This series takes you through an entire year of our nature walks and is part of our non-profit project #Earthschooling365 at www.Earthschooling.org. The photos and posts in this series are all copyrighted. Please do not share or re-print them. Instead, share the link to this blog with your friends.
Along the way I will be sharing our favorite photo of the day, an inner work meditation for the day, photography assignment/tip for the day, nature walk theme for the day and a short verse for circle time (children) or meditation (teens/adults). We invite you to “walk along with us” this year, take some time to use the inner work meditation, be inspired by the nature walk theme of the day and perhaps even start a photo series of your own. To join the community on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram please tag your photos #Earthschooling365. To receive these inspirations in your e-mail inbox daily please subscribe to our blog alerts HERE. Don’t worry about missing days – you can join us as many days as you want this year!
Every day we will post one day. We will leave up 2 weeks of nature walks at a time. At the end of two weeks each nature walk will be transferred to the Lifetime Member’s Only Blog and will be accessible only to Lifetime Earthschooling Members. If you want to own the entire series without enrolling a an Earthschooling Lifetime Package Member you can purchase the entire series for only $35.00 (for the entire year!)
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You can start your journey any day. You do not have to follow our schedule. However, we will leave up the first week of the project all year so you can follow the steps to get started.
#Earthschooling365: Day Seven
Inner Work Meditation (Heart): I read an article in the news last night about a person who had ALS encouraging an online friend to get out and exercise more. I thought about that as I walked today. Each step I took I thought to myself, “I am thankful I can walk, I am thankful I can breathe easily, I am thankful I can see clearly, etc…” Take ten minutes this morning to create your own affirmation and continue this through the day. We spend so much time thinking about how we can make things better, get more or improve upon what we have that we often forget about the tiny miracles that we do have. Meditate on all the tiny miracles you have in your life that are very basic – walking, hearing, seeing, full range of motion, clean water, light, and much more. There are many people who do not have those things. How can recognizing those daily miracles enrich our lives?
Nature Walk Idea (Head): If you are like me then you have probably started to notice after those few days of experiencing your nature walk with all your senses that there is a lot more pollution than you originally noticed. We get so used to seeing trash around us that we tune it out. Now that you have noticed it think about what kind of impact it would have if you picked up a few pieces each time you take your walk. Today (and perhaps every day after today) bring along a plastic bag and pick up at least one piece of trash. Even if you picked up one piece each day you would have picked up 365 pieces by the end of the year. If ten people do this then that is 3650 pieces of trash. Think of the impact we can have on the earth if all of us on this journey do this! To integrate this into a math curriculum keep count of how much is gathered each day, each week and each month.
Photography Notes (Hands): Today your assignment is to take a photo of movement into a photo. We will also be expanding your interpretation of movement. Do you see the tree in this photo? Many people would say it is not actually moving. But it is. When you look at this photo you can see that it has fallen and that it has fallen into the photo. Photos depicting movement can be of actual moving objects or they can be of objects that are not moving. No matter what movement you have in your photo make sure the movement is going into the photo and not leaving the photo. You want everything about your photo to draw the viewer’s eyes into the photo and not away from it.
Verse: Hidden Glen
Copyright Kristie Burns
Prints of animals but none of men
Songs of the chickadee and wren
Robin’s nest and muskrat den
The day I discovered the hidden glen
*These poems have been created for many purposes – from early childhood circle time verses to inspirational or expressive. They vary from day to day so you may find the way you use them or enjoy them also varies. If you would like to set these poems to music consider our tutorial: Creating Your Ow Waldorf Verses.
Please send your friends to www.BEarthBlog.com so they can join in too!
In the following photos you can see how the first photo, with the deer walking into the photo is a better photo even though it shows part of the deer. The movement into the photo is much more effective than with the next two photos that feature the deer in the middle. Another added bonus in this shot is the contrast and interaction with the mallard duck in the water.
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