Nature Wisdom Podcast: Episode 07
When I first got interested in developing my nature awareness skills… there were times when found the whole process a bit overwhelming.
It was about 12 years ago when I became totally obsessed with the idea of being able to follow bird alarms and locate wild animals like cats, owls and hawks.
I wanted to know everything about wildlife tracking, forest ecology & bird communication so I could get closer to animals and blend in with the land on a deep level.
But even after two whole years of sitting outside every day watching, listening and journaling my observations… I still could not figure it out!
It just wasn’t coming together for me even though I was following all the right instructions.
Why was it so difficult?
Well, I believe it’s because I didn’t have a mentor… I had no one to talk with!
The biggest shift for me happened when I finally got a chance to talk with real people who had actually done these skills before me.
When I started sharing my stories & experiences with people ahead of me on the journey, suddenly I started getting feedback and questions that helped me learn a million times faster.
Today I’ve got a great podcast episode with Jared Gellert in the forests of Pennsylvania.
His story is a great example of someone who already has some amazing nature routines going in his backyard.
He’s getting outside. He’s doing a sit spot. He’s paying attention to what’s happening with the birds, plants and trees.
But he’s also hitting some very real (and common) challenges around identification and understanding the big picture of his landscape.
Let’s dive in and see how easy it is to transform these blocks through simple dialogue and questioning about Jared’s personal observations from the backyard!
Opening Transcript:
Hey it’s Brian Mertins and welcome to another episode of The Nature wisdom podcast.
In this episode I’m talking with Jared Gellert who joins us from southeastern Pennsylvania.
We spent a lot of our time exploring a variety of topics related to a very common transition that happens for probably everyone who gets interested in exploring nature during their adult years.
What I find is that there’s this point where you start to realize that you want to take your relationship with the plants and birds and animals from something that you have been thinking about and wanting to do, but not really taking much action.
and being able to filter all that excitement and energy into actually connecting with nature in a very real way and getting out there and developing some practical experiences.
The thing that I really enjoyed about talking with Jared is that he really is at this place where he’s taking some really good action on a regular basis.
He’s getting outside. He’s doing a sit spot. He’s paying attention to what’s happening with the birds and the plants and trees.
But now he’s starting to hit some real challenges around things like how do I identify these trees and plants and what’s the best way to push my knowledge and awareness into some of the deeper levels.
So we talked a lot about how to deal with some of the different types of challenges and that come up when you’re really actively getting into that more intentional exploration of nature.
Even down to things what should you do if you have one particular sense (like the sense of smell or sight) that just doesn’t seem to work as well as the others.
So we spent a lot of time just exploring some of Jared’s own personal observations he’s been making in the backyard and starting with what he already has going really well in his day-to-day experience.
Then moving into a lot of really practical next steps and ways to help release that pressure of feeling like you need to learn it all at once… or that you’re not quite doing enough… and just going more with the flow.
So I think you’ll really enjoy this one.
And if you would like to be a guest on the nature wisdom podcast I would love to connect with you and learn about what you’re working on with your own skills in tracking or bird language or nature observation in general.
So if you’d like to be a guest on the podcast here then all you have to do is go to the podcast page for this episode.
There will be a link that says “Be a guest” and you can just click that link and there is a little form that you can fill out.
I think it would be really fun to get lots of different people on here and show how we can work with all the different interests and passions & skill levels… everything from total beginners to people who have been already connecting with nature for a good bit of time.
So without further adieu let’s go ahead and here is my conversation with Jared.
Show Notes:
Want to be a guest on the show? Just follow the ‘Be A Guest‘ link and I’ll be in touch.
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