October Newsletter

Welcome to the October Edition of the Foxfire Learning Newsletter!

Wow! How is it October already?! It feels like time has flown by since the new school year began in England and the seasonal shift into Autumn is feeling very real! If you're an outdoor play and learning practitioner like me, soggy tarps and resources will be a familiarity once again!

Inspiration from Japanese practices is a feature for me this month, through my recent Forest Bathing (shinrin-yoku) experience, as well as being the impetus for this month's foraging feature. I'll be inviting you to get creative, capturing the juicy Autumn colours before the plants go to bed for the winter with an art form known as tataki zome.

Tataki what?! Some of you may have heard of 'hapa' zome, leaf hammering or flower bashing but tataki zome seems to be less commonly known. Up until this summer, I've been calling the technique hapa zome (translating to leaf dying), which produces beautiful botanical prints. Then, along came my wonderful friend, Jackie, who enlightened me with the more accurate name for this printing style, which is tataki zome, literally meaning 'leaf hammering'. It also sounds more precise, with the onomatopoeia of 'tataki' akin to the drumming of lots of little hammers being applied to innocent leaves! With this in mind, I encourage you to do this activity outside if multiple people are hammering, so that the noise can disperse! Want to make your own prints? Leave your email in the box below and all will be revealed!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter.

As ever, feel free to connect over on social media: @foxfirelearning or email: hello@foxfirelearning.com

For now, take care, don’t forget marvel at nature and see you next month!

With love and gratitude,

Charly