Hi, I’m Linda, and I live in the San Francisco Tri-Valley with my wonderful husband and son. This blog started long ago when my son was a toddler. It grew through his preschool years, and then our homeschool years. My son is in college now, and I am nearing retirement age. You’ll see a large gap, and my interests have evolved.
While I still love hiking with family and friends, travel, and exploring art museums (like in the photo here from the SFMOMA), I’ve found I need more simple, quiet daily activities to calm my mind and nervous system. I find my yoga classes at the gym and beloved nightly reading ritual super beneficial, but I have found I also need more outdoor time and crave hands-on artistic practices. Join me here as I share the practices that I find helpful. You’ll find a theme throughout the things I share here…. mindfulness, presence, and stress relief. I hope you’ll find some calm through these pages, too.
And, please note, this is not a curated blog about perfection and image-creation. I’m just sharing the nature and art activities I personally do during the week… when I actually remember to snap a photo of what I’m doing…. and when I feel like creating a post. If I were to take the time to set up a “perfect” photo or if I were to pressure myself to make a certain number of posts a week, it would take all the fun and relaxation out of the process. This is all about relaxing activities, not adding another to-do. So here’s what I’ll be sharing…
Sylvotherapy – Forest Therapy
The first is sylvotherapy. What’s sylvotherapy, you ask? It’s a fancy word for a nature-based wellness. The “sylvo” in sylvotherapy comes from the Latin word, silva, which means forest or woods. The core belief is that time in nature, especially among trees, is deeply healing. Practices include slow walks in nature, sensory meditation, and mindful breathing. Sylvotherapy can also be done at home through gardening or brought inside through houseplants, grounding teas, and the scent of essential oils. I love sylvotherapy practices so much, I have become a certified sylvotherapist, and I’ll share the practices here in this blog. You’ll see my sylvotherapy time here in the photos I share and incorporated into my visual journaling pages and Zentangle drawings.
SoulPages – Mixed Media Visual Journaling
As for a grounding artistic hobby, I discovered visual journaling to be super helpful, and found great healing through SoulPagesTM visual journaling. I love creating art within the safety of my journal… my safe place to explore and play, and SoulPages helped me overcome the paralysis of the blank page. SoulPages is an artistic and mindfulness practice developed by Rakefet Hadar that combines mixed media art techniques with self-reflection and personal growth. The method has seven core elements…. intention (setting a focus or goal for the session), magical coincidence (embracing the “happy accidents” and unexpected results that naturally occur when making art), background (laying down the base layer utilizing a variety of artistic techniques), image (adding visuals, cutouts and symbols), line (using marks, drawing and doodles to make connections), color (choosing hues that reflect your current emotions and feelings), and, lastly, text (intuitive writing, poetry, quotes, or single words). This, too, I loved so much that I went through the year-long training to become a SoulPages mentor. I won’t be sharing all of my visual journaling pages here, as I find much of what I create to be deeply personal, but I’ll let you guys in when I’m feeling brave.
Zentangle – Meditative Drawing
I’ve been drawn to dive deep into another artistic practice, too, which combines beautifully with my SoulPages visual journaling. I discovered Zentangle about fifteen years ago, and this year decided to take the plunge and become a certified teacher (CZT). Zentangle is another calming mindfulness technique (see a theme here??), utilizing the simplicity of pen, pencil and paper. What I love about the Zentangle method is that it is sooo easy to learn, while being relaxing and meditative. Beautiful images are created through drawing structured, repeating patterns called tangles, and, through this creative process, the mind is stilled and the body calms.
Piano – My Musical Outlet
Lastly, for work, I am a piano teacher. I’ve been teaching for more than fifteen years now. I’ve found, however, that the more I teach, the less I play myself, just for my own pleasure. So I’m setting a goal for myself…. I’m going to start playing again, just for me, just for fun. Maybe I’ll occasionally share my playing here. We’ll see.
Here I share activities and explorations in nature, images of natural beauty, the many healing benefits of time spent outdoors in nature, tips to bring the natural world indoors, thoughts on nature-based spirituality, my attempts at gardening, the benefits of outdoor play, and tips and tricks that make outside time fun. As a former homeschooling mom (ten years of experience!), I also share educational activities for leading nature-based family lifestyle.
You’ll also find me on:
- Instagram: @linda__bernardi
- For information about my piano studio (I specialize in the adult beginner), visit PlayfulPianoStudio.com
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The Tangled Trail 