Hive Curriculum: 31 Gentle nature-based writing prompts to untangle sticky emotions
These 31 gentle writing prompts for May are for those sticky emotional knots that need gentle untangling in nature in a day or daily journalling practice in the month of May.
Dear Beezee Bees
We all carry sticky emotions those dense, untangled knots in the hive of our inner world, sometimes we do not notice but if we look closer every one of us already has the resources to dive deep into that hive and listen. Some feelings cling like honey left too long in the comb, thickening into tangles that seem impossible to loosen. They twist around old stories, half‑healed wounds, and the quiet fears we rarely name. But when we pause, breathe, and bring a little curiosity to the swarm, the knots begin to soften. What once felt overwhelming becomes something we can hold, examine, and slowly tease apart. Inside the hive, nothing is wrong with us there is only the ongoing work of tending, noticing, and reclaiming the space where clarity can finally land.
Earlier in the season we explored nature-based writing prompts the link provides you with a gentle invitation to revisit it you have missed it.
Introduction: Nature-Based Writing Prompts
Now we prepare to close the season. Pull out your bedside journal notebooks and write these writing prompts on each page for the next 31 days of May.
I wanted to share the purpose and intention behind this curriculum. A research study by McClain et. al., (2023) shows how community nature journaling can become a shared hive one where adults and youth gather, observe, and gently attune to the world around them. Over a year of programs, adults found their deepest nourishment in the fellowship of the hive, sketching side‑by‑side, sharing discoveries, and feeling the warmth of belonging. Youth, meanwhile, were drawn to the vivid buzz of natural encounters milkweed, salamanders, birds up close moments that sparked curiosity and wonder. Together, their responses reveal that nature journaling can soften social isolation for older adults while helping younger generations build a bright, attentive awareness of the living world. In this communal hive of noticing, learning, and slowing down, wellbeing grows naturally.
“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.”
— Alice Walker
Field Study
The field study is not too far from where you are right now, it’s at your keyboard, laptop or where-ever you write.
Here I take a moment to interrupt my thought spiral and remind me in what direction my thoughts needed to flow:
Looking inward: toward my own center, strength, knowledge
Looking outward: toward the people I am writing for
Looking forward: toward the next micro taps on my keyboard that changed the whole course of the writing day.
This season I caught myself thinking today, “real writers don’t struggle to write”. My doubt was evidence enough I did not belong, in the writing field. I decided to describe the struggle in my writing instead, and the words filled my page. This question helped:
Why do you feel you are struggling to write today? … embrace the season and describe the emotional knot as a tangled root beneath a tree preparing for winter.
This is what followed: I feel as though the words are curled up in knots, one tighter then the next, somewhere deep inside I cannot name, I can feel the tightness and pressure, I imagine it to feel like this underneath layers and layers of soil where there is a root tightening as the season starts to cool and moisten. It is as if I was a tree, leaving autumn behind and preparing for winter, with leaves changing from green to amber, followed by gently flowing away into the streets that surround me. Looking inward, I am conserving, listening and finding that knot that feels more like a rock, hard, heavy and painful, I search for its location and where is it stuck, hidden beneath layers of crumbling soil, wondering worms and ant trails, I finally locate it and push it away. That emotional knot moves but doesn’t loosen. Looking outward, I can see that rock blocking me from moving forward, it is heavy, movable, rollable, I am pushing right through it as my fingers tap away on the keyboard. Looking forward, a moment to let go of the words and let them flow, no need to stop, keep going until nothing is left to write. I pulled out the garden hose and turned on the tap, the water flooded the top layer of the ground, covered the grass and green plants that spread, slowly the ground started to soak up the water and the tree root loosen with a little patience, that root knot will soften, stretch, and make room for whatever wants to grow next.
As the season prepares to close, we gently continue with these 31 nature-based writing prompts, for each day of the month of May, that sparks a touch of creativity, to untangle sticky emotional knots that are hard to move.
As McCain et. al., (2023) ideas suggest this is a shared experiences between adults and young people. Gently invite someone to come along for the journey with you…maybe head to your local nature garden, favourite park or national park you wanted to explore for a while. These prompts are gentle enough to do each day or finish them in a day while enjoying a picnic - like your personal writing retreat.
