Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything LCSW Jean Rowe has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life to name a few) and sign up to join one today!

April 22nd is Earth Day, and what a glorious time of year to invite ourselves to get reacquainted, reconnected with our roots. This could mean – what is the story of your family? Have you ever charted a genogram (for fun, not school)? This could be a time to pull out colored pencils and highlighters and have some fun. You could make the genogram topic-specific like how many people in your family learned to sew or plant roses or grow tomatoes. You could interview an aunt or uncle about their lives, things you may not already know about them. It could be seeing if Ancestry is something you would like to explore. It could be reading your parents’ letters – something I did a couple of summers ago. They were from the 1950s through the 1970s and brought nostalgia and tugs on my heartstrings.

It could be literally connecting with the earth. Bring the outdoors inside with a pretty potted something where you can see and enjoy it. New to digging in the dirt? Don’t be afraid to engage a master gardener at a place like Ace Hardware to ask questions and get some guidance. Don’t forget about your local library and checking out books on how to grow, what to grow, and knowing your zone (important!). It could be hugging a tree. Don’t laugh! It might actually feel good. It could be going for a walk in a neighborhood where much is in bloom and beautiful to behold.

So. Loving the earth helps love yourself.

To recap:

A genogram of your own making
Interviewing a family member
Family Ancestry
Learning to garden whether it be flowers or vegetables or both
Hugging trees
Walking in the woods
Walking in neighborhoods which you bring you joy

And

How about a bird feeder?
Planting flowers that attract bees and butterflies?
Breathing deeply in your own front yard?

Possibilities abound.

 

Whatever you decide, try it and then write about it. How’d it go? How did it feel? What did you learn? What is next?

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!

Away, away from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs,
To the silent wilderness,
Where the soul need not repress its music.
–Percy Bysshe Shelley