How to Create a Nature Journal
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Taking time to observe nature throughout the year is a simple way to reconnect—with the earth, with your thoughts, and with yourself. A nature journal is just a place to notice what’s happening around you. Creating your own nature journal doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, it works best when it’s not.
What to Observe
Nature observation can be as broad or as specific as you want. You might pay attention to:
Plants
Birds
Bees and other insects
Trees
The changing sky
Sunlight - how it changes throughout the day or season
Or you might choose one thing to follow over time—a single tree in your yard, a patch of wildflowers, or even just the way the light hits your porch each morning.
There’s no right way to do this.
How to Record What You Notice
Use all of your senses when you’re outside:
What do you see?
What do you hear?
What do you feel (temperature, wind, texture)?
What do you smell?
What do you taste(only if you’re absolutely sure it’s safe)
You can:
Sketch what you see
Write a few sentences
Make a list
Track patterns over time
If you want to go deeper, bring tools like binoculars or a magnifying glass. When you slow down and look closely, you start to notice things you would normally miss—the veins in a leaf, the texture of tree bark, or the subtle color shifts in a single flower petal.
A Simple Example to Try
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved dandelions. They were always the first flower to bloom around my elementary school - and it meant two things: spring was finally here and school was almost out for the summer. As a kid, I would pick the dandelion in a futile attempt to bring it home - only to find it wilted and sad at the bottom of my backpack. As an adult I’ve learned the best way to enjoy a dandelion is to leave them be and watch them grow.
I notice:
Low green leaves spreading across the ground
Bright yellow blooms opening toward the sun
The transformation into those soft, wispy seed heads
and finally watching the breeze turn the flower into wishes
Watching that full cycle play out gives you a surprisingly clear sense of time passing. I know when the dandelions are finished blooming, that lilacs will be next, and then the roses, and so on and on. I mark seasons by what I see in bloom just as much as with a calendar or planner.
Track the Seasons in Real Time
Your journal can also be a place to track:
Daily weather
Temperature changes
First signs of seasonal shifts
If you like a bit of structure, you might try a phenology wheel—a circular way of tracking changes in nature over time.
Nature journaling isn’t really about journaling. It’s about paying attention.
It’s a way to:
Quiet a busy mind by focusing on something tangible
Get outside and support your physical and mental health
Build a deeper sense of connection to the natural world
Notice the things we usually take for granted—clean air, clean soil, healthy trees, and seasonal rhythms
Over time, it also builds a kind of quiet compassion for the earth.
Inspiration for Everyday Life
Nature journaling naturally feeds into other parts of your life.
It can inspire:
Seasonal or Wheel of the Year celebrations
Creative projects
Writing, art, or photography
There’s a reason landscapes have been painted, written about, and studied for centuries. There’s always something new to notice.
Let It Be Imperfect
This part matters.
The goal is not to create something beautiful or impressive.
It’s just for you.
You don’t need to:
Journal every day
Fill every page
Make it look aesthetic
Do it when you can. Skip it when you can’t.
If you tend to get hung up on consistency (I do too), this is your reminder that it still “counts” even if it’s occasional. I practice nature journaling often in my weekly letters to readers. I describe virtually the same scene over and over - the view from my back porch that stretches across a river valley. Every time I write about this, I see something different or new.
My Instagram is kind of like a makeshift nature journal - if you look at all my photos, you’ll see that 90% of them are of nature, often repeating the same scene or subject in different seasons.
Start Simple
All you really need is:
A notebook
Something to write or draw with
A few minutes outside
That’s it.
Everything else builds from there.
If you would like help getting started, I’ve created a free Nature Journaling worksheet, available in the Mabon House Library. Happy journaling!
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Finding My Path Once Again
Photo by Tim Foster via Unsplash
Last night the sky was so clear that the waxing crescent moon shined as bright as if it were full, illuminating the trees and casting shadows across my gardens. I’ve missed the moon these past 18 months - only giving it fleeting glances now and again, before hurrying to work, study or sleep. I can’t remember the last time I sat with her and let her light wash over me- a simple little ritual I enjoy as a way to bring a sense of peace after a long day.
Now that nursing school is finished (graduation is this weekend!) I feel the slow comedown of completing a big task. The long exhale of a breath I’ve been holding for months. It is both exhilarating and unsettling. I feel as if I’ve entered a new life. Nursing school was one of those dividing life events of Before and After. You know, when you think of the way life was before I had kids or before COVID; or after my divorce, after my kids graduated. Life becomes a bifurcation of our own unique experiences.
Over the past 18 months I had to ignore my natural cadence to slow down in the colder months, because clinicals stop for no one - not even winter or perimenopause. I had to muscle through exhaustion and drag myself across multiple finish lines. All of which goes against the grain of my soul. Now comes the reckoning - my exhaustion has caught up with me and I find myself wanting to rest more than anything.
As part of reclaiming my energy and recalibrating to this new chapter of life, I’ve begun to find my way back to my spiritual path, which I largely left in order to concentrate on school. Like with the moon, I’ve barely been out in nature this season. Usually this time of year I’m eagerly looking for signs of spring - bird songs, daffodil leaves, a change in the slant of sunlight in my sitting room. I’m excited to have the time to do that once more. I worry my gardens will have forgotten me.
I’ve also begun slowly checking things off my post-nursing school list of all the things that have been on hold until I graduated. I’ve picked up my paints and started writing more - creative outlets that leave me energized and refreshed; I subscribed to a couple of ezines in an effort to do less doom scrolling on social media; I picked out new colors for my kitchen walls to refresh the space; and I’ve begun to very gently move my body more, slowly straitening it out from months hunched over a computer or text book.
As tired as I am, I welcome the energy shift that comes with springtime and the Season of the Maiden. I intend to rest as much as I can these last few weeks of winter and then go outside, play in the dirt, sit in the sun, and gently work on releasing the stagnant energy left behind by winter. The earth and I will wake up together this season.
Ostara Resource Guide
As part of my energy reset, I put together this guide for Ostara and the Spring Equinox. It includes some of my own writing and a free Ostara course with printables I’ve shared in previous years. It also has some recommended readings with links. I hope you find it helpful for your own Ostara and springtime celebrations.
More Ostara Reading
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A Note From Last Spring
I was flipping through an old notebook and found this entry - written in March 2025 (10 months ago). I never sent this letter out through Mabon House, but felt like it was worth sharing now, almost a year later. I hope you enjoy it.
Hello friends,
I hope this finds you well and safe. Spring (2025) arrived early this year in Western Maine. Today it’s in the 40s and 50s with full sun, and it feels absolutely luxurious after the cold of January and February. I took a break from studying to go outside for a bit—picking up fallen branches for next season’s kindling, surveying my lower garden hillside. It’s covered in a thick layer of brown leaves, still glossy with ice. Another week of sunshine and they’ll be ready to rake up, making room for this year’s grasses and flowers.
Even with the beautiful weather, there’s no denying that early spring in Maine is not pretty. Half‑melted snow, blackened by dirt and wood ash, clings to the ground. Snowbanks look tired and worn down. Piles of wood ash—hastily dumped during the coldest parts of winter and quickly covered by snow—reemerge, a reminder of how desperate those nights were to stay warm. A tiny river runs down my driveway as the snow melts, carrying wood ash, dirt, and the flotsam and jetsam of last year’s gardens.
Springtime is not always beautiful, but it is always necessary. Anyone who has witnessed a birth knows it’s a messy business—beautiful, yes, but messy. Early spring is when the line between seasons blurs, and that feels a lot like my life right now. I’m in the pangs of a kind of rebirth, surrounded by mess: tangled emotions, a neglected house, and a life dominated by nursing school. I knew school would be a huge commitment, and it has taken up every corner of my life. I don’t regret starting, but another eleven months of this feels —at least in that moment—disheartening.
The birds have returned. A soft coo from a mourning dove, hidden somewhere in the trees. The woodstove is still going, taking the chill out of mornings and evenings. Outside, spring is brown and muddy. There are no leaves yet to break up the sun—just matted grass, dead leaves, fallen branches. Inside, I’m trying to accept this season of my life: hard, busy, and necessary. And still, if I’m honest, I want to skip ahead.
I’ve had a lot of regrets lately. A fifteen‑year relationship ended. Would I have been better off alone? I put my writing on the back burner to go to nursing school—was that the right choice? I spent so much time writing and blogging. Was it a good use of time? What do I even have to show for it?
A good friend and mentor offered some wisdom when I told her I felt like I’d wasted so much time trying—and failing—to find happiness. “Lorri,” she said, “you are young. You have so much life left.”
There is void in my life that was once filled with raising children and spending time with my significant other. The absence of both is something I feel acutely. I know that some endings are for the best, but grief doesn’t always listen to logic. It comes in waves, often accompanied by regret—the least helpful of emotions. Lately, though, I’ve been able to sit with these feelings and let them pass instead of trying to outrun them- my M.O. for most of my life. I feel apprehensive about the future. Even though I’ve always been fairly independent, I feel untethered now: no parents, no partner, no kids at home to raise. It’s just me.
Of course, I’m being a little dramatic. My kids may be out of the nest, but we are a close knit bunch. I have family and friends checking in on me, reminding me daily that I am loved beyond measure.
Springtime is messy and kind of ugly. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be appreciated. We don’t always have to seek beauty to find meaning. Sometimes the work is simply to sit in the muck for a while. I know these feelings will pass. My heart will continue to heal. The stress of school will eventually become a memory. And on the other side of this season, a new adventure is waiting.
—
Author’s Note
This was written in March 2025. I am still in nursing school, but with only a few weeks left. About six months after my breakup, I met someone who reminded me that I am still capable of great love. And most days I am no longer carrying the burden of regret - I feel as thought this year, as hard as it has been - was necessary - just like springtime in Maine. I’ve come out stronger and more resilient, but also softer and happier.
So, friends—if you’re going through it, or even if you’re just coasting along ho‑hum—consider this a reminder: sometimes the best thing you can do is keep going and trust that what you seek will find you.
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