Today is the full moon preceding the vernal equinox, the first day of spring. I’m offering my first monthly installment of nature journal printables to my highest tier Patreon tier, “Wise Owls.” The PDF includes a calendar marked with special environmental awareness days, lunar phases, and scheduled nature education videos. It also includes weekly and daily formatted nature journal templates.
Nature Education Station on Patreon
This is a work in progress and will improve over the course of the year. I sincerely hope you will consider embarking on this adventure with me. Visit my Nature Education Station Patreon page and join at the Wise Owl tier to receive instant access to this month’s nature journal printables and the upcoming scheduled videos.
I will be posting a more informative video detailing Environmental STREAM on March 20, the first day of spring. For now, let’s talk a little about the decision to base my nature journal on the lunar cycle. Many indigenous calendars around the world are based on the lunar cycle with names for the moon corresponding to natural, seasonal events and activities. Although there does seem to be some major similarities and “officially adopted” moon names, the names vary among groups, and even among people within the same group. Throughout the year, I will offer a deeper look into these lunar calendars that bind time-keeping with the natural world.
For March, I have chosen the Windy Moon. Windy Moon is a name for the moon occurring around March for Cherokee and Choctaw, and February for Muscogee Creek. Here is an excerpt from The Windy Moon, an installment of Iti Fabvssa, a monthly column in the “Biskinik” (Choctaw Nation newspaper), written by staff members of the Choctaw Nation Historic Preservation Department.
Mahli Hvshi, Windy Month, roughly corresponds with March. During March, the lengthening days of late winter begin to bring warmer temperatures and wind. By the end of the month, the woods begin budding out, and new green growth peeks out from under the protective mat of dormant native grass. March is a time of transition in the landscapes of the Choctaw homeland, and it was also the time when our ancestors played their biggest role in shaping these landscapes — They set them on fire.
They are referencing a fire climax ecosystem, the longleaf pine forest which stretched across the southern coastal plains from Virginia to east Texas. It’s an incredibly biodiverse forest system which has been devastated by logging, agricultural land use, and anti-fire campaigns to the point of being a critically endangered forest.
I hope you will join me on Patreon as I share this nature journal experience. Thank you!