener. Once summer heat rolls in I’m more inclined to hide in the shade with a book than sweat with Puritan righteousness in the sun.

So I have lots of experience with weed control methods. (Other than chemical. I don’t go there.) Here are some thoughts on the matter.

Hoeing. I’m not good at hoeing, although that may have something to do with using an antique implement that probably hasn’t been sharpened for decades. My hoeing technique also probably leaves something to be desired. Finally, the whole hoeing experience is impaired by having dogs out with me, dogs that like to dash after each other in wild canine exuberance which puts them right in the way of my hoe.

Weeding. I’m not good at pulling weeds either but that’s the method I use most often. As I pull weeds, I lay their still-green bodies between the rows as a natural mulch. I tend to sit on the ground as I hand weed, and I happen to like how close that puts me to the smell of growth and the sight of tiny insects and an overall greater awareness of what’s going on in the garden. The size of my various gardens makes it impossible to do this well unless I want to spend many many hours a week on my butt pulling weeds, which I do until the blazing heat hits. Then I do so fewer hours with greater grumpiness.

Landscape fabric or carpet discards. We were given reams of landscape fabric by a friend of a friend who used to run a greenhouse. It wasn’t easy to get between the rows and batten down with clips, but I covered it with heavy layers of grass clippings and it looked great. I was thrilled. It worked well until I pulled it off at the end of the growing season. The soil looked awful, cracked and strange as if it had boiled under all that black fabric. Rather than being soft and friable it was hard. I wanted to beg the dirt’s forgiveness. I was also rather bitter, as this was easy to use. It also has to be pulled up every year or it’ll accumulate so much biomass on its surface that plants will simply grow on top of it.

Years ago we tried using strips of discarded carpeting. I know, strange, but I read this back in some organic gardening magazine years ago. They claimed that carpet old enough to be torn out of a house doesn’t really have toxins to leach. Carpet kept down 100% of the weeds and, especially if it’s a bright color, gives your garden a Dr. Seuss sort of vibe. It was pretty darn amazing. But again, it has to be pulled up. And like landscape fabric, a great deal of biomass clings to the carpet and ends up being thrown out rather than becoming part of the soil. Worse, I suspect it’s not really all that non-toxic…

Newspapers and straw, or feed bags and straw. I read about the newspaper and straw method many years ago in Mother Earth News, and have been doing it on and off ever since. Basically you layer heavy, overlapping newspaper sections between the rows covered by straw or grass clippings. By the end of the growing season it’s largely biodegraded, becoming dirt by the next spring. I have a love/hate thing going with this method, probably because I’ve made all the mistakes possible. Too little newspaper, straw so flimsy that it doesn’t break into sections that firmly hold anything down. And the worst, trying to put down newspaper when there’s any breeze at all. One year I laid down quite a few rows and got the straw nicely set atop those papers but didn’t dampen it with rain barrel water because the sky threatened rain within minutes. Bad idea. That rain appeared only after heavy gusts of wind, meaning I was running around the yard trying to catch wind borne newspaper and stomping my feet in Rumpelstiltskin fits of frustration.

The past few years I’ve used heavy paper feedbags which are even better than newspapers. We save livestock feed bags and also have our feed mill save us bags. Just cut open, spread out, cover with straw, and water. (Be careful to avoid feedbags with plastic lining! ) Unfortunately our feed mill is using mostly plastic bags, so I’ll be back to newspaper.

Jeans, yes jeans. This is one of my stranger innovations. I got into the pile of jeans I’ve been saving to make a quilt (the kind perfect to keep in a car trunk for impromptu picnics). I slashed them apart, laid them between rows of emerging garlic plants while my kids laughed at crazy mom, then covered them with straw. They stay put well and biodegrade in about two years, although some heavy seams can be found here and there. Probably best to use between perennials. If you run across a cheap bolt of burlap or cotton fabric that should work too.

Weed whacking. I’ve been hankering after a small weed whacker for some time. I have a dreamy hope that, if I plant rows far enough apart, I can just cut weeds down to a reasonable height. I picture lawn-like strips between rows of gorgeous vegetables. I haven’t tried this yet. Let me add that I have no known weed whacking skills. Chances are I’d accidentally decapitate innocent broccoli plants on my first try.

