Spellbound by Nature: A Spell-kit of Nova Scotia’s Nature Words
These spells are for you, the youth and children of Nova Scotia, to encourage you to get outside and explore nature, to discover and name plants, insects, animals, in your backyards and communities. This ‘Spell-kit’ has been concocted by Nova Scotia writers and artists, to conjure some of the common nature words of Nova Scotia, in order to help with their identification. Artists and writers have used their own creative ways to help others imagine these plants, animals and insects. Biology students and instructors from StFX University have also contributed, explaining more about each organism, linking birds to their calls to help you find them by their songs, suggesting where they may be found, what they look like, what they eat, and even examples of how they have informed biomimicry, the study of learning from, or mimicking nature.
Spellbound by Nature has been inspired by the book, The Lost Words, by Robert MacFarlane, illustrated by Jackie Morris, that conjured 20 nature words which were no longer in the Junior Oxford Dictionary, so children would learn and bring those words back into common use. Spellbound by Nature was developed and funded by Arts Health Antigonish (AHA!), with funding contributions from the NS Dept. of Communities, Culture and Heritage and Sustainable Antigonish.
More about our contributing artists and writers can be found on the biographies page. Many folks also graciously agreed to lend their talents and support to this project: see the ‘Thanks’ page.
We would love for you to share your own creative ‘spells’: poems, drawings, paintings, photographs, videos….to help others discover these words too! Happy ‘nature word’ conjuring!
Arts Health Antigonish (AHA!)
Spells
Look at an image below and guess what it is. To see the answer move your mouse over the image. To LEARN MORE click on the LEARN MORE on the answer.
mummichog
serviceberry
lupin
heron
lady's slipper
dragonfly
woodpecker
blue jay
fern
water strider
owl
maple
goldenrod
acorn
eagle
beaver
cattail
sandpiper
junco
bunchberry
Exploring Nature with Nancy
To become inspired by your environment, Nancy suggests looking around familiar spaces from different vantage points. Crawl close to the earth like an ant. Lie on your back and look straight up through branches of a tree as leaves unfurl. Count or draw things within a space you’ve marked out and watch the changes over different seasons. Feel textures with your eyes closed. Explore things in different weather, watching dew and raindrops on leaves. Most fascinating for me is watching leaves bud out, and marvelling at the many types of seeds and how they are designed to be transported to new locations. Nancy carries a camera to take photos, because light and shadow fascinates her. She has a personal collection of things that she can draw and study: shells, bones, feathers, rocks, seedpods.
Nancy’s suggestion: Take 10 minutes each day to draw from nature and it will become a personal pleasure that you look forward to. Write the feelings you get after you are finished, and they become your poems.
A project of:
Arts Health Antigonish (AHA!)
www.artshealthantigonish.org
Project funded by
Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage