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Stories from my personal journey learning about and delivering Nature-rooted programs across three different countries

When Nature Speaks (to us)

Jan 2 / Caylin (Forest Schooled)
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It’s happened twice now.


The first time - a beautiful coincidence.


The second? Synchronicity. Meaningful and magical.


But first we must go back to where it really started… With a small and unexpected gift.


It was fall and our final session of a six week pilot program for an Outdoor Play Grief Support Group with Playful Mindset. This is a group for children and their caregivers to process feelings of loss and grief through play. I’m an Outdoor Play Support Facilitator for the children’s part of the program and we’d had six weeks of brave, soulful, moving connection - to each other, place, and our own grieving

At the end of that session, one family offered each facilitator a gift. Along with sweet handmade cards from the children, we were given a small charm - a little red Cardinal with a poem. It read:

The Lucky Little Cardinal

CHARM

This little cardinal
will bring good luck to you,
with renewal and faith
in all that you do.

Find your life song,
show gratitude each day;
believe and have hope,
the cardinal will lead the way.
- a.s. waldrop

After a short winter break, we offered the Outdoor Play Grief Support Group program again in the spring of the following year. Many families returned, including the one who’d gifted us the Cardinal charm.


It was on the final session of that program when it happened the first time.


As we sat together on logs in a circle, someone surprising came to join our group… We’d never seen him in this forest before, but he seemed intent on being part of what we were doing, hovering closely over us. Curious. Watchful. Entirely unafraid.


A bright red Cardinal.


As soon as the children noticed our companion, all attention was on the Cardinal. Some children even excitedly ran towards him to get a closer look. I assumed he would fly away from the commotion. But he didn’t. He perched on a pine tree branch nearby and confidently stayed with us. It felt serendipitous and brought me a sense of wonder and awe.


A beautiful coincidence.

We offered the program a third time this past fall, and many families returned while new ones joined us. We played hard, and grieved hard, held by the Land and our unfolding stories.

I wrote a special therapeutic story for the children in the group, inspired by the book Stories to Light the Night: A Grief and Loss Collection for Children, Families, and Communities by Susan Perrow. In the book Perrow says,

“In times of grief and loss, strength would be drawn from the stars, solace gained from sitting by a river, pain eased by walking through a forest. Stories were created that wove nature threads into healing journeys, and to this day continue to weave their healing work.” (p. 15)

I’ll share more about my wanderings into therapeutic storytelling in another post, (including the story I told and the response of the group) for I am still processing the profound effect… but I want to note here that the Cardinal held a prominent role in that story. When I initially imagined the story, allowing it to come to life in my mind, the Cardinal essentially wrote himself into it. I knew he must be included. And in the story he became the messenger.


That is why, when the Cardinal returned for a second time on our final session of the third program - again while we sat together in circle - and confidently joined in, it became synchronicity. Meaningful and magical.

I can offer you no sweeping explanation of what our encounters with the Cardinal mean. For that’s the thing about synchronicities. They are deeply personal events or encounters defined by psychologist, Carl Jung, as “meaningful coincidences” that impact us in psychological and emotional ways.

It is the synchronicity's impact on us more than the event itself that brings inner healing or transformation.

So I can only say for myself that through these encounters the Cardinal spoke. To me.
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References:


Meaningful Coincidences, Serendipity, and Synchronicity | Psychology Today Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved January 2, 2025, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/connecting-coincidence/202101/meaningful-coincidences-serendipity-and-synchronicity


Perrow, S. (2021). Stories to Light the Night: A Grief and Loss Collection for Children, Families, and Communities. Hawthorn Press.


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