The Global Forest Therapy Movement

10 years ago I was participating in a meditation on grounding to the Earth with something akin to an energetic or metaphorical umbilical cord. I asked the guide if it would be okay to tether to the sun instead, because that felt easier to me. He said that it was "remedial" and explained that I was disconnected from my home planet.

I had grown up playing daily outdoors, so this confused me. I loved nature. But I also realized I did not feel totally integrated with nature in the way I dreamed. My dreams included making things out of nature by hand, having a life cycle that danced with the seasons, and grokking a human-animal life. For me, participating in the global Forest Therapy movement felt like stepping into who I really am as an integrated member of this planet.

When we talk about forest therapy, we also mean the woods and the prairie~ we trust in a biodiverse ecosystem. Around the globe, in diverse habitats, trained guides are leading others to healing and meeting with scientists at conferences.

Below I share two great new pieces by

the USA founder of the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, Amos Clifford,

and the Dutch founder of Eco-Nidra, Kat Mertens.

I hope these help you sense the global movement reconnecting our human soulfulness with the earth.

** A Report from the Trail: July 2024

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...In a practice like Shinrin Yoku or forest therapy, each step we take is an invitation to the forest.

We come into the forest with an intention, a reason for choosing this activity, on this day, in this forest, with these people. Our intention may never be voiced. But as we walk through the forest, our presence is itself a statement. Bringing our bodies and minds to these trees may be a way of saying, “Here I am. Show me yourself. Reveal to me what I have not yet realized. Help me on my healing journey. Show me myself.” With this intention we step forward. Each step is guided by what we hold in our hearts. The forest listens. It responds.

Over time we become increasingly capable of recognizing how the forest responds to us. How it speaks to us. How it guides us. What it reveals.

Part of our journey to the forest is to learn the ways that are particular to each place. We make a turn on the trail and step into a new moment, a new place, a new community of presences: trees, flowers, shrubs, stones, aromas, patterns of light, birds, animals, breeze, textures.

We demand nothing of any being we encounter. We merely notice. And we notice what we are noticing, and how. All our senses are involved. They are linked to the intention we carry. All our senses are linked directly to our heart.

My intention will not be the same as my companions. What my senses notice will therefore be different than what anyone else notices. The forest bathes me, it bathes you, our baths are not the same.

The sludge of our everyday trances is gently washed away. We begin to remember. Remembrance itself is a process of revelation. The word “revelation:” To remove the veil. We encounter what has always been there, but that has been concealed.

The veil is lifted. Behind it, beyond it, are the myriad ways in which the world offers itself. Within our hearts we each carry the medicine we are born to bring into the world.

All medicine is relational; it is drawn out of us by contact with the world. By people who need our medicine. By stones and trees and waters who are always there, always inviting us. Singing a chorus to us.

Our job is to inhabit who we truly are. The forests of the world can help us remember. The deserts, the grasslands, the oceans, the lakes, the glaciers of the highest alpine regions; there is no place that cannot help us remember.

... (if you want to read Amos' story of his Portugal pilgrimage that was here, you can sign up (https://anft.earth/listings/) for the ANFT newsletter).

Sometimes it’s a hard path, offering oneself as an invitation. The world will roll out its lessons; an invitation involves letting go of the illusion of control. There is no predicting what will happen. There is risk, there is trial, there is reward. Always a movement toward the center of the soul.

Thirty years ago I wrote about this, in a poem that is a prayer:

Bright black stone

Marching sky

Soft drift of things discarded…

I want this world

To break my heart.

No, not as you think.

Not the cloying grief of loss, but more

The bright sad fact of the world

Of the whole world—

Its taste, its touch

Its perfect aching presence.

That’s what I mean.

The end of mind; and

Baptism in the great dark river,

Just here!

Where the vast and breaking world

Is simply home.

As I continue to represent ANFT at conferences and other gatherings, I do so with a sense of vulnerability and curiosity. What will be revealed? Whatever comes, I am confident it will influence my understanding of forest therapy as a practice, of the way of the guide, of the language of invitation. ...

-Amos Clifford

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** Alchemy of the Forest | Introduction to Forest Bathing

a documentary on Forest Bathing

By Kat and Stijn Mertens

Check out the Intro here (https://youtu.be/vfkHASfBwJQ?si=uf89e2D7aVZnK_CF)

or jump to thefirst interview with Irish Guide Michael Keegan (https://youtu.be/gsyIBapat10?si=Ms7RF5z_4mt8CTP7)

or the second interview with Leona Kral (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGrMIa5F0c0) .

Alchemy of the Forest is a documentary series on Forest Bathing or Forest Therapy, based on the originally Japanese practice of Shinrin-Yoku.

Forest Bathing sessions are gentle walks with a guide providing invitations that help awaken our senses, slow down and soften our hearts, so that we can receive nature’s gifts and remember our relation(ship) with the rest of nature.

While there is a large body of scientific research confirming the benefits of Forest Bathing for our physical and mental health, our aim is to focus on the

more subtle emotional,

transformative,

relational and ecological benefits

of the practice and how deep nature connection has been changing the lives of people and whole communities.

By Kat and Stijn Mertens