50 Ways Nature Can Re-Enchant Your Gatherings (and Your Life)
I started writing this list because I feel that in our modern, un-traditional, often non-religious, and multicultural world, typical wedding traditions are meaningless to many. So I wanted to come up with some ideas for creative ideas rooted in the magic of nature to help folks create their own meaningful rituals that could work for your wedding or really any important moment - funerals, birthdays, anniversaries, new babies, divorce, and on and on.
But when I was done, I realized that this is really a list of ways to reconnect to each other, to our childlike wonder and awe, to plants and animals, and to our very own human-ness. They are not typical nature-inspired wedding themes or kid's crafts either. They are playful. They might feel weird or just for children. And that’s okay. You can decide how foolish or free to act with no one else looking. But I would encourage you to use this list to free your creativity and allow for new ways to engage fully and with deeply felt meaning in our world.
Most, if not all, of these ideas cost nothing—just your time, attention, and enthusiasm. What are you waiting for? Get inspired, get out there, and do stuff!
Pick a tiny bouquet of flowers. The size a doll might enjoy. Find a tiny vase to put them in. Then get way up close and sniff. Observe the world in miniscule. True violets, wild strawberry flowers, and wild chamomile flowers are perfect for this.
Plant a garden with a theme. A garden of poisonous plants. A garden of just purple flowers. A garden of only round shapes. A garden of only plants that dance delightfully in the wind. See if others can guess your theme.
In spring, stand under a flowering tree or bush, shake the branches gently, and enjoy being ‘snowed’ on. Better yet, if someone else shakes the tree, you can just enjoy the petals.
Bring a certain flower or plant with a particular scent in your home or gathering that reminds you of a loved one who isn’t there. Tell other people about it or keep it a little secret just for yourself.
Use a specific color, scent, or texture of plants or flowers to connect you to a place or time from the past. The scent of the roses blooming that surrounded you when you had your first kiss. The color of your mom’s favorite shirt.
Devote a whole afternoon to find a four-leaved clover.
Pick a flower or leaf and tuck it into your buttonhole. Or tuck it behind your ear. Or in your hair.
Make a secret hidey hole somewhere in your backyard. The hollow of a tree. Underneath a flowering bush. Amongst the tall grass in a meadow. Make sure no one can see you there. Go there. Daydream for an hour. Go there every week and take notice of the changes.
Become an expert on one specific type of plant or animal. Tell everyone about it. Learn as many interesting facts as you can and bring them up as much as possible. Be a complete freak about your favorite plant or animal.
Find a micro season to inspire a ritual and celebration. The moment the cherry blossoms bloom, have a picnic under the blossom ‘snow.’ The moment the snowdrops emerge, dig some up put it in a teacup, and bring it indoors to enjoy. The moment the frogs start singing, bring your dinner outdoors and listen and sing along. The moment the soil feels warm underfoot, go barefoot the whole day.
Connect with wild animals. Birdwatch! Marvel at tadpoles.
Connect with domestic animals. Cuddle baby lambs. Pet horses. Marvel at your pet.
Cloud watch. Join the Cloud Appreciation Society.
Forage food together and then cook a meal. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we forage nettles in the spring, blackberries in the summer, mushrooms in the autumn, and oysters in the winter. What free food is out there waiting for you?
Sleep outside. Sleep with the windows open. Air out your bedding outdoors. Skip the dryer, hang dry your clothes on a clothesline, and watch them flap in the breeze.
Sing songs together about the seasons or nature. Some of my favorites: Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles, Turn! Turn! Turn! by the Byrds, Winter is Blue by Vashti Bunyan, Who Know’s Where the Time Goes by Fairport Convention. Did you know singing calms your Vagus nerve?
Go barefoot. Have a gathering where everyone goes barefoot. Or spend an hour a day barefoot.
Choose a location for your wedding or gathering like your birthday that you can return to on the same day every year. A public park or your neighbor’s garden. A place where you can return to see the same trees and plants at the same moment of the year your event is held.
