Walk with SMB: Sensory Scavenger Hunt
Episode Summary: This episode is an invitation to step out of your usual pace for a few minutes.
You don’t need a beautiful trail, a wilderness destination, or even particularly good weather. You can walk through your neighborhood, a city park, around your yard, or simply sit somewhere and notice what’s around you.
The scavenger hunt begins with the senses: listening for something you haven’t heard today, looking closely at something you might normally pass by, noticing texture, scent, and even the taste of the air.
Then it becomes a little more playful.
What would it feel like to experience this place as another creature? To move through it as a fox, a bird, a rabbit—or something else entirely? Not as someone passing through the landscape, but as a creature who belongs there.
There’s nothing you need to accomplish and no particular state you’re supposed to reach. The invitation is simply to slow down enough to notice what’s here—and perhaps what changes in you as you do.
Show Notes
Most of us are accustomed to moving through the world with somewhere else to get to.
This WALK WITH ME episode offers something different: a reason to slow down on purpose.
Susan guides you through a sensory scavenger hunt, beginning with a simple check-in. How much tension are you carrying? How rushed do you feel? Where is your mind?
From there, you’ll explore your surroundings one sense at a time—noticing something you can hear, see, smell, touch, and even taste in the air.
The final invitation is one of imagination and play: for a few moments, experience the place as another creature might. What changes when you stop thinking of yourself as someone moving through nature and instead imagine yourself as a creature who lives here, too?
At the end of the walk, Susan returns to the questions from the beginning. Nothing needs to have changed. The practice is simply to notice.
Perhaps slowing down isn’t something we need to learn so much as something we need to remember.
Key Themes
Slowing down on purpose
Sensory awareness and attention
Presence without striving
Play and imagination
Experiencing ourselves as part of nature
Belonging to place
Key Takeaways
You don’t need to go somewhere extraordinary to practice noticing.
Engaging the senses can bring attention back to the place and moment you’re actually in.
Slowing down doesn’t have to have an outcome; noticing what is present can be enough.
Imagining the world from another creature’s perspective can shift how we experience our relationship with a place.
A slower pace may be easier to find again once we’ve experienced it.
“That this isn't a place you're passing through, but a place you belong to.”
Resources Mentioned
No special resources are needed for this walk.
Bring your phone or headphones if you’d like to listen while walking, dress for the weather, and choose a place where you can move—or simply be—safely.
Reflection Prompt
What did you notice when you slowed down that you might otherwise have passed by?
Prefer to read? The full transcript is below.
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Susan:
Welcome to Rooted, a podcast that explores the connection between nature and well-being. I'm Susan Morgan Bailey.
This is a Walk With Me episode, a little different from the guest conversations on the podcast. Today's episode is a guided walk, a short practice you can take outside with you, or if getting outside isn't possible for you, you're welcome to join however you are able. Everything I offer works either way.
A little preparation before we begin. If you're walking, I suggest choosing shoes that are comfortable but that won't let you move too quickly. Nothing built for speed. We're not trying to get anywhere quickly today.
Or if it's an option, you might even go barefoot if you can do so safely. Either way, the idea is the same.
Let something slow you down on purpose.
Most of us are so used to moving fast that we've forgotten how to do anything else.
Bring your phone with you so you can keep listening as you go, and dress for whatever the day's doing. Take a look at the weather before you head out. If it's sunny and warm, you know what to do. If rain is coming, that doesn't mean you can't go.
It just might mean a raincoat or an umbrella, maybe boots that make it a little harder to hurry. Whatever the weather is, it's not a reason to stay in. It's just something to prepare for.
Take a moment now, pause this if you need to, get your shoes, grab what you need, and step outside if that's where you're headed.
And whenever you're ready, walk with me.
A Moving Pause
Susan:
As you take your first few steps, pause for a moment, even as you're moving. A moving pause.
Take a breath and check in with your body.
Not to change anything, just to notice.
If you had to put a number on it, somewhere between one and ten, how much tension are you carrying right now? Not the day's version of tension, just in this moment.
And how rushed do you feel? Even now at this slower, deliberate pace, is there a part of you already thinking ahead? Already somewhere else?
