Expanding Your Journaling Practice

Hello from Canada!  I hope you are well and continuing with your observations and journaling. As you are in this process, so am I.  We each have a sit spot that we try to visit every day (although I confess that I've missed a few) and dedicate ourselves to both observational and reflective journaling.

As you become more comfortable with journaling, experiment with different ways to interact with the page...it can bring out new observations and insights. As you sit with your space, you might discover internal ideas, emotions, and motivations that you didn't recognize before. I encourage you to let those come out too. Your journals are private, and although you will be sharing your experience of journaling, you need not share your actual journal with anyone if you choose not to.  

Kayak Trip Snippets

"Our daily work, conversations, and relationships are the very areas in which we can transform our ways of living with each other and the planet."

Melissa Nelson

More photos and photo links to come in August...until then,enjoy these happy memories of our awesome day!

Other Wildlife Curricula

I don't know about you, but I'm still a bit speechless about our amazing luck with wildlife sightings during our Elkhorn Slough kayak trip! The whales especially were an unexpected treat.

Though we didn't have a chance to talk about it, if you would like to learn more about training opportunities and lessons centered around wildlife, you might want to check out Project WILD, another good national curriculum. 

They have also developed an early childhood version called Growing Up WILD with activities geared toward children age 3-7 that I highly recommend. We periodically offer trainings for that program here at CDM. Let me know if you're interested and I'll be sure to notify you of our next GUW training opportunity!

OMCA's Guadalupe Watershed Map

The Oakland Museum website is working again, so here is a link to their beautiful Guadalupe Watershed Map

Thanks to them for all of the wonderful  mapping and historical ecology information they provide!

Headwaters to bay, what a day!

We could almost touch Mt. Umunhum

We saw the whole thing...the Guadalupe Watershed from top to bottom and a little in between.

I still can't get over the birds at Alviso! Have you ever seen so much activity all at once? Cute baby Stilts even!

Salt Marsh Restoration...and so many birds!

Here is a link to the River of Words Curriculum .  Unfortunately the website which houses that great watershed map is currently down.  I'll post that link as soon as they work out the kinks.

Looking forward to Tuesday...

 Reflections

Sometimes, 

when the mountains

reflect on rivers, 

you can find out  things

you never knew before.

There are flowers up there, 

rocks like clouds, 

a little snow becomes a creek

and grows into a river.

Lindsay Ryder, age 11 

Youth Poetry from River of Words edited by Pamela Michael

Open Space Hike - With Perfect Weather!

Ahhh...the shady side

Yesterday's hike was such fun! I was amazed by how many different things there were to learn in such a short distance...and how there's ALWAYS something new to learn.

Serpentine Outcrops

Alien Scientists

As promised, here's a link to the simplified Geologic Map of CA and the Animal Evidence master created by CDM.