4 Activities To Discover Your Inner Harvest For Autumn

Welcome!

In this lesson,

You'll learn four activities for creative embodiment to learn how to discover your inner harvest.

We'll be doing this through writing,

Creativity,

Vocal play,

And connecting with nature.

We'll be your guides,

Lori and Sarah from Hello from the Cocoon.

So welcome in!

Hello everyone!

We are going to start with our first activity called Nature Inspired Feelings where we pause for a moment in our busy day and we feel how we are feeling using something in nature.

So it can be plant,

Animal,

Weather patterns,

A scene.

Keep it simple,

Keep it light.

We find going beyond words to describe the way we are feeling using nature is so helpful when we're having difficulty tapping into how we're feeling or finding the right word to describe how we're feeling.

So today we are going to do a nature inspired feeling with harvest season as our inspiration.

So Lori,

How are you feeling in this moment related to something during the harvest season?

I am actually looking at this perky small sunflower and it just made its way into a pot of petunias on my back patio and the sun is shining through its golden yellow petals right now and it just feels so alive and it's just bobbing in the wind and I actually just can't stop looking at it.

So I definitely feel that warmth of the sun at this time of year.

It's still warm out and yet the sunflower also it just reminds me that harvest season is here and I'm ready honestly for you know the release and the transition into the cooler days but this is just that little reminder that there's still sunshine and there's still a longer day.

So I'm gonna say a small sunflower in the sunshine bobbing in the breeze is my nature inspired feeling today.

I love that and that warm glow that's so interesting that you say that as we explore more with these activities and I'm over here in the Connecticut cocoon getting a nice warm glow from our sun right now and I have some sunflowers as well on our table so I can I can connect with you with your beautiful feeling and I think the way I'm feeling in this moment I'm just picturing just pavement covered in all the acorn bits that are starting to fall and scatter everywhere creating this nice layer of sticks and acorns and whether it's on the grass or the driveway or rocks that that would be my nature inspired feeling it almost feels like raining magic of the harvest season.

Acorn,

Acorn tops everywhere.

Oh my goodness acorn tops and sticks oh yes I love that yeah I love using this tool to increase empathy and being able to feel into that with you it's just so great so inviting you all to feel into your nature inspired feeling in regards to your harvest season wherever you are.

You can pause here and come back when you're ready for the next activity.

