After developing a passion for nature journaling, thanks to inspiration from naturalist and educator John Muir Laws and leading her own workshops as a volunteer with the Forest Preserves of Cook County, Maureen Murphy wanted to start a club devoted to the hobby.
In September 2021, she sent out an email to invite others to West Ridge Nature Preserve, along the Chicago River on the city’s North Side, for the first meeting of the Chicago Nature Journaling Club. More than a dozen people showed up.
“I think of it as just a monthly meetup group where you can just show up and do your thing with other people who are excited to connect with the natural world,” Murphy said.
The Chicago journalist said the group meets at parks and preserves throughout the Chicago area. When she chooses sites, she opts for those accessible via public transit or a bicycle.
“There are nature journaling clubs but not in Chicago, which made me want to start something,” she said. “It’s something that has taken off in the last few years.”
Meetings typically draw a dozen to 20 people and start with the three nature journaling prompts.
“We’ll start by taking a walk together at the site, and once people get interested in something they’re observing — maybe a tree or there’s some kind of natural phenomenon like a bunch of mushrooms growing.”
The first prompt is “I notice,” she said. “People can just free-for-all say the things they’re noticing and you can tap into all five of your senses. You’re not judging the thing you’re seeing; you’re making neutral observations. People are saying things out loud — an exercise to get into a certain mindset.”
The second is “I wonder,” Murphy shared. “That is when we start asking questions about whatever it is we’re observing. ‘I wonder how this plant is pollinated? I wonder why this thing got this way? I wonder if the presence of these mushrooms maybe means this tree is sick?’
“We don’t necessarily have to answer the questions, but it’s about becoming more curious about what we’re observing.”
The third prompt is “It reminds me of,” she said.
“That allows you to make connections between whatever it is you’re observing, past experiences you’ve had or maybe something you read in a book or a documentary,” she said. “When we’re doing this as a group, you can appreciate how everyone is coming at this with their own lived experience.”
Participants spend about 30 minutes on the prompts. That’s when the real nature journaling begins, with some people sitting down with a sketchbook, others taking photos and still others writing descriptions.
“There’s no way to do it wrong. You just show up and have whatever experience you want to have that day,” she said.
At the end of the meeting, “we circle up and people take a turn sharing a journal page or just say something that they experienced,” Murphy said. “Everyone has a chance to reflect in that group setting.”
Murphy, who went to art school, likes to draw as well as write and include three elements in her journals: words, numbers and pictures.
“I like to say pictures instead of drawing because drawings might have the baggage of representation,” she shared. “Might be less intimidating because some people might say they can’t draw a stick figure.”
Member Carrie Carlson, Orland Park artist and educator, called the club a nice group of people interested in nature, being outside together and being curious.
“Some people do a lot of drawing and some people do a lot of writing, she said. “It’s a cool group to connect with.”
Carlson said that of the three languages of journaling — words, numbers and pictures — it’s the numbers that are hardest for her to include.
The “timing things and counting things like how many petals on a leaf or how many birds visited in a time period,” she said. “But since I’ve been nature journaling … I’m surprised by how much of it shows up in my journals.”
Having something scheduled is a motivator for member Noah Frazier, of Chicago.. He and his partner began attending meetings, although he recently took several months off before joining the club’s meeting June 28.
“My whole month was kind of influenced by that day,” Frazier said. “I’m not religious at all, but I can understand how people go to church regularly because of how it influences the rest of the time you spend elsewhere. It’s about being a community, it’s about listening to yourself, about listening to the world around you.”
Frazier, a longtime volunteer with urban farms, community farms and as a beekeeper and treekeeper, works for the nonprofit land trust NeighborSpace helping with City in an Orchard, designed to plant a few hundred fruit and nut trees in city gardens. He said he enjoys adding illustrations to his journals, although sometimes he uses unorthodox materials.
“Once we went to a forest and they had done a burn. I picked up some charcoal from the burn and drew with it. It felt really intimate,” he said.
Frazier said if more people could connect to the natural world they would be better stewards of the planet.
He said after Murphy had to step away, several members banded together to keep the club going, making it communally organized.
Frazier said spending time intentionally looking around at the natural world makes him “feel so rested afterward that I’m able to approach the endless labyrinth of emails with more tender care and be more creative in problem-solving and able to pick up on nuances in people’s behavior just a little better.”
He also appreciates interacting with other members.
“I’m always grateful when I get to hear other people’s thoughts and be present together for people’s discoveries. They make me see the world differently. It would be so boring to see the world the same way,” he said.
Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown
