Four Directions

Face One Direction and inhale and exhale deeply four times. What do you smell? What do you hear?

Rotate 90 degrees and repeat. What new sensations are you experiencing here?

Rotate 90 degrees and repeat. Check in with your full body.

Rotate 90 degrees and repeat. Invite any new sensations in.

Close Focus

Find something in nature close – within one foot of you, that cannot get away. Focus on this object for a full minute.

What did you notice?

Did your relationship with it change at all?

Smells and Scents

What scents do you notice in this space?

Point your nose up and down.

Open your mouth and smell again – did anything change?

When you leave this space, what thoughts/ feelings are you taking home with you and carrying with you tomorrow?

What does this space remind you of?

What memories surface here?

Soft Focus

Find something moving in your vicinity to watch or observe for a full minute.

Rain hitting the ground, leaves blowing in the wind, a bird flying overhead…

This is part of a new series of educational nature videos from Reinstein Woods

Vernal Pools provide an important habitat for insects and other invertebrate animals. You can often find beetles, caddisflies, phantom midge larvae, aquatic sowbugs, and scuds swimming in these shallow pools. Almost all of the creatures in the video live in a vernal pool at Reinstein Woods; can you figure out which one was filmed elsewhere?

Created by Mike Adriaansen.

Stop and Listen

Sit in one spot and close your eyes. Listen to the sounds around you. What can you hear? Try to find the closest sound and the furthest sound.

Download .pdf here

Need help finding gratitude? Consider reflecting on the “Thanksgiving Address” of our Haudenosaunee neighbors.

“Ganö:nyök” in the Seneca language

Video by the Onondaga Historical Society