Naturalist, artist, and writer Clare Walker Leslie inspires people around the world to pay attention to the nature around them and to discover their own distinct way of reflecting and recording their observations through nature journaling. Clare has kept her own personal journals for decades, a foundation of thought and practice that has informed her teaching and publication of 13 books. In A Year in Nature: A Memoir of Solace, Clare shares pages from her own nature journals. In the complete book, she begins with the winter solstice as a symbol of renewal and lengthening days, threading contemplations about the seasonal cycles and associated patterns in nature with records of joy and solace as she explores her place in the world. Each month is a compilation of her experience with family, teaching and travel, and observed places, ending with a nature summary for that month. In these excerpted pages we have an autumnal offering, beginning with the landscape of her home in Vermont.
From the Introduction:
We live in a chaotic time when it seems increasingly difficult to sort out our priorities and even find time to reflect on them. I, too, find the days get tilted toward the “doing” rather than the “reflecting.” But when we stop to consider it, we hunger for these pauses in our harried lives to rebalance and refresh. Some of us are facing illnesses, family losses, financial or job worries. Some of us run, swim, meditate, knit, read books, sleep more. Some of us go to nature to gain some time out, reflection, silence, solace.
Since 1978, I have kept continual 8”x 11”, hardbound, blank-paged nature journals. Now numbering 54, when I finish one, I go buy another one. Why have I kept these going for so many years? Since the beginning, they have become my basic way of learning about the nature around me, recording it, making sense of it in relation to my own life. In fact, over the many years these piles of journals at my feet have become my best friends, as I often refer back to them, trying to see how my life and the life of nature has changed or not. They are the foundations for my teaching, my own art and illustration work, and for all my books. Take away my nature journals; cut off my arm.
As I don’t have much of a studio, some people claim my studio is my lap. With my family life and professional work often blending, my nature journal really is my studio, housing the seed beds for all my inspirations. By the end of one journal, binding and pages are rumpled, bruised, and well worn. I keep my current journal and equipment in a bag in the car or right on my work desk, always nearby. Although a professional artist and book writer, my journals are the first examples of my work I show and teach with. They are the witnesses to my heart.
Excerpted from A Year in Nature: A Memoir of Solace by Clare Walker Leslie ©2020. Published by Green Writers Press, Brattleboro, VT.