Join Our August Challenge: Reconnect with Nature
Celebrate Lammas with a free writing workshop, daily journal prompts, and community sharing to ground your month.
Welcome and join us this month of August as we celebrate nature together through sharing small creative observences every day. This is in honour of Lammas, the first harvest festival of the year and the point of waning for summer into autumn - where the world seems to don glittering greens into bronze horizons.
The ‘rules’ are very simple:
Spend one moment a day noticing nature, wherever you are
Mark it down in any way you wish (writing, photos, sketches etc)
Share it with the group:
On Bluesky: use the hashtag #DailyNature
On Subsack: Tag me in your notes, Share it in the chat, Comment on this blogpost
Every week I will round up some of the best contributions and compile them into a blog right here so we can compare and contrast our natural world!
Bonus for those who comment on each others creativity - the best supporting comment will be added to the blog too💚
We will also be kicking off this months #DailyNature community challenge with a FREE live nature writing workshop event on 4th August - you can sign up for that here on Eventbrite.
If you want to know a little more, or check out some previous #dailynature challenges for inspiration then this is a good place to start.
It’s a rather wonderful day where I get to say that we are entering our second year of sharing nature notes to observe solar moments in the year. Let me begin as always by saying thank you for those who have come along so far, what an absolutely wonderful use of the internet we have found. These challenges bring me so much joy, I can’t wait to see what is happening in the world near you all. Right now the cropped fields opposite are shining with earthy terracota ears on short green shoots. As though the field itself has ears burning red as we talk about how we will share its wonderous beauty this month.
Happy Lammas!
Today (August 1st) marks Lammas, the traditional calendar celebration of the first harvest (Loaf Mass) as well as that halfway point between the height of summer (summer solstice, June 21st) and the beginning of autumn (the autumnal equinox, September 23rd).
Traditionally in England, this would be marked with baking of bread, eating the first fruits and braiding of corn dollies. In Cheshire, where I am, it’s also marked by rushbearing… but more on that in another post. You can get a wider view of my surroundings at the moment in this recent guest post for Notes From Nature I had the pleasure of writing.
The tradition of the first harvest actually predates Anglo-Saxon Christianity, marking a solar point in the year. You may come across other names for the festival in Britain such as Lughnasadh / Lùnasdal (Ireland & Scotland, in honor of the Celtic God Lugh) and Gŵyl Awst (Wales) as well as across all of Eruope - do you have a local name for todays harvest? Please share it below.
Whereas in Scotland, this day was traditionally to return from the hilltops, in other areas of Britain people would seek hill tops as part of their merriment celebrations.
I’m originally from Cheshire and currently floating around it’s canals this year, land of salt and wheat, so it feels quite special to be back. Corn dollies in Chesire take on many fantastical shapes - they serve the purpose of storing the old successful crop until next year and being resewn into the new one. For good luck, but also as an ancient belief that the spirit of the grain is not fully taken for consumption. I’ve been reflecting on this lately, all throughout history we remind ourselves not to take every last drop, something our modern cultures could perhaps do with a gentle reminder on. We have, predominantly in places like Europe & North America been using nitrate increasing chemicals in our soil to avoid resting the crop fields since the world wars… the effects of this are sadly coming full circle.
As it’s been climate-kiltering hot this year, I noticed this past week the local farmer had already begun their first big harvest. When wildfires are abundant it must feel a relief to have that underway.
Cabbage white butterlies have been dancing in new found golden light of the eveings here, and rain has found it’s way back to our skies. I’ve been greeting the clouds like wary friends returning from a long expedition. Business is a crowd of the season now. Runners striping up and down the waterside breaking into larger sprints before marathon days, children elated to be free of the confines of school point out the birds they know and tell facts they’ve learned from their long school-days to their ever-curious parents. Moorhen chicks have begun to find their squeekers, beeping back at parents who command them to certain reeds. At that phase where they seem somehow larger than their parents, not so dissimilar to the teens who tease their parents by scruffing up their hair or racing faster than their elders on bikes whizzing past our canal boat.
The season is turning and it feels poignant that we can observe that together.
Today I will be in St James Park in Liverpool at 4pm, celebrating the first harvest with poetry and a picnic. If you’re closeby, come and say hello. If you’re elsewhere in this world, share a word below how you will be celebrating this cusp of a waning season?
If you cannot break bread, or gorge on blackberries, a much more simpler way to spend today is reflecting on what the Earth gives to us - maybe write a small thanks to something that brings you joy.
Journalling Prompts
#DailyNature has a completely open-ended call on creativity, but here are some small prompts for this week if you’re struggling:
Spend a moment reflecting on something in nature, near you or in your day that brings you joy and consider how you would thank it for being here. Write a small note of gratitude, photograph it in its best light or record its joyous sound.
Describe one smell in nature - start with one word or one picture
Describe two colours in nature - do they contrast or blend, can you avoid using the primary word all together?
Attend todays workshop! Be guided through a quick nature writing exercise you can implement all month.
Describe one sound in nature - filter out the background or find that one moment of calm, how does a person describe silence for instance?
Describe three textures, at least one should be from the natural world - compare them, what did the textures remind you of, a memory? Did you use your hand, a charcoal etching or a soundwave machine?
Describe something from your day in nature in one sentence or photo and then an item of news in your day - is there a hidden connection, or way to connect?
Check out what people have been sharing from their natural world this week and also get some prompts for the next, in the weekly roundup post.
Opening #DailyNature Note From Me
If you have any questions, give me a quick shout and I’ll be happy to help:
Go forth and observe, create, connect and communicate!
See you at the waters edge again soon, Jen x
If you’re new here this is Mess In A Boat a blog authored by Jen Ratcliffe, a neurodivergent poet, writer and amateur naturalist living nomadically in a traditional narrowboat on the UK inland waterways.
This is what you can find here:
The Boater’s Country Diary : a series of nature notes from life living on the water
Water Book Club : an interview based book club for aquaphiles during a time of drought and doubt in nature, every last Thursday of the month!
#DailyNature : a quarterly journal prompt / community challenge about everyday nature celebrating the wheel of the year - join us throughout August
Mess In A Boat Posts Are Never Written With Artificial Intelligence
Yes exactly Raymond, it's such an incredible story, I think of it often when I'm getting a little eco-anxious. We can do this together, they seem to say in the sky.
Lovely read, I felt so cosy and enjoyed immersing myself in alll these details. The journe prompts I need more time to refflect with but I would say I have been paying a lot of attention to the clouds lately, so different here throughout every day. Also I just went shopping and had a sudden urge to buy a range of vegetables, different ones than I usually buy, eating the rainbow! Perhaps this is how I am marking things today, and I express my gratitude with my hand on my heart.