Thank you weeds. You haven’t forgotten your true value in our teeming, complex ecosystem. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, a weed is simply, “a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”

What do YOU do to live with and live without weeds?

An earlier version of this post appeared on our farm site.

34 Ways to Raise Nature-Loving Kids

September 4, 2015April 27, 2023 / Laura Grace Weldon / 16 Comments

“Man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard.”–– Luther Standing Bear

Kids can’t help but explore when they’re in natural areas. They climb on fallen logs, leap over tiny streams, and wander through tall grasses. Their imaginations are as activated as their senses. These kinds of experiences open new worlds to them.

In Sharing Nature with Children, Joseph Cornell writes,

It is very helpful—almost essential—for people at first to have startling, captivating experiences in nature. This kind of first contact extinguishes for a moment the self-enclosing preoccupations and worries that keep us from feeling our identity with other expressions of life. From that release into expanded awareness and concern, love naturally follows. And memories of moments of love and expansion act as reminders of, and incentives to, a more sensitive way of living.

Cornell suggests expanding on outdoor experiences. For example, he describes a unique game of hide and seek. Hiders try to blend in with natural objects to “feel that they are a natural part of the objects around them, and the searchers can try to sense a foreign presence among the rocks and leaves.”

Although time spent in unspoiled areas is vitally important, children can experience nature in their own way and on their own terms every day, even in the smallest city apartment, as they pay attention to the weather, observe insects, grow plants from seed, and watch birds. Children can notice seasonal changes around them in the constellations, nearby trees, and the changing patterns of light falling on surrounding buildings. We are not separate from the ecosystems enfolding us. Nature is essential for every child’s emotional, physical, and ethical development. (Please, read more about this in Richard Louv’s excellent book, Last Child in the Woods.)

Here are some ways to let our kids experience the lessons generously available to them in every aspect of nature.

~Go hiking. Before leaving, you might decide what each of you will keep your eyes open to see. Your son might decide to look for things that fly. Your daughter might decide to look for what’s blooming. It’s interesting how much more cued all of you will be to your surroundings when really looking. You might enjoy Take a City Nature Walk or any in the series of Take A Walk books by Jane Kirkland.

~ Appoint a child as the hike navigator when setting off on a nature walk. For safety’s sake note the trail taken and the way back, but encourage your child to pay attention along the way so that he or she can guide your return. If the child is confused, assist by pointing out signs found in nature such as the position of the sun and direction of nearby water flow. Note signpost items like rock outcroppings, elevations, and unusually formed trees.

~ Build specific memories that encourage children to identify with nature. Go back to the same wilderness area year after year to check out a certain stream where you saw a beaver dam. Remember to notice the growth of a sapling in a nearby park as it matures into a young tree. Casually name places something unique to your family, such as “shoe-tying rock” or “Dad’s-go-no-further bend in the trail.” And let your children find their own special places in your backyard, in the park, and in the creek at the end of the street. This way natural areas become touchstones for your child and your family. They remain distinctly in memory even if the places themselves may eventually no longer exist.

~Allow time for solitude in nature. A child’s time alone, even when a parent is within hearing, helps them feel grounded and whole as beings in a world teeming with less meaningful distractions. Given enough time, they will see and hear the natural world with more complexity than they ever could through quick observation.

~Draw attention to the sky. Take time to look up each time you go outdoors. Notice how the sunset and sunrise change on the horizon as the seasons turn. Whenever possible, lie on the ground and look at the sky from that perspective. Some children like to lie still, watching the sky long enough to claim they can feel the earth’s rotation. You might take photos, sending your favorite cloud photos to The Cloud Appreciation Society.

~Play outside after dark. Make a habit of taking a walk at dusk. See who can be first to notice the first faint sliver of a new moon. Point out constellations to one another. Look for shooting stars. Play games perfect for dusk and beyond. Sing lullabies to animals you imagine settling down to sleep in nests and burrows. Or just go out, hold hands, and enjoy the darkness.