Where's your mind right now? Is it holding on to anything?
You don't need to answer these questions out loud or even to yourself in words. Just notice your answers. We'll come back to this at the end and see what's shifted.
Setting an Intention
Susan:
Now let's set an intention for this time.
You might silently offer yourself something like this, or find your own words if something else wants to come.
May I be present to my body.
May I notice and remember the natural creature that I am.
May I move with gratitude for the nature I live in while I walk.
Whatever words you land on, let the intentions settle the way a stone settles into soil.
A Sensory Scavenger Hunt
Susan:
As you continue walking, let's begin noticing. There's no right way to do this. Just an invitation, one sense at a time.
Start with what you can hear, not the sound you expect, but something you haven't noticed yet today.
It might be small. A bird you can't see, a cricket creaking in the distance, wind moving through something.
The sound of your own steps.
Whatever you found, you might offer a quiet thank you. Not because you have to, just because it's there and it found you.
Now what do you see?
With fresh eyes, look for something new. Something you'd normally walk right past. A color you didn't expect, the way the light is falling on something ordinary, a shape in a tree, a crack in the pavement.
Pause to take it in. If you like, take it in as if you're in a museum. Take a moment to appreciate what you see. Let yourself really look at it.
Now see if you can find something to smell. Lean in if it's safe to do so. The bark of a tree, a flower, something else growing. Even the air itself has a smell.
Breathe in deeply and notice the scent it carries.
Now reach out if there's something safe to touch. Bark, a leaf, a stone, the ground.
Notice its temperature, its texture.
Whether it's rough where you expected it smooth or soft where you expected it to be scratchy.
See if you can taste something of this place. Not food, just the air itself.
Open your mouth slightly as you breathe. Is it cold or warm? Damp or dry?
Does the air carry anything? Salt if you're near water, sweetness if something's blooming, woodsmoke if it's that time of the year.
You might not find much. That's all right too. Some days the air is just the air.
Simply noticing that is enough.
Becoming a Creature of This Place
Susan:
Now one last invitation, a little different from the rest.
To play.
As you walk, let yourself imagine just for a moment that you live out here.
That this isn't a place you're passing through, but a place you belong to.
You might even imagine yourself as a fox, low to the ground, moving quietly, reading every scent on the wind, knowing exactly where the safe paths are.
Or a bird flying overhead, seeing the whole shape of this place at once, the roofline and the treeline, the way it all fits together.
Or a rabbit in the underbrush, still, alert, feeling the ground for every small vibration, at home in the smallest hidden spaces.
Choose whichever one calls to you. Maybe something with fur or feathers or scales.
For a few moments, move as they might move.
See as they might see.
Let your always-busy mind rest for a moment and borrow theirs instead, focused and entirely here in the present.
And when you're ready, let yourself be human again, but see if you can keep a little of that creature's attention with you.
That closeness.
That playful belonging.
That playful energy.
That presence.
Coming Back
Susan:
As we start to bring this walk to a close, let's return to where we began.
Notice your body again. Not comparing, not judging, just noticing.
If you had to put a number on it again, somewhere between one and ten, how much tension are you carrying now?
And that sense of rushing, is it still there? Is it different or is it the same?
Where is your mind now? Has anything shifted even slightly from where it was when we started?
Whatever you noticed or didn't is exactly right. There's no version of this you were supposed to get to.
Before we finish, let's offer one more moment of gratitude for the ground that held you, for whatever you saw, heard, smelled, touched, tasted, or experienced during these few minutes.
For a body that can move, notice, and slow down when it's invited to.
You might silently say thank you to the path, to the air, to the creature you borrowed for a while, and to yourself for taking this time.
I invite you to carry this pace with you if you'd like, even after you head back inside, back to speed, and back to whatever's next.
Maybe you'll notice that it's a little easier to find a slower pace again.
Thank you for walking with me today.
If this walk resonated with you, I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to Rooted so we can continue to explore together.
And if someone came to mind while we were walking, maybe invite them along next time. Send them the episode, put your earbuds in, and walk side by side.
Some things are better noticed in company.
Buen Camino, friends, until we meet again.
