Returning to the Same Land Each Month for a Year

In our everyday lives, so much slips past us — we move quickly, chasing goals, passing through landscapes without truly seeing what’s there. We reach the end of a trail, but seldom pause to know the place, its residents, or its travelers.

By returning again and again, we begin to notice what is so often overlooked: a whole world that reveals itself when we slow down, pay attention, and enter into relationship.

Shaped by the turning of seasons, the movements of animals, the cycles of plants, the patterns of water and wind, and the rhythms of light and darkness, each month brings something new: plants rising and fading, animals on the move, insects shifting through their cycles, water levels rising and falling.

Nothing here remains fixed — not plants, not animals, not even the great log in the water that once looked too heavy to ever be carried away by the current. As we witness the changes around us and are shaped by them, we are also witnessed in our own becomings.

Letting the Land Absorb Us

Author and longtime Field & Stream editor Bill Heavey wrote in his book Its Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat it:

“Every sound also matters. The woods are a spiderweb, and when you enter, it’s as a fly hitting that web. The animals throughout – seen and unseen – register your arrival and alert each other. Squirrels and birds are the loudest and most easily noticed by humans, but everything, including deer, know of your arrival. There’s not much you can do about this. What you can do, once you have ratcheted your way up a tree, is sit quiet and still. Do this, and within fifteen or twenty minutes the woods will return to a baseline level of activity. The woods will absorb you. Sit still enough and a goldfinch will land on your chest, fluff and groom itself for a few seconds, and fly off, having mistaken you for a tree. Sitting motionless but preset, alert to the wind on your skin and the intermittent patter of acorns falling, you may hear a sudden uptick in chatter among the birds and squirrels. Another fly has hit the web. Now you are one of the animals being alerted long before you see the intruder.”

This is the kind of presence we’ll practice together. Learning how to be still enough for the land to take us in. To notice the way the web stirs when we arrive, and to wait until the place begins to recognize us not as intruders but as part of the fabric. Over time, to begin to sense that we too are one of the animals, woven into the ongoing story of this ground.

Showing Up

Showing up each month isn’t required, although the more often you return, the deeper your sense of place becomes. Over time, patterns begin to emerge — tracks, calls, blooms, shadows…

As you keep returning, and the ground begins to feel both familiar and different beneath you — Alive, always changing. A place that knows you back.

An Invitation

Each session is an invitation: a chance to explore, to deepen our sense of belonging, and to let our perspectives shift. We’ll spend the morning on the land, slowing down and being shaped by what we encounter.

When our formal time together is complete, everyone is encouraged to stay awhile — to share food and conversation, while following our curiosity about the beings we’ve encountered: paging through field guides, using the binoculars, sharing stories from our pasts…

Joining the Group

Before signing up, those who feel called to join for the first time are invited to an introductory call — a chance to meet, share intentions, and speak about what is drawing you to the workshop. It’s also a space to bring any questions you might have about me or the workshop.