We're going to get started with our first activity which is a writing activity so all you need is a piece of paper and if you really like to doodle and draw and get colorful and creative then go ahead and grab a blank piece of paper and all of your art supplies or your journal and a pen and we're going to be exploring all together this first question how do you define an inner harvest so how do you define an inner harvest and we're going to share a little bit about what we discovered when we were exploring this question so Sarah do you have an answer to this question how do you define an inner harvest I do and I love writing and just seeing where my intuition takes me letting the mind go quiet and letting that creativity come forward especially through writing and through journaling and I kind of owned it I said it was my inner harvest the first thing I wrote was visualizing an autumn glow that was funny they shared that with orange and yellow leaves that stay within me taking care of my garden so I have a satisfying harvest going to bed with the autumn glow and waking up ready to pick and pluck my inner harvest is a peaceful feeling inside from quote doing the work like a farmer and a farm connection oh my goodness I love that um I want to like pick and pluck and be in there with you I can so feel I can so see you in your Connecticut cocoon doing this and it's just such a different feel to Sarah in the summer cocoon so I can really feel you creating your harvest cocoon where you are so nice how about you Laurie how do you define an inner harvest how I define an inner harvest is the gifts that I uniquely bloom into existence for myself for my loved ones for my friends and for strangers for animals for nature and for the whole and my inner harvest depends on the intentions that I am planting each year while also containing seeds I planted for me to discover throughout my life so I called these life seeds and I just want to celebrate it all yeah it's just kind of a bigger picture feeling of like all the gifts that I bring definitely has that that interesting time feeling as as well I was like getting waves as you're talking like that micro moments of time blooming like you're in your specific intentions but then this full-on like your life seeds has the huge umbrella of time of of your human life so that's a default I felt a lot of magic in your response to and like that that was wonderful thank you yeah I can feel that magic piece with what you were saying to um it feels like that's gonna be weaving between the two of us we're just gonna be seeing the magic unfold yes and there is this like response with the universe like I'm gonna plant this and I'm gonna manifest that and I have the intention for this and then what actually blooms and what creates which I guess if you think about a harvest like growing growing your garden is very similar from season to season you do decide okay what took what didn't do we have to change the soil out do we have to find a different way to prune all these things so you're constantly being flexible to have have a better harvest each season we hope that that inspired you and there's no right or wrong answer to this question it's unique to you so very excited for you to explore and define your own inner harvest and once you're feeling done with that one we're gonna move on to what does discovering your inner harvest mean to you right now what does discovering your inner harvest mean to you right now so Sarah what did you write down for this one I wrote down my first phrase is it's exciting and I have I grew a new speed it's like I grew a new species of apple to try for the first time I feel like I've been growing this fruit since I was nine connecting the nine-year-old to the 39 year old reintroducing each other I'm on the precipice of so many luxurious things mothering my children a new job a new camera to find magic in nature new health new relationships new approaches to feelings exploring different ways of journaling and parallel journey journaling with people that I'm close to and also parallel meditating so not necessarily getting as chatty but doing there's that quote like doing the work to be more in tune with yourself and vibrate a little higher and just shining a little a little brighter oh my goodness that's so wonderful parallel anything is that's deliberate and mindful and just making you more you just feels like the theme that's so cool yeah I can so see the what did you say it was a nine-year-old Sarah and a 39 year old Sarah with the apple tree yes and I didn't I had a lot come in just swirling around in my brain and then I put a lot less on the page but I was trying like all of a sudden I was just focusing into when did I feel that autumn glow last when did well I'm feeling it now but when was the last time before now and I just kept going back and back and back and I found a memory and I was like how old was I in that memory and I was nine and then I how old am I now like Oh 30 year anniversary so it's connecting those pieces of the nine-year-old that made me feel that autumn glow waking up going to bed and now I'm feeling it again I love that yeah it's an invitation like we can always tune in to those memories and that nostalgia and select like be very selective about what we want to bring into our present moment like bringing in that autumn glow from nine-year-old and having it now and meeting with all of the wisdom you've gained since 30 years I just really loved seeing that whole scene play out yeah and I remember I one of the memories was jumping in the leaves and that like internal excitement like I said to start the day and going to bed excited as well yeah I love that but an intention to go to bed excited and fulfilled and with the autumn glow I write Laurie what does discovering your inner harvest mean to you right now I wrote this feels so important to me right now as we have been going through so much as a whole and individually over the past few years I feel more grounded in my being in my uniqueness and in my gifts just putting a little attention on it already so it means that I am growing and learning all the time alongside everyone else and their unique harvests it means that my life has an abundance of energy to create with and explore Wow I'm getting teary eyed over here like oh my gosh what if we all discovered our inner harvest what a world that would be right we're all unique species of Apple mm-hmm be consumed the phrase of an abundance of energy it was just so different than what you can sometimes hear in the day-to-day of oh I don't have any energy I don't have any time I'm so tired all those phrases and can you imagine if someone came up to you and was like I have an abundance of energy what a different feel huh I feel like it would be contagious it would fill up other people's energy just saying the phrase let alone being it and sometimes you don't even have to say anything but your energy is contagious yeah definitely I'm in every even this journaling of