Art for Self-Care: Slow Walking in Nature

The weather had been rainy & cold all day, and as sunset neared, I took a half hour to walk the field around my house with my cat and my nature journal.  The simple act of walking without a destination or anything to accomplish felt freeing. I could stop and just notice the way the Black-Capped Chickadees calls sounded squeaky, or how every twig and raspberry cane was hung with rain drops.

Once again, nature cleared away stress, filled my soul with peace, and brought me into the present moment.  A slow walk in nature, just noticing the surrounding beauty, is one of my favorite forms of self-care.  

And, I find that making sketches of details I see helps me to connect with nature more deeply.  The act of drawing makes me slow down to observe closely.  And slowing down to look brings me into the present moment.  

I encourage you to add slow-walking & nature sketching to your repertoire of self-care techniques. If you try it, please leave me a comment to let me know how it worked for you.

Art Journaling as a Stress-Break

Taking the cats for their veterinary check-up is both important to me and stressful.  Three furry friends in their cat carriers buckled into my little Elantra created a symphony of mewling misery as we headed 10 minutes down the road to our vet the other day.  I'm grateful for our team of wonderful, caring & kind vets, but because I have empathy for my kitties, I can feel their distress in the process as they are examined, wormed and vaccinated. 

Thankfully, our cat friends got a good health report.  When I pulled up our driveway, safely home and done, all I could think was I need to make some art.  Once I had the cats out of their carriers and settled back into their familiar space, I grabbed my nature journal and colored pencils, and wandered down the hill from my home to plop on the grass and connect.

Sitting with a stand of nodding grasses and weeds and sketching them felt like magic.  I relaxed.  One of my cats sat at my feet, and we simply took in the beautiful afternoon sunshine playing over the grass fronds.  Deep evergreens in the background created a shadowed contrast to the November weeds.  I began to feel calmer, more grounded, peaceful.  The simple act of sitting with scrabbly weeds and scratching sketches in a journal felt deeply healing.