An EwA Nature Circle is a means of experiencing, and opening to, the Circle of Life that Nature is.
EwA Nature Circles Essentials
🌿 » Discover what EwA Nature Circles are, and how you can participate or even create your own circle.
An EwA Nature Circle cultivates a mindful ecological connection with Nature. It creates individual and collective nature experiences so as to facilitate a deep ‘Nature’ bond.
It is essentially a Nature focus group where you and your companions engage purposefully in activities that are centered on Nature with us as being part of ‘it’. We also call such groups experience or learning circles.
Our circles develop and exercise mindfulness, and naturalist & ecology skills, paired with both art and ethics. Our circles are not about pouring information into the brains of its participants, but rather to nurture discovery, wisdom, and a sense of belonging while making sure that we not causing any harm to Nature.
Join or create a circle. You can either join an existing circle operating in your area, or you can create one and invite others to join.
▹ An EwA circle experiences different aspects of nature and helps us to focus locally and to think globally. It teaches us how to read Nature. It develops our observational skills, our understanding of life processes, and how they sustain us. A circle helps deciphers our actions and their consequences. It challenges our collective blind spots. It favors curiosity, mindfulness, quietness, respect, introspection, reflection, and then sharing and acting more in line with natural processes.
▹ Our circles also include a reflection about our ethics regarding Nature and Wildlife. And because we encourage sketching ✏, drawing 🎨 , photographing 📷 , our circles help develop our artistic skills as well.
▹ Ultimately our circles make us better naturalists and conservationists. Generally, they enable us to fit more considerately within our environment both individually and collectively.
2 | 🔎 What do you do in/during a circle?
▹ Focus your circle on activities that nurture a connection with Nature. You can create your own themes and activities or you can choose and pick from our own set of Nat-Circles activities.
▹ Our activities range from introductory activities centered on getting you to bond with Nature, to activities centered on deepening your sense of wonder and practicing your observation 🔎, naturalist skills 🐛, and even artistic 🎨 skills.
▹ 🍃 The beauty of Nature is that once we get back this sense of wonder, then it becomes easy to direct our attention and questions to its infinite facets. Rapidly it becomes effortless to initiate circle activities.
▹ An EwA Nature circle can be as small as just one participant: yourself in and with Nature.
▹ To really get the benefit of connecting directly with nature we encourage that you share and experience a circle with someone else.
We also recommend that you keep a group below 5 or so. However! If you want a larger circle it’s fine too: You can split that circle into smaller circles when you are in the field. Experiences in small circles favor quietness and better observations, which are at the root of our circles. At the end of a field lesson or activity, then the larger circle can get back together, share and reflect together on the experience, so as to strengthen its impact on you and the circle.
5 | 🗺 Where does a circle take place?
▹ Nature circles can happen anywhere really, because it is always possible to focus on the little things that Nature offers us in the most unexpected places, including very urban settings.
▹ Explore your city, street, and local community parks. These are great areas to observe all sorts of fascinating weeds, as well as local fauna including birds, squirrels, and other city dwellers. Here in the Northeast of the United States, we have raccoons, possums, and skunks strolling our streets when we’re not looking. Going in quieter areas, we can even see the tracks of deer, coyotes, and foxes.
▹ Then going further, explore the different typical habitats of your region: forests and woods, meadows steaming with beautiful wildflowers, birds, and insects, woodland edges, beaches, lakes, and ponds…
▹ Make it a ritual. There are no time and duration rules (only yours), and that’s the beauty of those circles. But we recommend that you make your circles a habit, a ritual and that you have regular circles that last at least a couple of hours. Circles cultivate a relationship with Nature, and this can only happen when we set moments for curiosity, direct experiences, and close observations.
▹ Your personal circles (with you only) can take place anytime.
▹ For bigger circles, those can happen any time that you find time to spend together.
▹ Circles can last from a few minutes to hours, a day or more. But give them enough time so that they connect you truly and deeply to your surroundings and circle companions.
