365 Nature Walks: Day 85

#Earthschooling365: Day Eighty-Five

Inner Work Meditation (Heart): Today we will be meditating on another of our twelve senses – our sense of life. The word “life” on other cultures is also known as “Ruh” (Persian/Arabic), Qui (Chinese) and by many other names. You can feel this sense through the way your body functions. Many bodily functions such as metabolism, blood flow, and digestion are part of the life flow of the body. However, this sense of “life” we have goes beyond just our own body. Our bodies also respond to the rhythm of the moment, day, season, month and year. So how we respond to the life around us can also impact our life sense. Steiner says, “The sense of life enables us to feel our life in us, but only when that life has been disturbed, when it is sick, when something causes us pain or hurts us.” So we are most aware of this force when it is in disharmony. When it is in balance we often call this “normal” and we don’t really think about it very much. So today’s inner work meditation is to connect with that sense within yourself. Even if it is feeling well and balanced take some time to enjoy and connect with that feeling. If it is feeling out of balance take some time to think about what you can do to create more harmony in your life sense or take some time to see if you can pin-point what exactly feels “off”. Nature walks and connecting to the rhythm of the week or the season often help us connect with this life sense.

Nature Walk Idea (Head): Today was the first humid really warm day of spring which was not pleasant to feel but was very pleasant to smell! The humidity really caused the aromas in the air to intensify. In the photo above you can see some of the honeysuckle flowers that have fallen to the ground. I was not the only one who was amazed by the scent. The flowers attracted a beautiful swallow-tail butterfly as well. Along with the honeysuckle the other overwhelming scent was pine. As I walked by a pine tree I inhaled the scent and felt as if I had opened a bottle of aromatherapy oils. Considering pine is a very good decongestant as well as a stress-reliever it was like receiving a free aromatherapy treatment. In fact, the original aromatherapy treatment was a walk in nature. Today’s nature walk assignment for you is to pick out one or two very strong scents on your nature walk and then look up the benefits of those scents online (or in an aromatherapy reference book). If you want to learn more about aromatherapy consider enrolling in our Aromatherapy Certification Course or our Aromatherapy Mini-course.

Photography Notes (Hands): Today we are going to go back to working with shutter speed again. However, today we will focus on one specific aspect of shutter speed. The more you shoot photos, the more you will get used to what shutter speed different subjects need (sports, animals, people, etc.) You will also start to realize that a fast shutter speed is not always what you want. In the photo to the right I purposely used a slower shutter speed to capture more motion within the butterflies wings. In the other photos of the butterfly I used a faster shutter speed so even though the butterfly was moving it appears to be sitting still. Today’s assignment for you is to find a subject that is moving quickly and find that “sweet spot” where your shutter speed will show some motion but your subject with not be blurry.

Verse: Swallowtail
Copyright Kristie Burns

Gentle breeze tiger
Seeking sweet Honeysuckle
Golden burst of spring

**Haiku: A Japanese verse form of three unrhyming lines in five, seven, and five syllables

*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 or Finding Your Inner Voice.

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What is #Earthschooling365?

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!

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