introspection and creativity and turning within is helpful for just that collective energy as well of what the work you're doing and what it what it could mean for someone else especially because it's all connected and I love how you were saying the uniqueness to that that one hit me as well so again enjoy this process of discovering what your inner harvest means to you right now okay we're going to move on to our last activity which is creating an autumn cocoon and with this activity you will draw collage or write what you want to create and discover during this season so you're making an autumn cocoon where you'll draw collage or write what you want to create and discover during the season talk about visualization and manifesting so uh Laurie how did this activity go for you what did you discover your insights what came up on my page I have a very big and open space but it's in the shape of a butternut squash which just makes me want to have like warm golden soup right now so it feels like uh so it's just a beautiful holding um beautiful holding of all of my intentions and I found that I really wanted to play with colored pencils and just write actually I thought I was going to do a little bit more drawing I did do a little doodling and I may take what I wrote and and bring it into a visual with collaging at the top I have a string of hearts all connected together as a little drawing and I put heart to heart connection and adventure because my husband and I are actually going to be going on a trip together to see family and friends and celebrate a wedding and all of that's going to be happening during this harvest season so I just felt I get to harvest heart to heart connections and bring that with me and like in that autumn glow like what we were talking about so which brings me to giving and receiving reciprocity in my relationships and learning how to create more reciprocity with nature and my connections that I already have so I really want to bring that heart to heart and that reciprocity piece into the connections I already have also with like people that I meet along these I don't know these next few months that we're going to be exploring getting out more and maybe visiting family so I'm really excited about that and then of course creative activities within our cocoon within hello from the cocoon so more nature loving creative kindred souls finding each other every day I really want to experience that with you Sarah and within this community of hello from the cocoon there's definitely a lot of creativity and I wrote down some ideas underneath that section so I won't say all of them but it definitely got me inspired and like just the juices started flowing there so I think that's where I want to do more visual maybe a vision board of those types of activities and the last thing I'll say was intentional cleaning clearing and repurposing of my space and my belongings and I want to do fun and mindful shopping this year because I feel like kind of blah about my autumn clothing like I've been wearing the same long sleeves and sweaters for like five years now and not letting myself get something that makes me feel comfy cozy and I don't know hugged and I just have a whole new feel I feel like a new person but I also want to be very mindful in where I purchase things and how I go about creating the space for the new things to come in so I had to put that in there and I'm very excited that I have that I gave it to myself the space to do that yeah it's interesting because a lot of the times I get really excited for summer clothes and I forget to get really excited about the other seasons of comfy cozy and those sweaters year after year after year it's a good decade later okay it's time to get excited for some winter and autumn clothes so I did a little I did a little bit last year where I got greens and oranges and feeling more like me but I'm excited to see what what wardrobe Lori creates from her cocoon I want to also invite you Sarah to do nature inspired Halloween with me again oh yes please yeah so last year we dressed up as our nature inspired feeling which we did at the beginning of this lesson and we actually embodied our nature inspired feeling for Halloween and dressed up as nature feelings had to guess what each other was it was so much fun so definitely have that on my list as well yeah that feels really nice full body yes for me I liked how you talked about the heart to heart connection too because that's been coming up in my family um and we talk about almost like a body to body connection of your posture and connecting with someone's eyes and having those confident poses especially with my kiddos as they're going on to new adventures for the school year yeah I'm excited this was a really nice a really nice exercise so what about you what did you have in your autumn cocoon I was similar to you where I usually draw or use colored pencils or paint I do a painting or um something with markers and I did just I wrote bullet points and I don't know if it's maybe because I started um a new job and I'm just feeling very to do or that to-do list uh energy that kind of has this give and take right now of of we have this to-do list energy but we should be letting it go so I put it in the cocoon because or put it in like that it just it felt funny to me it felt like exploring it and kind of making fun of myself instead of like the typical creative sarah like I'm gonna write a to-do list in my cocoon so I have little like stars for bullet points um so the first thing that came up was we had so many rains from summer this year heavy heavy storms nothing actually the last time I probably saw those kind of rains was when I was a child and I want to embody those rains from summer to cry more for autumn because my sadness can get stuck within my body and it typically becomes anger or numbness shutting down and so I want to feel those tears let them go just like the skies have been letting go the rain and I did I did a nice job this morning crying my my kids first day of school so I was like yay tears it's already happening that's my first my first bullet point my second is inviting in courage I have so many changes going on that I just want to be courageous through all of them and the third is new systems so new fruit to consume and just I want to create new systems whether it's how you go about your day maybe it's your morning routine maybe it's a bigger system you're part of that work or even worldly systems or community systems or a school like if you have kids in school school systems that I wrote new systems more of just like look at the system a little differently or maybe be a part of the system differently growing new fruit in that system to consume that's my third third thing I want to create this autumn and then I have oh taking the body's responses I think this goes with the courage and communicating with it so if I have my heart racing or my jitters just inviting it in allowing it all to be okay and observing it but then using it