~Go on micro level explorations. Closely watch what goes on in a small area of a tide pool. Observe sand, rocks, and water. Look for invertebrates, fish, crustaceans. What actions are they taking? Why? Cover a carton with clear plastic over the bottom in order to see more easily. Or sit on the ground in an overgrown area, even a weedy part of the garden, and observe the same tiny section for fifteen minutes or so. Notice plants, rocks, and soil. Check the effect of wind. Listen to nearby sounds. Watch for insects. Use a magnifying glass. Or don’t make an effort to watch at all. Just lie on your stomach in the grass, in a forested area, or near water and just be.

~Consider macro viewpoints. Go from the close-up to farther away. Step away from the tide pool to a pier or hill. Get up off the grass and climb a tree. Observe from that vantage point. What conditions might affect the soil, water, and creatures you were watching so intently? Consider a more distant perspective of the habitat you’re in.

~Bike, canoe, walk the dog, swim, sail, surf, climb, go horseback riding, skate, kayak — share with your kids whatever you love to do outside.

~Take indoor activities outside. Read books on a swing, play board games or cards on the grass, play with dolls and trucks under a tree, paint plein air, play an instrument. We can’t expect kids to do this unless we eagerly do as well. It’s becoming common for people to meditate, do tai chi, and work on laptops in parks. Simply being outside changes the experience.

~Learn wilderness survival skills. It’s entirely satisfying to know how to start a fire, follow animal tracks, forage for edible plants, and find shelter. The resonance of these ancestral skills haven’t diminished in our today’s world. It’s best to learn directly from others, but if that’s not an option check out these wonderful handbooks: Willy Whitefeather’s Outdoor Survival Handbook for Kids and Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature and Survival for Children.

~Leave room for silence. Make it a tradition to quiet yourselves, even for a few minutes. Really listen to the wind in the trees, chittering insects, rustling leaves, moving water, and other auditory feasts.

~Get involved in bird science. Audubon Society has local chapters that host bird walks, advocacy campaigns, nature outings, and educational programs. Audubon teamed up with the Cornell Ornithology Lab for citizen science programs including the Great Backyard Bird Count.

~Welcome dirt. It’s not simply something to scrub off, it is integral to the nourishment we take in every day. Certain bacteria found in soil are even linked to positive mood and enhanced learning. Let kids play in the mud, run outside in the rain, climb trees, play with sticks, and otherwise indulge in direct sensory experiences outdoors. Perhaps you can designate an area of the yard where kids can play right in the dirt. They might want to use it to build mountains and valleys for their toy dinosaurs, cars, or action figures. They might want to dig holes, perhaps looking for archaeological finds using Hands-On Archaeology: Real-Life Activities for Kids as a guide. For a real mess, give them enough water to make a mud pit. Your status as an epic parent will linger (so will the stains).

~Get involved as a family in pursuits upholding the importance of natural systems. Volunteer with a group to restore a wetlands area or to pull invasive plant species. In your own backyard make sure to leave wild areas so native pollinators, birds and other creatures have access to diverse materials for forage and nesting. You might create wildlife habitat in your backyard, schoolyard, or church property with tips from the National Wildlife Federation and the Xerces Society. If you get really involved, check out the President’s Environmental Youth Awards, recognizing youth for environmental projects.

Keep lists. For those who like to log their activities, lists are a great motivator. You might list species you’ve seen or paths you’ve hiked or nature areas you’ve visited. More on keeping unusual lists, check here.

Eat outside. Take your dinner to the park or the beach or far in the back yard. If at all possible, cook some of it outside over a flame. Everything tastes better whether cooked on a grill, over a fire pit, or over a real campfire. Slice a few inches open on an unpeeled banana, stuff in a dollop of peanut butter and a few chocolate chips, then grill till it becomes a warm pudding in its own banana container. Bake brownies or cake inside hollowed out oranges over a fire pit. Bury baking potatoes in the coals till they’re cooked to roasty goodness. For more ideas check out Campfire Cooking, Scout’s Outdoor Cookbook and Easy Campfire Cooking.

Sleep outside. It’s great if you can get away, especially to state or national parks, but you can also say yes to sleeping on an open porch or in a hammock slung between trees or in a backyard tent. If your kids are young, sleep out there with them, maybe just one kid at a time for some special adult-child togetherness. When kids get older, let them do it on their own. My oldest liked to haul a little tent to the back of our yard and settle in. By the time he was 11 he managed to stay out all night!

