Ask anyone what their least favorite month is and chances are March will be high on the list. Depending on what the weather throws at us, it can be more bleak than blossom, our doors still shut though we’re itching to bust them wide open. If winter feels like an annual rite of passage, then March is the final leg of it.
Connect with nature
How, then, do we make peace with this month? Regular connection with the natural world is one powerful strategy.
Registered psychologist Sam Kriviak advises looking to nature as a model for being gentle with ourselves and the seasonal changes we experience in mood, energy, and productivity. “All species ebb and flow with the seasons in northern climates. The more connected we can be to nature, I think, the more we notice that our March will likely look and feel very different from our July or our October … and that’s okay!”
Participants in a large UK study committed to some form of nature-based activity every day for a month. The result was an increase in nature connectedness, health, happiness, and conservation behaviors that lasted well past the 30 days. Spending time in nature can help foster physical health, and may even help to support our immune systems!
Here are a few ways to foster connection in nature this season.
Be attentive
Simply locating ourselves in relation to Earth’s cycles can help us appreciate this time of year in a new light. Longstanding practices in your region, such as tapping of sugar maples or migratory bird counts, offer clues to the seasonal shifts happening around you.
Do your own ancestral traditions offer a way to recognize this transitional month? And don’t forget to mark the spring equinox, either contemplatively or through a shared celebration such as a potluck, campfire, or walk with friends.
Engage in comfort
Direct contact with nature can be had even from a comfortable place indoors. Whether you’re eating, napping, or getting a little work done, position yourself where sunbeams are entering your home and soak them up.
Get out there
Nothing can perk us up quite like getting outside and imbibing the medicine of the natural world through our senses. Perhaps stroll at your kids’ pace, using an app to identify birds by their song or guessing which tree or plant you’re looking at based solely on its bark or dried seed heads.
Use your head
Even when the weather truly relegates us to the indoors, nature can work its magic through our imaginations. Children might enjoy drawing what all the underground life is up to this time of year: roots, worms, and microbes still slumbering or beginning to stir and wake.
Get a jump on spring
It’s the ideal time to begin many plants indoors, giving them a head start on the growing season. Planting seeds is an inherently optimistic act.
By Jackie Skrypnek
