By Mara Scallon, communications graduate assistant in the Sustainability Office
Hello again, friends. As you may have noticed, a few of my posts here have featured an image of a page from my trusty journal, which I have been dragging to my creek-side haunt when I visit. With the many notebooks cluttering up my backpack, buried underneath a layer of ever-changing snack options, why would I also add the journaling supplies to the maelstrom?
I tend to go one hundred miles an hour in all that I do (except for actual vehicle driving), and keeping a watercolor journal provides a calming and interesting way for me to force myself to slow down, appreciate my environment and better observe what is happening around me. I am certainly not the only person who has discovered this hack; better writers and more observant people than I have used journals to record their experiences with the world around them, whether in their backyards or while exploring new countries.
Henry David Thoreau, a Massachusetts-based naturalist and popular essayist of the 19th century, observed many things about the plants, animals, landscapes and humans he encountered. He often jotted down the dates that plants first flowered in the springtime, also noting the presence of different birds. Two centuries later, climate scientists are reading Thoreau’s journals, not just to indulge in his flowery (pun intended) language describing plants and landscapes, but to see when different plants bloomed. Modern scientists are interested in comparing today’s first bloom dates with established records like those kept by Thoreau, and this comparison has enabled scientists to quantify the impacts of our changing climate on plant phenology (a technical phrase for describing plant development). A 2008 scientific paper compared 19th-century records of first bloom in Massachusetts, provided by Thoreau and botanist Alfred Hosmer’s journals, with observations made in 2004 through 2006. The research found that plants now flower seven days earlier, on average, than they did in Thoreau’s time. This is an important finding for scientists to better understand how these changes may impact the availability of food resources for pollinators who miss this earlier bloom time.
Before I get too lost in the weeds here (yes, pun intended), I want to emphasize the value of keeping records and keeping a journal. Due to Thoreau’s skills of observation and recordkeeping, scientists today can use that information to feed their 21st-century climate models to better approximate how our world is changing.
Our different journals may grow to contain drawings, doodles, words, lyrics, snapshots, voice memos, or pressed flowers, but most importantly, our journals capture what we know and experience. The journals of the past provide information that can be crucial to understanding what has been lost, what has been found or what has changed. Nobody alive today witnessed the sky-darkening, miles-long clouds of passenger pigeons passing overhead, yet we know the visual, auditory and air temperature effects of this phenomenon because people recorded this information in their journals. Our multisensory records of crazy summer wildfires may one day be interesting to someone living on a colder and wetter planet, for instance.
There is an expanding field of study into the “shifting baseline theory,” which explores this exact idea: my journals today document my world as I experienced it, the journals of my great-grandmother documented her world which was different—she may have seen those passenger pigeons! So, my baseline understanding and experience of what life in America is like in the 21st-century is different from Great-Grandma’s baseline from life in the 19th- and 20th-centuries.
Shifting baseline theory is such a fascinating field of study, and it reminds me of the importance of using intentional language in my journal. When I can, I specifically include the scientific and common names of the plants and animals that I encounter because the name may one day be as valuable as the observation itself. If we one day don’t have robins anymore, will that word remain in the English language? If deserts cease to exist, will that word still be known? Our journals capture what we may lose, but they also capture what emerges, what we create, what we discover.
As keepers of journals, we may like to imagine that our detailed (or inane) observations will one day be beneficial to future generations, but keeping such a journal provides real benefits to you and today. Journaling in a new or familiar location can encourage you to better observe and get to know your surroundings. You may realize that the chattering squirrel that greets you every time you step onto your back porch with your morning coffee is quieter, so she may be nesting. You may start to recognize the different plants comprising the brilliant leaves tapping at your work window, and you may learn their names as you observe their phenology. You might begin to eagerly await the seasonal return of your avian neighbors who stop by to gorge on insects. Many humans enjoy routine of some sort, and observing and journaling can be a low-cost, high-reward routine to adopt. Journaling by hand can prove particularly impactful as there are, of course, additional benefits to spending time off devices and outdoors; for more on this, visit my last blog post!
Below, the sound of my boots crunching through the snow.
Learning more about the places in which we spend time benefits us in several ways, including by connecting us to those landscapes and places. By developing a connection with a physical space, we can feel enriched and our lives can have more dimensions of meaning as we engage in community with other humans and the non-human world. Attachment to a place develops over time and can take years to fully realize, yet this is an important process that helps us establish our own identities and our identities in relation to the communities around us.
Why does this matter, though? Though we may not like to admit it, where we spend time shapes who we are, and as our worlds continue to be reshaped by development and the changing climate, we will want to really get to know a corner of the world well, to continue to visit, appreciate and understand that location and ourselves.
Will my observations of Red Butte Creek one day be helpful to scientists? I do not be-leaf so (pun intended), since my journal is jammed with irrelevant entries from all over the Salt Lake Valley, and my career successes are likely to be quite different from the erudite/reclusive Thoreau. I am confident that I will always enjoy looking back at these journal entries, for my notes show what I paid attention to, what critters paid attention to and what I was thinking and experiencing at this special spot. I urge you to join me in planting the seeds (pun intended) for a new practice of observing your world in a different way.
On a practical side, what should be included in a nature journal? It’s up to you! You can do a digital or analog journal, and you can include whatever you like in it: poems, article clippings, music lyrics, scientific observations, drawings, doodles, watercolors, pressed plants, voice memos, photographs, scientific papers and so much more. I enjoy including the weather conditions, temperatures, and time and date of my visit, since this helps me immediately step back into that moment when I re-read the journal entry. There are many online resources that can help you get started with your journal, and don’t forget there are benefits to going alone since you can observe more and perhaps be more present.
Works Consulted
Giuliani, M. V. (2003). Theory of Attachment and Place Attachment. In M. Bonnes, T. Lee, & M. Bonaiuto (Eds.), Psychological Theories for Environmental Issues (pp. 137–170). Aldershot. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria-Vittoria-Giuliani/publication/216658528_Towards_an_Analysis_of_Mental_Representations_of_Attachment_to_the_Home/links/09e414fd4a8c436612000000/Towards-an-Analysis-of-Mental-Representations-of-Attachment-to-the-Home.pdf
Miller-Rushing, A. J., & Primack, R. B. (2008). Global Warming and Flowering Times in Thoreau’s Concord: A Community Perspective. Ecology, 89(2), 332–341.