Take moments throughout the day to take down note of the sky, the sound of the birds, the wind - little memories of nature. Have a journal where you write down these moments.
Connect with water. Go swimming in a lake or the ocean, spritz your face, dip your toes, bathe in waterfalls, and get into hot tubs.
Connect with fire. Have a bonfire, light a candle, and have everyone hold a candle during a ceremony. Light a whole room with just candlelight. Dip your own beeswax candles.
Connect with trees and the forest. Sit and study a tree until you feel like you know it. Lay on the forest floor and watch the tree tops move. Observe crown shyness. Climb a tree.
Connect with light and shadow. Make shadow puppets. Watch the light reflect off of water or mirrors. Make rainbows through prisms.
Engage in circles, spirals, or tessellations. Create mandalas, walk labyrinths, or create one. Notice these patterns in leaves, snowflakes, water drops and so much more.
Create a portal or doorway with natural materials into a different world. This world is just like our world, but maybe one where you are a slightly different person. Walk through your portal and notice the differences between worlds.
Collect dandelions and blow the dandelion down. Or collect them right before they open and string them to have them open indoors. Or collect the petals and make dandelion wine.
Get really into in-season fruit - a strawberry birthday party, a raspberry wedding - picking fruit, baking with it, and including it in your decor. A wedding at an apple orchard in the autumn or in a strawberry field in June. Extra points for finding unusual fruits like boysenberries, salmonberries, lingonberries, chokeberries, huckleberries, tayeberries, elderberries, and serviceberries. Put one raspberry on the end of each finger and then eat them off your finger. Repeat.
Invite in the darkness of the night. Go on a night hike. Turn off all the lights and do a meditation. Have everyone dress in white and have all the flowers be white to see everything in the dimness.
Take a walk. Take the party for a stroll, a parade, a procession. Walk through the woods and fields together. Sing while you walk. Do a scavenger hunt for creatures or things in the landscape. Skip instead of walk.
Have a picnic. Have a winter picnic. On a frozen lake. On a beach. On a dock. On a boat!
Roll down a hill.
Eat your meals outdoors. Make an elaborate outdoor dining room. Did you know food tastes better outdoors? Also, by the seaside.
Spend the day scouring the beach with a specific mission. Find a hag stone. Find a moon snail. Find a concretion.
Build a fort from driftwood and have a picnic inside.
Make a little boat from natural materials and send it out to see. Make a whole flotilla.
Place some pebbles on your boat before you send it off to sea. Try to hit those pebbles off with another rock. Make up your version of this game with elaborate rules.
Build a snow fort. Build a blanket fort outside. Build a tree fort.
Fly kites.
Jump in leaf piles, and have a leaf fight. Throw leaves up in the air and watch them fall.
Build a mandala with natural objects. Build a mandala on the beach and watch it get washed away with the waves.
Arrange some seasonal flowers. Put them somewhere where sit often so you can watch their petals slowly fall over the course of a week. Let them slowly disintegrate and don’t touch them for at least two weeks.
Be naked outdoors. Somewhere safe and private. Feel the breeze in places where you don’t usually feel a breeze!
If you come across a dead animal or insect, hold a funeral. Make a grave, place flowers, sing songs, and speak well of the deceased. Make a grave marker. What would you say at the funeral of a honey bee? He was a sweet guy. Hard worker.
Dance with the landscape as your partner. Move your body as you see plants move in the wind. Change the shape of the trees you see or the animals you encounter. Mimic and mime and create your own dance of the land. You are an animal, too, you know!
Sit on a horse. Did you know horses’ breath is slower than humans and when you sit on a horse you tend to slow your breath to match?
Plant a bean seed and measure how much it grows in one day. It will blow your mind.
Observe flowers in your yard that are heliotropic and watch their faces track the sun across the sky from east to west, open during the day and close at night. Good ones to look for are daisies and sunflowers.
Remember that you are a part of nature, with fallow, quiet times, and times of explosive growth and change. Go take a nap. The End.
