
From the Outside with Sarah C
Nature is magic! It jump-starts our joy, cultivates our curiosity, and awakens our awe. It is the foundation to our sense of belonging and purpose. Join me as we discover and deepen our individual and collective connections with nature purposefully and intentionally.
From the Outside with Sarah C
May
My podcast programming this year is simple – love letters to nature. I invite you to join me in this collaborative project to reweave ourselves to the natural world and each other. Share your love letters with me at fromtheoutsidellc@gmail.com and I will read your loving words to nature on my podcast. How does nature make you feel, how does she sustain you, support you, inspire you, excite you? Read your letters to nature and listen for a response. What wisdom does she offer you? As we profess our deep love and gratitude to our source of life, let us deepen our sense of place, purpose, and belonging.
This month, I welcomed the bountiful blooms of yarrow, wand flower, coreopsis, lavender, milkweed, rue, bachelor buttons, and daisies. My family and I filled our bellies with fresh-picked, strawberry sweetness. I harvested my first blueberries from my garden and sat under the most vivid rainbow right outside my front door after an evening of severe weather. Listen as I read my May love letter to nature. What moments of joy, love, and gratitude did nature offer you in May?
Hi everyone! Welcome to Season 3 and Episode 30 of the From the Outside with Sarah C podcast! I am Sarah Croscutt, the host and creator of this podcast and the owner and facilitator of From the Outside, a series of plant and nature-based lessons that help us to cultivate a deeper relationship to the natural world, ourselves, and each other. In addition, I am a published environmental writer. My work has been included in several anthologies published by Plants and Poetry Journal (www.plantsandpoetry.org) and Wild Roof Journal (www.wildroofjournal.com) You can learn more and find links on my website, www.fromtheoutsidellc.com.
In the past year or so, I have begun to deepen my connection to my Irish and Welsh ancestral roots. Each of us can claim indigeneity to this beautiful planet. Our earliest ancestors lived in kinship with the natural world. Their relationship with nature, their highly regarded source of life, was rooted in respect, reverence and reciprocity.
We are living in unbelievably uncertain times. Many of us are feeling a deep sense of grief and loss – for humanity and our beloved planet. As I tend my own grief and hold the collective grief of others, I lean into nature, her comfort and wisdom. If we lean into our grief, we feel its entanglement with love. They are intertwined. Love is the wellspring from which we experience joy, gratitude, and grief. It grows from our profound presence and awareness. Love is the most authentic and creative state of being. In love, we recognize or “see” each other in a state of deep acknowledgement. In turn, we kindle our circle of belonging and kinship – to nature, to ourselves, and to each other. What we love we honor and protect, deepening the authentic relationships with others that soothe and support us in times of sorrow.
My podcast programming this year is simple – love letters to nature. I invite you to join me in this collaborative project to reweave ourselves to the natural world and each other. Share your love letters with me at fromtheoutsidellc@gmail.com and I will read your loving words to nature on my podcast. How does nature make you feel, how does she sustain you, support you, inspire you, excite you? Read your letters to nature and listen for a response. What wisdom does she offer you? As we profess our deep love and gratitude to our source of life, let us deepen our sense of place, purpose, and sense of belonging.
May 2025
To my beloved Nature,
In May, I thank you for:
1. The remaining breezy, clear, cool days of late spring as we creep ever closer to the hot, humid days of summer here in Virginia.
2. The bursting of blooms as the growing season ramps up – coreopsis, lavender, milkweed, rue, bachelor buttons, butterfly weed, and daisies.
3. The mockingbirds and mourning doves that continue to be ever present in my garden. The mockingbirds perch on my various metal, garden trellises observing the neighborhood and passing on the garden gossip. The mourning doves sit in pairs, nestled under plants until I open the door and surprise them out of their secret hiding places.
4. The birds that visit my birdbath – I love watching them splash around and shake water off their wet feathers.
5. The bright, orange, fiery blooms of Asclepias tuberosa, butterfly weed.
6. The first garden critter sightings of the season – not including the bee, wasps, syrphid flies, and brown beetles. This week I saw my first hummingbird, dragonfly, monarch butterfly, and non-breeding male American Goldfinch!
7. The honeysuckle that grows along my back fence. I did not plant it, and it is the invasive species, however it brings back the magical, childhood memory of catching that one sweet drop of nectar on my tongue. As a child, I thought it was candy. I love teaching my three-year-old grandson the technique of extracting that one sweet drop of honeysuckle syrup. The distinct honeysuckle smell is intoxicating. It brings back all the magic.
