On Monday February 8 our speaker is Naturalist Annette Coleman, who grew up in Palo Alto. After graduating, from UC Davis with a degree in Environmental Interpretation, Annette worked ten years as a Ranger at Foothills Park, and ten years as Area Superintendent for Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. She has also worked as a Naturalist for the City of Palo Alto, and now finds herself managing the Baylands Nature Interpretive Center, conducting weekend programs and organizing school field trips to Palo Alto Open Spaces. The title of Annette’s presentation tonight will be “We are in the Pacific Flyway”.

Then on Saturday, February 13 we will be at the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve, the largest tract of undisturbed marshland remaining in the San Francisco Bay. “The Baylands’, is considered to be one of the premier birding locations on the entire West Coast, providing a safe residence for the endangered California clapper rail, among a multitude of other birds. With such lush bird life, unique plant distribution (which includes interspersed cordgrass and pickleweed habitats) and various waterside settings, we will have the opportunity to develop our sense of place.

Baylands Naturalist, Annette Coleman will join us in the morning. We will be refining our observation skills, and learning about the Baylands as a resourceful migratory habitat. We will absorb the great expanse of this preserved marshland, while observing both migrant and residential birds interacting with their habitat. Tidal salt marshes, found in the Preserve, are known as the most productive biological zones on earth. This is frequently demonstrated in the Baylands, whether by a Snowy Egret poised in its foraging stance, or the sweeping bill of the Avocet, or the hovering American Kestrel ready to pounce.

In the afternoon we will be with Naturalist, Drew Harwell, for our Reflections segment of the day. Drew has a BA in Environmental Restoration from Prescott College and was trained in nature awareness at the Regenerative Design Institute. . Drew has worked with children, teens and adults for over 13 years. His style of mentoring is to help students explore nature through their individual passions and creativity. Drew will be assisting us in deepening our skills in sensing, seeing and reflecting. We will have time for a silent, solo walk along the Baylands to a lovely spot where we can sit for a while and ponder our sense of place, reflect, write, draw. Following some sharing we walk back to the Conexions Center.

The Exploring a Sense of Place, How to create your own local program for reconnecting with Nature is available! Order it today. This guidebook will help you with your own process of discovery and reconnection with the natural world where you live. This book will inspire you and give you all the practical tools you need to design, develop, organize, and produce an Exploring a Sense of Place program specific to your own bioregion. Click here to order yours. ORDER THE BOOK

Our yearlong course consists of one Saturday Exploration and one Monday Enrichment Evening per month. The evening speakers prepare us for the Saturday explorations where we go out in small groups into our bioregion, with a concentration on our own watershed. While we provide wonderful guides and materials, these explorations are designed for each person to make his/her own connection.

As the year progresses, through every season, in every weather, and through the different ecological zones, we become more familiar with our place. Every month we focus on a different theme, and by using different lenses, we develop skill in using all of our senses. Through facilitated exercises we learn to express our connection with our sense of place. And by experiencing this together, we form community, deepening our roots with those around us.

The yearly program starts in May, however, new participants are welcome to join the course in progress, at a prorated fee. Register now or experience us for one month for a $35 guest fee. This includes our Monday enrichment evening, from 7-9 pm at the Conexions Center, 1023 Corporation Way, Palo Alto and our Saturday exploration at one of our local parks. You can also find more information, including the schedule, here. Or contact Judy Cronin at 650-938-9300 x12.

We are excited to announce that Exploring a Sense of Place and founder Karen Harwell are the subject of the Palo Alto Media Center’s Local Heroes program. Karen was one of five people to receive the award. An in depth look at Exploring a Sense of Place and Karen’s work was aired on the Palo Alto Cable Channel. To view the video click here.

Our seeds are spreading and taking root in beautiful San Diego. Chris Khoury and Linda Corey have started a group exploring the San Dieguito River Valley modeled after our guide book “Exploring a Sense of Place”. They have graciously allowed us to publish their article for the newsletter of the San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy announcing the start of the program. Check it out at A Journey Down the San Dieguito River. We will keep in close touch with the group.

• Treat the Earth well. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children. Ancient Native American Proverb   
• To be rooted is perhaps the most important but least understood need of the human soul. Simone Weil  
• We did not come into this world. We came out of it, like buds out of branches and butterflies out of cocoons. We are a natural product of this earth, and if we turn out to be intelligent beings, then it can only be because we are fruits of an intelligent earth, which is nourished in turn by an intelligent system of energy. Lyall Watson
• It is not enough to just “love nature” or want to “be in harmony with Gaia.” Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place, and it must be grounded in information and experience. Gary Snyder
• A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. Aldo Leopold

“Exploring a Sense of Place” offers an opportunity for people to create new patterns in their lives by making themselves available to new experiences, being imprinted by and becoming more intimate with the natural ecosystem in which they live their lives.

This is a course that offers a chance to restore your connection with the particular place where you live, its natural dynamics, systems and processes, while gaining an appreciation for your powerful impact on them so that you can consciously choose how to participate in the world around you.