as this powerful tool oh my body's my body's heart is is in my throat right now what does that mean what should I do with it or oh that's interesting I wonder what caused that rather than um again kind of that numbness or that wall that can occur when we have big body reactions so and even little things like whether it's a headache or a lot of yawning all of a sudden I just want to be aware of my body responses and then I have two more one is uh rebonding I all I could envision with this was glue so like you've got or mortar like you've got your two rocks or even like tiles and grouting and they've just been there and they're meant to be together but like the glue didn't get in there the way it was supposed to to really solidify them together to make the foundation of a home or to put the grout in so that your shower area is waterproof so re rebonding um and I have mother to children husband to wife it's this family creation and I wrote Fantastic Four which I'm not I'm not a big movie uh or comic uh fan but I don't know that just came in and I just realized I've been using that word fantastic lately so it's already coming in and the last one is just embracing the good within us and outside of us because there's so many morsels of good and it actually reminds me of my nature inspired feeling of all the little acorn caps and pieces and bits and there's there's so much there oh my goodness that's so cool I like it I like that I like the way that you wrote bonding um and like it just has that feeling of foundation and the way you described it like um like bricks and tiles and like they stick together but they're each their own and they're bonded together I love it and um I just saw too on the side of mine falling in love each day newly with my husband was there and it just made me realize like I wonder if there's something I often put autumn as like nostalgia which a few of our stories have come up from you know bringing past autumn glow into the present moment but I wonder too about like just like that romantic opportunity of autumn as well like it's just so I don't know there's something about the colors and the smells and the the feels and the chill and the fire you know there's just all these it's intimate and so it's not necessarily romantic in the sense of just you and a partner but you and your friends and you and yourself and you and your children and like just having this joy and this I don't know that upliftment I think that it feels like um and the stability to that piece of the bonding um and the courage and just so many things of what you said just feel like these really luxurious ingredients for I don't know success in a way you know to move through the season and and success to living a fulfilled life I mean that's all yeah all our goals as human beings I'm sure to feel to feel fulfilled and take it one day at a time and it all adds up it's beautiful yeah well as we wrap up sharing our autumn cocoons we want to give our autumn cocoon a sound for this season and the reason for that is connecting our voice to our creations it's called vocal play and it's a tool that we use to create a unique sound it can be anything a hum a whistle sound of a wind an animal sound a tune making up your own song a song you already know anything goes and it just helps us use our voice to release energy and put it into creating this autumn cocoon and wrapping it all up so Laurie is there any you could do just like our nature inspired feelings a zoom in a zoom out of what you'd want to vocal play for autumn cocoon and what it would sound like yeah when I'm looking at it it looks like a lot of when I feel it in a musical way it reminds me of call and response like this heart to heart this reciprocity this give receive even like the intentional cleaning clearing slash shopping like out and in so there's like a there's like this out and and it coming in so it's got like a circular movement I feel like I want to circle both hands I'm circling my hands out in front of me and then bringing them back toward me kind of like a wave so I can feel the movement already it's like I just had to do a call and response I know I like it was perfect and then just so you know too when we vocal play we get body responses and just observe them we just had some laughing some smiling and all that is very healthy for the system it releases oxytocin it helps our heart and our lungs our immune system and even get helping us get a better rest at night so that's the purpose of our vocal play and creating with our voice I love that Laurie thank you and thank you I'm all a hum all over like I just have a glow and a hum all over I was gonna ask how your body is feeling after a little bit of that yeah well it was nice to hear you talking about that because as the more I did it the more I felt the release and my body just expanded I felt like all my cells got a cleansing I don't even know how to describe it well and it's interesting too because it helped me as well because I've had so many relationships that there is not this reciprocity and call and response and to honor you and I's relationship of that just giving it a voice of like this is what reciprocity and that that heart yeah sound like like it no no getting emotional awesome well you know mine's gonna sound like mortar and glue and bonding that's so mine where mine's going and I invite you to also use movements gentle movements to see where your body takes you intuitively with this activity it helps as well to pair it with the voice so I'm just gonna put my hands together why not two pieces and I'm gonna start a little push and moving my two hands forward so I'm pushing my two hands together and forward and I'm gonna start with some quiet which Lori and I have been exploring which is why I'm laughing we've been talking about how can Sarah embrace the silence as a speech therapist it's always a struggle like that so I'm bringing my fingers together to interlock and then I'm actually trying to pull and making it not happen it's almost like here like if you've ever worked with glue and mortar and grout it's like the cure the curing sound this is the curing so I think in the beginning I was putting the layers on with was the silence and now the two the fingers coming together yeah that's it and kind of the pulling but keeping them together no matter what what is pulling and it has yeah it has this kind of curating feel to it I felt like I was part of the construction crew yeah that was so cool and I kept like if you look at your fingers when you interlock them they look like gears that's what it is ears and ears yep yep they perfectly match up yeah so stronger together individually not as strong yep that's it thank you Sarah and thank you all for exploring your cocoon and giving it a sound with us today and if you'd like to continue with more Inner Harvest creativity stick around with us and stay tuned for the next lesson for you called Your Circle of Trust.

Until then,

With care and connection,

From our cocoon to yours.