8. The bumper crop of strawberries this year. Two batches of ice cream, rhubarb scones with strawberry sauce and fresh whipped cream for our Mother’s Day breakfast dessert, a strawberry rhubarb pie, and pounds of sweet berries picked from the vines that went straight into our bellies. Strawberry season is winding down, so I am savoring the sweet, little gifts of the last berries.
9. The common milkweed that waves in the breeze. It’s beautiful bud clusters of hot pink soften to a vintage mauve flower as they open to full bloom, beckoning the bees, butterflies, and milkweed beetles. I never noticed the sweet scent of milkweed flowers until this year as my little stand of milkweed has grown large enough to perfume the air.
10. The visitors who peek their heads out as I tend to the gardens of my clients. Garden snakes and skinks - I think they are curious as to why I am there….
11. The flexibility of the wand flower. It’s delicate clusters of cotton candy pink blooms bounce on their long, flexible stems even has they carry the weight of big, robust bumblebees. The wisdom of the wand flower reveals that I too am delicate, but flexible and resilient, and can bounce back when I carry a heavy load.
12. The anticipation of my first sunflower blooms – most of the plants were from seeds leftover in the garden from last year. I will plant many sunflowers this year, so I have blooms through the fall season. If sunshine were a plant…They represent joy in my garden!
13. My yarrow – both the bright yellow cultivated from my mom’s garden and the vintage rose variety that I bought a few years ago at the garden store. It just loves my landscape and blooms from early spring until after the first frost. If there is a flower that represents my garden, it is yarrow. It symbolizes love, healing, protection, guidance, and spiritual insight. My grandson and I clipped and arranged several Mother’s Day bouquets that we shared with his mom and his other grandmother.
14. My first, sweet, dark purple, barely a handful of blueberries from my newly planted blueberry bushes.
15. The bright, beautiful rainbow arched across my front yard after an evening of severe thunderstorms, tornado warnings, and a neighborhood power outage.
16. The pink glow of the sunrise and cool morning temperatures on this last day of May.
17. The continuation of the seasons as we find our way closer to the summer solstice. I look forward to the long, summer days in the garden weeding, observing, encouraging, and harvesting as nature soothes my souls and fills my belly.
I encourage you to write your own love letter to nature. It pushes us to pause, grows our gratitude, cultivates our connection to our source of life, and syncs us to the rhythms and cycles of nature. Here are some suggestions to get you started:
o Write one thing daily you love about nature – that is quite a list by the end of the month!
o Write about one specific emotion you have felt or experience you have had in nature, or maybe you are trying to cultivate more of a specific state of being in your life, like joy, or gratitude, or love. How can nature guide you?
o Write about one activity that you do regularly in nature – kayaking, hiking, gardening, even tending your houseplants, or cooking. How does it make you feel – physically, emotionally, even spiritually? Express your gratitude and love to the natural world for your experience. Expressing our gratitude and love in our simple daily tasks can shift the mundane to magical.
o Connect to your experiences in nature with your whole body – all your senses – and your breath.
o Your love letter can take the form of a formal letter, a list bullet points, a poem, even a drawing – however you feel led to express yourself!
o Share your letter with nature with purpose and intent. Read it aloud
o Lastly, share your letter with me – I will share it with others on my podcast! You can email me your letter at fromtheoutsidellc@gmail.com. Let your words inspire other listeners! I look forward to hearing from you!
Upcoming Events
In-person in the Richmond, VA area
Selfcare Sunday Series continues the first Sunday of the month, 10 am at Powhatan State Park, Powhatan, VA. Our next gathering is tomorrow, Sunday, June 1st. We meet at the playground parking lot. The program is free, but a $5 parking fee applies. Please join us as we connect to nature and each other!
Thank you so much for listening! I encourage you to venture out – to your backyard, a local park, a green space near where you work and spend a few minutes purposefully and intentionally connecting with nature. Use your whole body – really integrate into your being what you see, smell, hear, and feel. Spend time with those you love or sit in silence, solitude, and stillness. They are important states of being in nurturing our nature connections. Acknowledge nature’s wisdom and role in your life. Nature shows us how beautiful and transformative growth can be! Remember, we are all connected to the source of life and each other! With that said, you can connect with me through my website www.fromtheoutsidellc.com, or on Instagram @sarahc_outside. Links to podcast, website, publications, webinars, and all the things can be found there! Visit my website for upcoming classes in the local community, latest publications, and details on workshops available for educational settings, professional development, recovery programs, conferences, or other groups. As always, please feel free to reach out!
Until next time, take care!