Wild journalling has become a deeply supportive practice for me over the last few years. Yet I know how Society can makes heading out with pen and paper in hand to be with nature feel like a ‘silly little luxury’.
So I wanted to share with you how wild journalling has changed the way I experience and even ‘do’ life, much of which has spilled into other areas outside of my relationship with nature and into my relationships with family, friends and myself.
Here are the five most profound ways wild journalling has changed my life—and how it can change yours too:
1. From distracted and scattered to directing my loving attention to what matters
Our attention is such a commodity these days and is being pulled in so many different directions. There's a lot of money to be made from our attention online. But as Oliver Burkeman reminds us in his book Four Thousand Weeks, your attention is literally your life experience—it's what makes up how you go through life, how you experience it.
My wild journalling practice helps me redirect my loving attention to what matters to me: my relationship with nature. When I sit with my journal outdoors, everything else falls away, and the act of drawing and writing on the page pulls me into the present with what truly matters to me.
This mindfulness has spilled over into how I enjoy time and am more present with my daughter and family.
2. From perfectionism to playful curiosity in my mark-making
My wild journalling practice has helped me release perfectionism and embrace play, curiosity, and wonder in my mark-making practice. And this has directly influenced my artwork.
I used to do lots of detailed drawings (and still do) but collaborating with nature to make marks on the page in my wild journal has led me to change the process by which I make art and helped me release the perfectionism and the tightly controlled need for perfection in order for it to be accepted (because as I spoke about in my free workshop perfectionism is a way to avoid shame from external factors).
My latest art collection, Rivers Run Through Us, about my relationship with the local River Great Ouse was made in collaboration with the river and is filled with muddy spills and ripple line drawings directly taken from my wild journalling practice.
3. From desperate for the wild to nurturing a deep, seasonal relationship with nature on my doorstep
Wild journalling has helped me notice small, seasonal changes that are happening in my local ecosystems.
For example, last year I followed the unfolding of a blossom on the pear tree outside my house. I got to know that little branch, that pear tree, in great depth as I gently painted the blossom unfolding over the weeks. Intimate connections to the seasons like these have transformed how I experience time and place.
4. From taking nature for granted to seeing my life and the earth as gifts
My wild journalling practice has been a gift to myself because it's given me a space to explore my relationship with our messy, beautiful universe, my creative spirit (which needs to be nurtured for me to feel well) AND my wild self—it is a little a moment to pause, get away from the whirlwind of daily tasks and root myself back into belonging.
It's also been a way for me to reciprocate the gifts given by nature to me every day: the sunlight on my face, the food I eat, the air I breathe. Showing our gratitude and appreciation and sharing that through my wild journalling practice and art—that is my way of reciprocating to the earth, of saying: "Thank you for all you give me."
5. From hiding myself away to getting to know, understand and embrace my wild self ❤️🌿
Lastly, wild journalling has been a way for me to get to know and understand my wild, authentic self. We have so much to learn from nature's wisdom if we just slow down, notice and really listen to what the more-than-human world has to teach us.
Through getting to know the stories of the land, the animals I share this patch of earth with, the waters that feed life around me, the sky above my head, it's helped me to bring that into myself and find moments where I might want to be a bit more Hare or I might want to be a bit more Willow.
This is really what I mean by a book of enchantment—by making marks on the page in collaboration with nature, I find that process a way of integrating that experience into my body, into my internal landscapes.
It's like what Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris did with their beautiful book The Lost Words—conjuring nature words back to life that had been removed from children's dictionaries.
That's what your wild journal is to you: a way of conjuring those parts of you that are a bit Crow, that are a bit Fern, that are a bit Acorn back into life again.
🌿📖 I created my new course, Your Wild Journal - where I guide you through establishing your own wild journalling practice in just 7 days - because I want you to experience these same profound shifts in your relationship with nature, creativity, and your wild self.❤️🌿