Create a seasonal table. Many of us enjoy setting a space aside for a nature table. In our home it has always been a simple display of seasonal items, but you can get more elaborate. Some feature folktale scenes with felted figures and wood turnings. It’s a celebratory way of bringing inside a few things from the natural world. More on this here.

~Garden together. Let each child plant one “crop” in the garden that’s his or hers to tend. Fast-growing plants like sugar snap peas, radishes, and green beans are ideal. Let the kid farmer in charge be the one to check regularly for weeds, watering needs, and harvest times. For more ideas check out Gardening Projects for Kids and for those of you without yards or community garden plots, try Kids’ Container Gardening. Growing their own foods has been found to inspire children to be more adventurous eaters.

~Eat local. Go to pick-your-own farms. Your kids will happily to dig into baskets of blueberries and bags of apples for a taste, but they’re just as likely to be eager to try radishes, endive, broccoli, pecans, and other treats they pick themselves. Join a CSA that encourages members to donate time on the farm. Find nearby farms through Local Harvest; some have open houses or welcome visitors.

~Cook with the sun. Use a solar oven to cook at home or on campouts using nature’s free energy supply. Assemble your own solar cooker and make lunch using only the sun’s rays for heat, you can find all sorts of plans here.

~Pay attention to subtext. Look behind a promotional campaign or news story to discover more about the situation. How do efforts to control or “help” nature overlook interdependent natural systems? How do corporate and media messages shape our view of nature? There are lots of ways to help kids of all ages become media aware.

~Explore recycling. Buying easily recyclable items aids the process of reclamation, but buying less in the first place leads to fewer items requiring disposal. Find out what happens to recyclable products. Visit an artist who relies on used materials. Call your local recycling, solid waste, or public works department for information, tours, or speakers. If there are items you cannot easily recycle (furniture, batteries, paint) locate organizations that will take them from the resources from Earth911. Save worn-out sneakers to donate to a recycling program. Heck, start a Stinky Shoe Drive so your family can work toward a goal of 25 pounds of shoes or more. Here are organizations that recycle them. Enjoy recyclable products too. Toys from Trash provides instructions for making a variety of playthings from repurposed items.

~Bring useful information. Along with water and snacks in your backpacks, you can bring field guides and take-along science ideas. Instructions to measure a slope using a string and jar of water, the methods of testing for rock hardness, charts of constellations are all great to have on hand when the timing is right. Sure, you can look these things up on your phone but kids running off clutching a dust-darkened field guide somehow feels right. There are plenty of guides for kids but my family likes standards like Peterson guides and Audubon field guides. (Smithsonian guides are appealing, but not durable.)

~Set off on a search. Brainstorm indications of animal life or other areas of interest, then set out with your list and check off what can be found Another time, try a nature scavenger hunt. You might have to make tree rubbings, spot a certain bird, collect rocks, and so on. For toddlers, try a color hunt.

~Pay close attention to weather. Notice how the air feels different before the storm and how you can “smell” snow coming. Put together a DIY weather station. Find out if you really predict weather using pinecones. Go out and experience windy days, rainy days, snowy days, all of weather’s moods where you live.

~Ignore inclement weather. There are all sort of things to be learned when you’re snowed in!

~Allow kids the allure of hidden places. Explore to find little hideaways or even an afternoon’s hideout made from a sheet draped over a branch. This gives kids a sense of their own place outdoors.

~Let fiction build a love of nature. When I was a kid I loved books told from the perspective of an animal, giving me a compelling glimpse of the lives of other creatures. I still remember reading dusty old library copies of An Otter’s Story, Rabbit Hill, and White Fang. The most popular from-an-animal’s perspective these days is the delightful book, The Tale of Despere aux. Here’s a list for younger children and here’s one more appropriate for older kids.

~Keep a nature journal. This doesn’t have to be anything more than a blank book. Take it along when you go outdoors and set aside time to draw, write observations, or make up stories. Don’t expect kids to use their nature journals if you aren’t avidly using one yourself!

~Emphasize hands-on fun. Run, climb, roll, and revel in being outdoors. Kids, especially the youngest among us, are great models for our own fun. You can find more ideas in books like Nature’s Playground: Activities, Crafts, and Games to Encourage Children to Get Outdoors and Go Wild!: 101 Things to Do Outdoors Before You Grow Up.

