In the forest of my mind, there is a lovely grove of old growth Ponderosa Pine – a species of tree I have grown to love over the last two decades living in Central Oregon.
These Pinus Ponderosa dazzle me with their pumpkin-colored bark. They intoxicate me with their vanilla-esque scents. And during the strongest of storms they awe me with their ability to gently absorb the wildest gales by not fighting, but bending.
Unfortunately, they also leave behind all of those dang pinecones.
Those of us who live in wildfire country know you have to stay on top of those cones and the needles the pines drop. If left unchecked, the bi-annual deposits from our friends the pines, stack up and create fuel for fires. As such many days in the fall and early winter are spent on our family’s land alongside the Deschutes River, picking up after our pines.
Lately I’ve been thinking about those pinecones, and realizing that they are quite like those pesky little worries that life “drops” on us all the time. Silly things like rude comments left by someone on the internet, critical thoughts of how that one conversation could have gone, or worries about things we can’t control in the world. Those worries, just like the pinecones, pile up in my mind.
When standing by the river the other morning, I started to pickup some pinecones and throw them into the moving water. The feeling of making the throw, followed by the splash in the water was oddly satisfying.
Sometimes while throwing pinecones like this I will take one of those “mental pinecones”, you know one of those worries that clutter the forest of our minds… and I attach it to one of the physical cones in my hand.
I then reach back and toss that worry as far as I can out into the water.
Splash.
The current of the river then takes over, and carries it downstream.
Around the bend.
Out of my mind.
✨
Lesson Ideas
Every blog post can be a lesson plan! Much of what I write here I think would fall under the umbrella of Social Emotional Learning, SEL, a topic that I feel our young students really need help with in today’s tech-driven world.
Pinecone Coloring
Find a free pinecone coloring sheet online, students could either simply color the drawing as a mindful activity – or encourage them to write worries within the parts of the pinecone and color.
Then students could ball up the sheet of paper to hold in those worries, and throw them into a recycle bin. Shooting hoops and exclaiming “KOBE” is a time-tested favorite of most middle schoolers right?
Pinecone Maze
I did this with 6th grade AVID classes a few times. Have students help collect pinecones, and share the visualization of pinecones as problems/worries in life. Then create a rectangle boundary outside – at least 10’ x 10’.
Have students arrange the pinecones inside of this space. Then divide into at least two teams. Teams take turns having a team member wear a blindfold, and navigate the square containing the pinecones. The goal is to reach the other side without touching a pinecone.
Their team members help them navigate the maze by sharing directions. A great reminder that positive friends are there to help us navigate our worries in life. For each clean walk across, the team gets a point.
To make the game harder, you can allow the opposing team to create noise/false directions. This can get rowdy at times, but is a great reminder of the noise in life that distracts us all from dealing with our own pinecone worries.