On New Year’s Eve we lit three candles outside and snuggled with a hot chocolate and read the story ‘Wishes for You’. Then, as we blew out each candle, we sent out a wish for ourselves, a wish for each other and a wish for the world. My heart swelled with the beautiful wishes my son made!

The first month of the new year often brings about a shift in mind-set. A renewed focus on the future and making plans before we get caught up in the ‘everydayness’.

For us, nature is very much a part of our everyday and often our experiences are spur-of-the-moment. But I thought it might be nice to set some intentions for the year using prompts, one for each month. Nothing big, no pressure  ~and with a lot of room for interpretation if you would like to use them as a basis for setting your own intentions too. These could either all be decided on in January or the prompts could be put in a jar and one pulled out at the start of each month and decided upon then.

Explore~Watch~Try~Gather~Help~Grow~Make~Go~Play~Find~Listen~Follow

 

Here is our list of intentions for the year (my son’s first and mine second):

Explore

~ a new wood

~ more National Trust properties

Watch

~ a sunset

~ a starling murmuration

Try

~ climbing the tallest tree

~ geocaching

Gather

~ seeds

~ fruits for hedgerow jam

Help

~ to give the insects more homes

~to keep the beaches clean

Grow

~ a campion

~ a successful butternut squash this year!

Make

~ a stick tree (I am intrigued to find out what this is…)

~ a little whittled horse for my son

Go

~ to Swanpool beach

~canoeing

Play

~ hide and seek in the woods

~ in the snow! (I’m hoping anyway)

Find

~ a fossil

~ a jay feather

Listen

~ to the birds

~ to rolling waves and giggles and seagulls

Follow

~ all the streams

~ my son as he explores his world

I would love to know if you have any nature intentions for the year! I think it would be lovely to record the experiences in a nature journal or collect writings, photos and treasures in a keepsake box or jar to be looked at on New Year’s Eve.

Sometimes though, with the best of intentions, our plans can get forgotten. But I think the most important intention to set is to take notice of the little things because, really, these are the big things. If we can stop for a moment and appreciate the silent presence of a rainbow, the twinkle of a sky full of stars or frozen dew drops lined up on a blade of grass then I think we have found what matters in life.