A Nature Prayer Practice Inspired by St Patrick’s Breastplate

A few days ago, I walked from a spectacular viewpoint down into a valley alive with signs of spring, and used the walk as a simple nature prayer practice. The path wove through woodland, old mine workings and quarry ground, then back up towards the start.

It was one of those walks where spring was delightful and hard to miss. Wood sorrel was flowering in the shade. New birch leaves were almost impossibly fresh, soft and vulnerable. Ferns were beginning to unfurl, honeysuckle was winding itself around whatever would hold it. The valley had that excessive, illuminated green that only lasts for a few weeks until the tannins develop and the green darkens.

On that walk, I used a simple nature prayer practice drawn from this section of St Patrick’s Breastplate, sometimes known as the Breastplate prayer or The Lorica:

I bind unto myself today The virtues of the star lit heaven, The glorious sun’s life giving ray, The whiteness of the moon at even, The flashing of the lightning free, The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks, The stable earth, the deep salt sea

What I like about this part of St Patrick’s Breastplate is that it doesn’t just name things in nature, it notices and names their qualities. The sun is life-giving, lightning is free, earth is stable and the sea is deep.

This nature prayer practice begins by noticing what draws your attention, then asking what quality or attribute you are seeing.

It is reading the characteristics of nature simply by noticing what draws your attention, then asking what quality or attribute you are noticing.

That practice may become a prayer but it might also reveal something about your own need, longing, weakness or hope. By accident, you might find you're searching for what you lack or what's required for balance: steadiness, shelter, courage, softness, patience, rootedness.

Our deeper knowing, recognising our individual and specific weaknesses, search for prosthesis. Nature can give those needs a visible form.

How to do this nature prayer practice

You can do this nature prayer practice on a walk, in a garden, beside a river, in a park, or by sitting with one tree for ten minutes. You just need attention.

Take a notebook. Avoid using your phone, which is a perilous trapdoor to Distractionville.

Begin slowly. Let your attention soften. This is not a nature walk for information, fitness or achievement, but a way of praying with nature. You are waiting to notice, waiting for something ordinary to become vivid.

When something catches you, pause. It might be a plant, bird, stone, movement, sound, colour, pattern, weather, light, smell or texture.

Then ask three questions.

1. What am I actually noticing?

Try to stay with the real thing before turning it into meaning.

What is it, or what is it being or doing? What are its verbs?

What other attributes do you notice: its colour, texture, age, movement, fragility, strength, brightness, hiddenness, rootedness or dependence?

Is it demonstrating a quality: patience, resilience, openness, shelter, persistence?

Why did you notice it? Better still, why did it call to you?

This is close to Sensio Divina, a way of reading the book of nature.

2. What quality does it seem to carry?

Find a word or short phrase.

For example:

The light-seeking of the wood sorrel The brightness of the sorrel flowers The beauty of the unfurling ferns The lushness of the valley The reliance of the honeysuckle The energy of the new birch leaves The patience of the stone The shelter of the trees The persistence of grass through gravel The looseness of water finding its way

3. Why does that quality matter to me today?

This is where the practice becomes prayer rather than nature reading.

If you notice the stability of a rock, perhaps you are longing for steadiness.

If you notice the unfurling of a fern, perhaps something in you wants permission to open slowly.

If you notice the reliance of honeysuckle, perhaps you are thinking about dependence, support, or the myth that you should be entirely self-sufficient.

If you notice brightness, perhaps you have been living under too much grey.

If you notice tangled roots, perhaps you are recognising complexity, inheritance, or the hidden systems that hold you up.

Do not rush to make the meaning neat. Neatness is not necessary in prayer. The attribute you have noticed can be a doorway.

Turning noticing into a binding prayer inspired by St Patrick’s Breastplate

Once you have gathered a few observations, shape them into a simple binding prayer using the pattern from St Patrick’s Breastplate:

Spirit of Christ, I bind unto myself today...

Or, if that language is not yours, use:

God of life... Holy One... Source of life... Divine presence... Today I receive...

The point is not to force language that feels false. The point is to speak honestly from what you noticed.

Here is the prayer that came from that spring walk:

Spirit of Christ, I bind unto myself today, The stillness of the forest, The light-seeking of the wood sorrel, The brightness of the sorrel flowers, The beauty of the unfurling ferns, The lushness of the valley, The reliance of the honeysuckle.

You can leave the prayer there, or add a final line that captures what you need:

May these virtues teach me what I need to receive, practise and become.

Or more simply:

Let these things speak where I have forgotten how to listen.

What praying with nature can show you

This kind of nature prayer practice is useful because it gives your inner life something concrete to work with. Many of us are not very good at naming what we need. We may know we are tired, restless, numb, irritable, flat or stretched thin, but the next layer down can be harder to reach.

Nature gives us a different vocabulary for prayer, self-knowledge and spiritual direction.

Instead of asking directly, What is wrong with me?, which is rarely a question that fires up the soul, you might ask:

What quality am I drawn to? What quality do I resist? What quality do I lack at the moment? What quality feels like an invitation? What quality feels like grace?

You may find that you are drawn to strength, softness, rootedness, movement, shelter, wildness, patience, fruitfulness, clarity, spaciousness or rest.

That noticing can become self-knowledge, and it can also become prayer.

In spiritual direction, this is often part of the work: noticing what is alive, what is drawing us, what is being resisted, and where the Divine may be present in ordinary experience.

A spring flower may not tell you what to do with your life, (sensible flower), but it may help you notice that something in you is trying to turn towards the light.

That is enough for one walk.