Decorate with Nature
Spend Time Shopping at the Outdoor Mall
There is no need to buy accessories to adorn your mantle or decorate your holiday table when there is so much gorgeousness to be found on the ground in front of you and in your own backyard. Open your eyes to the decorative effect of nature when walking, biking, or gardening.
Although some takings can be damaging to the gentle course of nature, there is nothing wrong with collecting an occasional shell or stone to bring inside. Many people spend much of their lives indoors by necessity although their intelligence and soul have bonded with nature. If you are one of those people who has developed a deep fondness for nature because you perceive that you are connected to all life on Earth, there is no need to settle for plastic imitations of nature when you are indoors.
There are many naturally decorative pieces that you can use as simple decorative pieces that connect you to what you value and make a statement about your feelings for the natural world.
Rocks and Shells
Cans and boxes, even hats and broken pottery, can be recycled as containers to hold stones and shells. Sometimes rocks travel home with us by accident in kayaks or shoes. Other times they exist in piles heaped beside a building site. On the coast, such misplaced bits and pieces of nature include fossilized shells and bones as well as parts of shell fish and shiny minerals of more recent origin.
While naturalists score taking such things from their native site, there are many, many naturally decorative rocks and shells to be found along the side of a newly constructed road or at the site of a new house. Look carefully as you pass for the unique shape or color that may be bulldozed away or caught up in stormwater runoff. An interesting stone many come up with earth turned for a garden. Collect just such a treasure and love how it brings the outdoors, as well as the centuries and millennia of its life on earth, into your home.
Plants
Many potted plants need very little care, especially if they are not exotic. Choose plants to decorate the indoors the same way you choose plants for your yard: go native. Native plants can remind you of your favorite sights and smells from hikes and bike rides.
Plants offer many additional benefits. They filter the air and add green energy. Their stalks, leaves, and blossoms accent with artful shapes and colors that are constantly growing and changing. Plants are interactive: they respond to water and so say they create positive energy.
Gifts from the Animals
Recycle a glass container to use as a vase for feathers found. A cast-off antler, a shed of snake skin or a turtle shell can stand alone or be displayed on a flat rock or fallen branch. Clean them carefully to insure that insects or egg cases are not attached. Live animals are best left in their natural setting!
‘Tis the Season
Pine boughs can look and smell like winter holidays. Remember fall with a few well-chosen leaves. A branch broken off in a winter storm can be placed in water to sprout new leaves in spring. Such signs of the seasons remind us of the natural cycle and our place within it.
Decorate with Food
Unpack groceries or gather the fruits of your garden for display on window ledges and countertop bowls until ready to eat. The added benefits of colorful apples, pumpkins, blueberries, and kale are that they connect us to the source of our being and interconnection with other living things. If you work in an office, consider displaying your lunch in a bowl if possible. Apples, nuts, dried fruits, and vegetable sticks can be left unrefrigerated and uncovered for many hours of colorful enjoyment.
Read more about decorating the indoors with a mind to the outdoors.
Choose a View of Nature
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