Birdsong Nature Co.

Birdsong Nature Co. An invitation into the heart through inclusive and immersive relational nature experiences. I bow with deep reverence to all the beings of the natural world.

"My connection to nature feels deeply etched in my heart, a knowing in my bones that I am part of all that is on Earth. I bring them the gift of my presence and attention. I belong in their circle, sitting quietly among them, bearing witness, listening to their whispers, waiting for their slow mysteries to be revealed. I am rooted. Not for my sake alone, but for the sake of all. I’ve heard the cal

l to invite others to remember their own connection….”

Cathy McCauley is a certified forest therapy guide through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides & Programs (ANFT). Her journey to becoming a guide started well before she could read or write, when she was picking green beans in her backyard, tasting forbidden raspberries from the neighbor’s garden and watching glorious Door County sunsets melt into Lake Michigan. As a relational forest therapy guide, Cathy holds space in nature for people to experience whatever comes up for them in nature. It may be wonder, joy, grief, awe or even boredom. It is all welcome. Cathy acknowledges that she cannot know what others need—that is an individual experience between the person and the land. She trusts the wisdom that, “The forest is the therapist; the guide opens the door.”

Cathy currently leads children’s groups as a nature educator and also serves as president of the Ela Area Public Library Board of Trustees in Lake Zurich. In the past, she has facilitated groups as a community organizer, workshop leader, and nonprofit board staff member. Cathy is certified in CPR and Wilderness First Aid and carries forest therapy practice insurance. She holds a BA in journalism from Columbia College Chicago. Most recently she practiced holistic health for more than 10 years, offering therapeutic bodywork and a variety of healing modalities. She is a married partner and mom, living in sobriety, and breaking generational patterns. She creates art, writes frequently and loves to plant native plant and vegetable gardens. Reach Cathy at info@birdsongnatureco.com.

🖤 Grief is present. People sense it right now. Many are afraid or unsure of or unwilling to sit with it, even for short ...
04/19/2026

🖤 Grief is present. People sense it right now. Many are afraid or unsure of or unwilling to sit with it, even for short amounts of time. The depth of grief may feel like a well with no bottom. That one will be swallowed, never to resurface. Or it feels so painful one won’t even consider looking at it, and instead cover the feelings and excessively eat, drink, scroll, do drugs, spend money, have s*x, be busy, rage, oppress others, sleep, exercise, work, care for others, etc.

🌎 The earth being also grieves. When we consider all that has happened on her land, to her family - both the other-than-human world and human world - we can know some of the sadness that she holds. When we open to the many stories of the past and the present day that the earth being holds, we can come to know and love her more deeply.

🌱 Viewing the earth being as my body helps to heal me and heal her. I smell, hear, taste, touch, see and feel her in my heart. She holds me while I hold her. The earth is a living being. We are living beings. We can be with each other through our grief. We have the support of the whole earth.

(*I will offer that some people need to seek professional help to process grief, and that is healthy and helpful.)

🦶Yesterday, I attended a grief retreat with folks who have a willingness to be with grief, and be in community around grief. Sitting in a circle with them, held by the earth being, I was moved as circles always have a way of doing.

💚 I wandered out later and sat for more than an hour connecting with this place. I cried, wrote, watched and paid attention. A mixture of gratitude, sadness, love and anger arose in me on this vast and changing landscape of grief.

Led a couple on a walk today and felt the expansiveness of simplicity, nature’s story and the perfection of nature’s tim...
04/12/2026

Led a couple on a walk today and felt the expansiveness of simplicity, nature’s story and the perfection of nature’s timing. What storylines unfold in your heart when you stop and notice the simple things? What opens inside you when you listen to what the land shares? What messages do you receive when you slow down to hear them?

04/02/2026

Thoughts after last night’s pink moon forest bathing walk. 🌕 I’m always surprised by people. How they show up, how they connect, what they share. For our last prompt, I invited participants to write on a card what’s emerging for you this spring or in this moment. Everyone wrote something and then I read each card aloud, like a poem. A gift to the land and all of us. Then each person chose a card at random to keep. Someone shared “We get to take something with us that we don’t come here with.” And phew. That blew me away.

