EarthLines First Nature Journaling Workshop - and it was a great success!

We met at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, and the weather was great - and if you’re a Ballaratian, you know what I mean! The day was mild, with no wind, and even a spot of sunshine for an hour or so in the afternoon! And considering the following day was raining, I was very appreciative to the cloud fairies for helping me out!

If you don’t know Ballarat, it is in the Central Victoria, about an hour from Melbourne. The gardens are beautiful and perfect for wandering in nature. Colonisation aside, because that’s a different discussion, they were established in 1858, making it one of Victoria’s oldest botanical gardens.

Home to the Ballarat Begonia Festival the gardens feature a horticultural center, a huge glasshouse, a marble statue collection, a big flower clock and a beautifully restored heritage fernery… not to mention the extensive flower beds and huge mature trees. It is opposite Wendouree Lake which is home to a multitude of bird life, so it was the obvious choice for a workshop!

Nine people met up at 1pm and we wandered toward a huge tree to sit beneath and begin our workshop. Some had their own materials and some used those supplied, plus a bit of a mix.

We started with some quite time, eyes closed - focusing in on our surroundings so that we could do some sound mapping upon opening our eyes. I was pleased that the participants did comment on how much more they could actually hear once their eyes were closed - you should try it!

Next we did an exercise where we just focused on one object, a leaf for example, and zoomed in and out on it - this meant drawing it life size in our journals and then zooming in on a detail and zooming out at the larger context of the leaf’s environment.

During this exercise participants had the opportunity to wander around and find an object to focus on, which enabled a greater observation of our immediate environment.

All in all everyone had a great day with most of the feedback being about how relaxing it was, yet, paradoxically, energising. And of course, that because natural energy is invigorating without being exhausting.

I am planning on running another workshop this year, maybe in November when the weather will be even better, so if you’d like to be first on the list subscribe to the newsletter to be notified once I’ve scheduled all the details.

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