(Last week’s presentation: no slides, just skin.)

If you want big groups, power point presentations, and to learn about nature indoors, we can’t help you. But if you want to grow close to nature, hike hard in all weather, get dirty and tired, be intrigued in small groups, handle creatures that squirm, consider a career change, write poetry, find your inner wildness and surprises in your laundry, and to help save the planet along the way, you are invited to join The Naturalist School.

We do not collect or forage, take prisoners for pets, or believe that nature is our personal pharmacy or grocery store. We seek only to love and not to exploit, to honor the planet, do good science, and to become a more intimate member of the wild community to which all humans belong. If that sounds good to you, find yourself with us.

And wear good boots.

— Jack Phillips

Photos by our members: top right, Jerry Toll (with Abbe Richardson and Cooper’s hawk); bottom right, Sarah Berkeley (self portrait spreading prairie seed), all others by Robert Smith and his phone.