💚Let’s get outside together, folks. Let’s connect. Let’s build relationship. Let’s give back - to each other, to the Indigenous nations that call this place home, to the land. Let’s keep doing the work to decolonize our minds and our systems. I feel hopeful we can do it. 🌱🌳

03/28/2026

I’m often a slow speaker…this one takes some time. 🌀 What I don’t mention is that I’ve done a lot of relational work for the last 14 years in 12-step recovery, and nothing has touched my ability to surrender like showing up in nature as a flawed being who allows herself to hold and be held by the earth. I still have so much to learn, and nature provides me the truth and opportunities to be present with the unfolding. 💚

03/10/2026

I sat watching this bird for nearly an hour as it waded along the shoreline, looking for fish. My experience of Great Blue Herons is that they will take off as soon as they sense me. But not this one. He kept about his business, and I watched and watched. The geese spoke up. The fish jumped. Lots of cardinals whistled to each other. Such a fruitful pre-spring morning fills me with gratitude. Giving my time and attention to the land, I’m offered such magnificent moments of aliveness. Reciprocity. 💚✨

I witnessed a woman’s smile as I passed her on the trail. It was an intimate moment that I glimpsed between two people. ...
02/11/2026

I witnessed a woman’s smile as I passed her on the trail. It was an intimate moment that I glimpsed between two people. Soft, real, endearing. It sent a reverberation through my body. That moment, that trail, that woman, that joy. Earlier, I had stopped to watch deer. If I had lingered 15 seconds longer, I would have missed the smile. Ah, but the deer had me mesmerized. So still in the snow. Some lying down, others pawing at the ground. A herd of six or seven, they didn’t run away as I sat down to watch them. The deer and the smile felt like tiny threads of a connection to what lasts and lasts and lasts.

02/08/2026

Embodied Truth by Cathy McCauley
For the Wabanaki

Over rotting wood,
and past wispy, yellowing prairie plants,
you enter.

Your breath slows.
The trees come into better focus.
With each step, you move deeper into the forest.

Thoughts of the weighing world begin to quiet.
Your body surrenders to the moment,
and to the land — as it watches you.

You recognize towering trees who call this place home.
Swamp Oak, Burr Oak, White Oak, Chinkapin.
Shagbark Hickory with her upturned trunk lives here, too.

A log down by a swampy, wet area calls to you.
You step with care over crackling leaves, sticks and plants.
For a moment, you stop and imagine.

Summer.
Mosquitoes swarm here.
Ticks quest for a meal.

Tall native plants cover the ground, a haven for mice.
A cool spot for mallards and sparrows,
and two fawns with their mother.

You settle onto the log.
A patch of fluffy, green moss grows next to you.
You touch it with slow, curious fingertips.

Your eyes now notice moss growing all around,
at the base of the oaks, along trunks, limbs and branches,
covering fallen, decaying wood.

You wonder how it feels to grow like moss,
a spongy, damp blanket,
heavy with water.

Held by the trees,
caressed by leaves that have let go,
an honorable line of ancestry and carbon absorption.

Moss, a witness to the decomposition
of organic matter mingling
with roots and mycelia and sweet, wet earth.

You close your eyes, and listen.
Leftover autumn leaves rub against each other and whisper in the wind.
You are still; your body rooted.

You breathe.
The scent of fertile, sacred soil fills your nose with knowing.
Hot tears drop like seeds from your eyes.

The oaks persist as you grieve what must be released.
The moss remains soft as your heart gathers strength.
The log supports your body as you melt into being.

Shadows grow longer with the shifting sun.
The browns and greens and blues take on different hues.
It’s time for you to go.

Before crossing the threshold back to the mad, hurried world,
you turn to look once more,
your moss-covered heart

beating,
beating,
beating.

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Lake Zurich, IL
60047

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