Self-doubt is a weather system; it passes. Plant your feet and wait for the sun.
– Jonas Fletcher
31 Nature-Based Writing Prompts
This question is what helped me to start writing…
May one, why do you feel you are struggling to write today? … embrace the season and describe the emotional knot as a tangled root beneath a tree preparing for winter.
These prompts helped me move thought-out April… I wanted to share them for the month of May.
May two, write three loving thoughts about yourself while in nature and what you notice.
May three, explore a memory that feels like fog rolling in soft, obscuring, and asking for patience.
May four, imagine your self-love as love birds one is leaving, and one is returning. What does self-love look like to you.
May five, write about the warmth of a late‑autumn sunbeam landing on a tender part of you.
May six, paint the autumn colours all over your page or canvas.
May seven, imagine the a forest path guides you into a feeling you’ve been avoiding, what happens next...
May nine, hold a leaf releasing, really tight in your hand, its grip is rolled into a fist, write down what does letting go feel like.
May eight, explore the sound of wind through bare branches as a metaphor for inner quiet.
May nine, describe a fear as a cloud shadow stretching across an autumn field.
May ten, imagine your emotional hive is preparing for winter what needs to stay, what needs to leave…
May eleven, when I felt clarity as crisp as the first cold morning…. what happened after that moment…
May twelve, describe a relationship as a tree what season is it in.
May thirteen, explore the feeling of gathering and exploring nature items.
May fifteen, write about a memory that glows like a lantern in early dusk.
May sixteen, describe an old belief as a brittle leaf ready to crumble.
May seventeen, imagine your body as a burrow what wants rest, what wants warmth.
May eighteen, write about a sticky emotion, what does it look like, what does it feel like.
May nineteen, explore the comfort of a soft scarf as a metaphor for self‑soothing.
May twenty, describe a moment when you felt like rain or creek water soaking into soil.
May twenty-one, write about the hive’s hum quieting as the days shorten.
May twenty-two, imagine your intuition as a koala moving through fallen leaves quiet, alert, wise.
May twenty-three, describe the smoke from the chimneys you may smell and how it circles in the coolness of the day.
May twenty-four, write one boundary and describe it as a stone wall covered in moss firm yet softened by time.
May twenty-five, explore the feeling of gathering around a fire what warms you from within.
May twenty-six, escribe an emotional change when you felt…
May twenty-seven, imagine your inner hive glowing like embers what keeps the warmth alive.
May twenty-eight, write about a moment of standing with yourself and your own thoughts near a pond reflecting. What felt safe and what felt icky?
May twenty-nine, explore the feeling of walking surrounded by autumn colours, like an artist painting a scene.
May thirty, name one hope for the next season… now describe your next move…
May thirty-one, honour autumn as a season write down the 10 lessons you have learned during the season.
Honour the Experience
Flick through your notebook journal entries at consider some ways of honouring the experience in a creative meaningful way:
a creative piece of writing,
a poem,
a fictional story,
a letter,
a creative vision board.
“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” - Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo
On a closing studio note, as we farewell autumn we start to prepare to transition into the next season. Winter. I wanted to honor the transitional experience with writing prompts grounded in nature-based practice. Inspiration on how we move through these transitions of the seasons and prepare for the next differs from one to the other.
Community of readers and writers
This little hive in growing and evolving, we have such a vibrant community of readers and writers in the hive. I love learning about the wide areas of passions, interests and hope for what the future may bring into our lives. The wonderful work is sprinkled like pollen across the field of flowers.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge Alegria de Rose and Julia Skinner who inspired this 31 Nature-Based Writing Prompts by creating and participating in the Alegria de Rose Poetry in Boom challenge for month of April. I read Julia’s poems from these prompts, and they are so incredibly beautiful.
I love getting to know fellow hive members and the work they are involved in, it is part of building relationships and supporting independent authors. I have purchased I Am Alice book, which I am excited to read.
Please visit their Substack’s of these hive readers they are a pleasure to read. If this has sparked an interest in you, please tag me into your post or note so I can support your work and sprinkle it with love and supportive words.
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