Nature Journaling in the Classroom

I am currently teaching a journaling writing class at our stellar senior center. This week I have given “nature journaling” the front row seat. Without taking my adult students on a hike, I am bringing a touch of nature to our room. For each of the following prompts I have a visual or a few sprigs displayed in small bottles.

Roots: As you ponder the roots in your life, what images emerge? What words do you associate with roots?

Wildflowers: What wild ideas would you like to scatter and then patiently anticipate their blooming?

Bulbs: What memory, wish or desire would you like to bury, knowing that in a certain amount of time it would miraculously emerge as a beautiful happening?

Snapdragons: What monster dragon in your life needs to be snapped or severed?

Mums: If mums the word, what topics will you never write about?

We will also be discussing clustering, a journaling technique that is also called mind mapping. Word associations occur as one word leads thoughts to another to another to another. I am presenting a small bouquet in a salad dressing bottle (label included) that can prompt spontaneous word plays that will lead to writing a 5 minute sprint on a discovered theme. 

I hope the participants enjoy this creativity. 

Nature has to come into the classroom as our weather is cold and rainy.

Remembering Carl

I have been spending the wee hours this morning with an assignment to write a "prose explosion."

The following is my response and now I am to develop this into a haiku, highlighting fragments and phrases. My word limit was 250 words and the submission is 267 words, but I don't want to cut anymore of this essay.

I will post my haiku after the teacher's response. This is a learning experience that has been quite an eye-opener for me. It is difficult to write an acceptable haiku - less is more with haiku!

Remembering Carl

It glistens by the front window as the slanted black surface reflects sunlight, pleasures and promises of artistic pursuits in the making. However, it’s not the same since I googled his name and the obituary flashed on my screen. Cause of death not mentioned. No charities nor memorials gave a hint.

The choice to take another piano lesson from him disintegrated with a few lines on the computer screen.

Our beginnings were in a smoke-filled small teaching room at the local university. As an adult learner I sought lessons in my new town of Houston, It was therapy for me. I did not realize the therapy would become a long-term friendship.

When I realized he was gay I was probably more comfortable with the relationship. His partner of forty years cemented his “marriage” and the potential for our relationship to be very platonic.

I was in a place where my sexual antennas would waver when a man, any man, paid attention to me.  

Once or twice during my divorce I chose to skip the lesson, pay him to drink coffee with me and just listen and empathize. Was his hourly rate more than a therapist? I didn’t care.

On every page of my stacks of music (current favorites - Chopin, Brahms, Khachaturian and lesser-known William Albright) are his fingerings, pedal markings, and scribbled dynamics from a ballpoint pen he shook to move the ink flow downward.

Now I can only relearn my previously checked-off accomplishments.

Perhaps someday, I will begin the challenge of new music with a new teacher in a new town.

Now I can only reminisce.

10/20/2023

My Response to Jane Hirshfield's Poem

 

It Was Like This: You Were Happy

by Jane Hirshfield

It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.

It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

—2002

Jane Hirschfield

It was like this:

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,

...you don't particularly desire to be mystical.

you choose transparency over the quizzical nature of

not knowing who you are or rather

whom you present yourself to be.

it is quite possible that not only will they

be wrong, but also you could be

wrong. you tamper with the possibility

that yes, you could allow someone somewhere with

advantages notice you. in the meantime,

it really doesn't matter what you make of you.

what matters is that you make yourself honest to

you, only you.

(inspired by Jane Hirshfield's "It Was Like This: You Were Happy)

The Best Part of Retirement

                                                               

I shall begin a stream of consciousness writing this moment at the computer. What do I mean by that?

I have no topic, no outline, no destination for this post. I am truly writing from my thoughts this cloudy day. I guess you could say I am writing "from the hip."

I am home all day today. There is a small group meeting at the church later this afternoon, but I am not 100% on board for attending. It's just something more to get ready for - I'm taking the day "off" and working in the backyard. "Day off" from what you may ask? I want to take the day and not do anything that I feel I have to do. There will be some accomplishments, especially since it doesn't appear that the weather is going to be too warm to work outside this afternoon.

I am shutting down most online commitments and classes. I still post twice a week with Underground Railroad and am looking forward to a class with Maya Stein. That is going to be the extent of the next few months. I am teaching a memoir class at the senior center now and following it with a journaling class. I must do extensive preparations for the latter as this is the first time I have taught journaling. I want it to be thrilling for all the participants. How do I gauge "thrilling?" If I am excited about the assignments and preparations then hopefully that anticipation will flow into others. 

In the meantime, I am gathering my collection of journaling books and beginning to seek guidance for a good syllabus. I will share in this blog my plans and the creative efforts of the participants.

My music seems to have taken a back seat to backyard duties and to my writing and Bible Study. Daily practicing on the fiddle should resume asap. Piano playing should also be a more frequent activity. It's not lack of hours in the day. It is motivation and getting out of the recliner. Sometimes I think that my age is really "catching up with me." However, I won't admit that! 

I am praising the Lord for this day of rest and relaxation!

Yes! Praise the Lord for being alive!