~Focus on one thing over time. Pick out a tree right past your window or a stream nearby. Describe it fully to yourself, perhaps writing about it or drawing it. Spend time regularly observing it. Notice changes in different seasons. Pay attention to everything that’s beautiful, distressing, and hard to understand. As questions arise, look for the answers.

~Stay positive. Simply enjoy and observe. Don’t allow yourself to make dire observations no matter how much you worry about issues affecting our lovely planet. The first step for children is love of the natural world, from that flows the desire to save it. When choosing resources, focus on those which help young people become informed and active in positive ways. Emphasize joy.

“If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, “the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings.”
-David Sobel

What activities and resources do you suggest?

PORTIONs OF THIS POST Are EXCERPTED FROM FREE RANGE LEARNING

Modeling Education on the Natural World

July 29, 2015 / Laura Grace Weldon / 8 Comments

Skeeze, pixabay.com

Nature operates complex systems with awe-inspiring success. We see such systems in Monarch butterfly migration, spotted hyena hunting behavior, the day-to-day life of a honeybee colony, everywhere in nature.

The science of complexity tells us these systems cannot be fully understood when examined in isolation because they function as part of a larger whole. Perhaps surprising to us, complex systems flourish right near the edge of chaos. That’s how nature works.

Any self-organizing system, including a human being, is exquisitely cued to maintain equilibrium. Yet that equilibrium can’t hold for long. That’s a good thing. Consider the pulse fluttering in your wrist. The heart rates of healthy young people are highly variable while, in contrast, the beat of a diseased or very elderly heart is much more regular. An overly stable system is rigid, unchanging, and eventually collapses.

We are attuned to minute fluctuations in our bodies as well as in the world around us and are capable of almost infinite responses to regain balance. Some of these responses occur at a level we can’t consciously detect. Change or disturbance at any level functions as a stimulus to create new options.

Each time we are destabilized, these elegant and complex processes at our disposal give us ways to regain balance. The more potential responses we have, the greater our adaptability.

To me, this has everything to do with education. It tells me that we’re perfectly suited to expand our learning infinitely outward as long as we are not confined by sameness, limited variables, and inflexibility.

As an example, lets compare a curriculum used in a second grade classroom to a flock of Canada geese migrating north. It seems obvious that the geese are all the same species heading in the same direction, surely far less complex than an up-to-date curriculum supported by all sorts of educational resources and a well-trained teacher. But lets look more closely. Geese are self-organized into a highly adaptive system while the curriculum is not. The geese choose to migrate based on a number of factors. Unlike curricula, geese don’t operate by standardized data nor is there any flock leader telling them when it’s time to leave.

Geese fly in V-shaped formations. Flying together is far less physically stressful than flying alone. Each bird flies slightly ahead of the next bird so there’s substantially less wind resistance. Because they’re flying in formation, their wings need to flap less frequently and their heart rates stay lower, helping them conserve energy for the long flight. Flying in formation helps the birds communicate and follow the route more efficiently. They also take turns leading at the head of the V, the most difficult position. Each lead goose is smoothly replaced by another member of the flock after a short turn. That way no single goose is more essential than any other for the flock’s migration. The entire flock is able to respond and adapt to a whole range of conditions.

John Benson, wikimedia commons

In contrast, that second grade curriculum is tightly structured and largely inflexible. It was written thousands of miles away, far removed from the day-to-day interests and concerns of the students or their teacher. Each lesson is broken down into rubrics to better measure adherence to specific standards and is mandated by lawmakers who are heavily influenced by the $81,523,904 spent by industry lobbyists in one year. Students and their teacher are judged by tests put in place by education corporations, even though improved test scores are not associated with success in adulthood. Learning cued to real world uses, learning that is based on readiness rather than rigid timetables, is real learning.

Nearly every variable is limited by the curriculum and overall school structure. The most enthusiastic and dedicated teacher is afforded no real time to let students explore subjects in greater depth or to try innovative educational approaches. The fewer potential variables, the more it adaptability is diminished. Remember, an overly stable system is rigid, unchanging, and eventually collapses.