Forest Bathing

I first heard about Forest Bathing several years ago when I visited the Minneapolis Landscape Arboretum with my sister, Sally. The Arboretum introduced the concept and practice of Forest Bathing to the twin cities.  Since then, classes and experiences are offered regularly at the Minneapolis Arboretum led by David Motzenbecker, a landscape architect and certified Shinrin-yoku guide.  I have wanted to experience it first-hand ever since.

Over the weekend I attended a Forest Bathing walk at Shelburne Farms in Shelburne, Vermont, led by Duncan Murdoch, a nature connection guide. The concept of Forest Bathing or shinrin-yoku originated in Japan in the 1980s and has spread all around the world.  The purpose is both physiological and psychological and is a form of “ecotherapy,” designed to align us with natural rhythms, quiet our pre-occupied minds, bring us healing energy and into a flow state of mind.  While Japan is credited with the term, the concept at the heart of the practice is not new.  Many cultures and spiritual practices have long recognized the importance of the natural world to human health.  Forest Bathing is not only a mindful walk in the woods, which it certainly is.  It is a guided, reflective, focused time to connect to the natural world with all our senses and to share what we notice with others.

I arrived at the Farm Barn at Shelburne Farms where we were to meet our group at 9:00 a.m. for a three-hour guided Forest Bathing walk.  I found around ten people gathered, locals from the Burlington area, a visiting Canadian couple, and four graduate school music students from New Hampshire.  Duncan led us in a circle of gratitude to all the elements and creatures of this place and in introductions to each other.  He explained that he would be offering invitations to us…followed by a period of silent exploration by each of us.  At the end of the period, he would play his flute and whistle to signal us to gather, in a new location each time, to share our experiences if we chose to.  The first invitation was to notice, “What is moving?”…as we walked wherever we wanted to go…into the woods, around the gardens, overlooking the farm.  The second invitation was focused on sound… what did we hear? How did the sounds make a symphony around us? The third invitation was about touch.  What happened if we allowed ourselves to walk barefoot? Or to touch the forest, garden, and meadow world with our hands? The last invitation was called, Sit Spot. We each sat in one place for an extended period to see what might happen around us or come to us.

We concluded our time together around a fire circle close to the edge of the forest.  Duncan had brewed tea made of golden rod, stinging nettles, and red clover in a small metal Japanese tea pot. He wanted us to taste the landscape out of small ceramic cups as we shared our final thoughts.  I have participated in many walking meditations. The focus is on breath and our steps and our feet and legs as we move slowly and appreciate movement and breath and our bodies moving through space.  Forest Bathing shifts the focus to the senses. It is slow and quiet because to put your focus on one sense at a time requires this kind of attention.  I was captivated by how enjoyable and timeless the morning became.  I was mesmerized watching bees in the sunflower blossoms, listening to the corn stalks rustle in the breeze, stroking sugar maple leaves and Queen Anne’s lace, so soft like velvet, and watching the clouds slowly change form. 

There were some tears at our closing circle.  And gratitude and calm from all of us, all different ages and nationalities, having experienced the great woods and land of Shelburne Farms with so much attention.  

Years ago, when I was a new teacher, I attended a weeklong workshop at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science and was taught how to Seton Watch… inspired by the practice of naturalist, Ernest Thompson Seton, we sat in one spot where we would not see anyone else, and quietly observed the world around us for about 20 minutes.  I brought this practice back to the school where I was teaching and have remembered and practiced some form of it ever since.  Forest Bathing is a more extended practice that is also fun and beneficial to bring to children and families.

During the morning when we were asked to focus on touch, Duncan invited us to bring back an object if we wanted to.  I picked up the first red leaves I saw on the ground, a sugar maple and a red maple.  I also picked up a fat, round acorn from a northern red oak. I brought these pieces of the morning home with me and began to think about another practice that I learned about last spring and introduced to my granddaughter, Delilah.  Through following Margot Guralnick on Instagram, @dogwalkdiarynyc, I was introduced to collecting and composing bits and pieces of the natural world as a daily practice.  Margot is a designer who takes a daily walk in her neighborhood of the Bronx, or wherever she finds herself.  On her walk she collects leaves, twigs, seedpods, berries…whatever pieces of the natural world are available and that she is drawn to. Then, she arranges these pieces into compositions on the ground, or on a table, or any interesting surface and photographs them.  She posts these photographs for all to see.  She calls these compositions “daily devotionals,” “a daily meditation on and collaboration with the plant world.”  She says that she is inspired by early botanicals and the roadside shrines in Greece and Mexico.  Some might also call her work ephemeral art or environmental art. 

Last spring, Delilah and I were lucky enough to meet Margot when she had a show at a small shop in Cambridge Massachusetts.  Both Delilah and I loved the post cards and posters of Margot’s daily meditations. We purchased some to bring home, inspired to make our own. This is another form of being attentive to the natural world on walks wherever we are…like a treasure hunt. Different than forest bathing, but a related practice.

Margot Guralick, Delilah Cadwell, and Louise Cadwell at https://www.abroadmodern.com

When we lived in Reggio Emilia, Italy, I observed teachers of very young children taking slow walks in the park that surrounds the Diana School and picking up leaves and pods to bring inside. The teachers and children made collections of all sizes, shapes, and colors of leaves, seeds, and objects from the natural world. Then, they children were invited to imagine that they were the wind making arrangements of leaves on the earth . What would they do?

The Diana School, 1992

These practices…Forest Bathing, Seton Watching, daily devotional arrangements of pieces of the natural world…all invite us, as a curious friend or playmate, into relationship with the natural world.

If you want to pursue these ideas…read Your Guide to Forest Bathing (Expanded Edition): Experience the Healing Power of Nature, by M. Amos Clifford or find a Forest Bathing experience led by a guide near you.  Follow Margo, @dogwalkdiarynyc, and make your own ephemeral compositions with friends and family. 

One of the books I have on my bedside table, The Joy of Forest Bathing: Reconnect With Wild Places & Rejuvenate Your Life, by Melanie Chokes-Bradley, emphasizes how Forest Bathing is a year-round practice through all the seasons. I have not thought of it that way, and now I will.  We invite you all to try this way of walking out into the natural world as the seasons change. We will be walking together.

Joy is Not Made to be a Crumb

Forty years ago today, our youngest son, Christopher, was born.  I remember the day, of course, with joy.  Forty years, goodness.  How does that time pass so fast? Now Chris and his wife, Leila, have two children, ages four and one.

Chris planned a birthday party last weekend that took place at the farm that Ashley and his brothers grew up on and now steward.  The barn, newly renovated with a solid foundation, makes a lovely place to gather.  And in between the torrential rains of the summer in Vermont, there were two beautiful, perfect days.

The state of the world is rough. Climate change is upon us. Politics are brutal. People are dying and suffering in wars and disasters. Nevertheless, Ashley and I are feeling so grateful these days, for family, for friends, for place, for our children and grandchildren. 

Recently, I came upon this Mary Oliver prose poem that we will leave you with this August.

May you all relish the last month of summer.

“Don't Hesitate”

by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Skiing Seeing Being

Greem Mountain Valley School student athletes

My second great adventure in education, after two years of teaching 3rd/4th grade in a rural Vermont school, was to join a college buddy and two of his friends to start a ski racing academy in the Mad River Valley, Vermont.  That private secondary school became the Green Mountain Valley School (GMVS).  

In the third year of the school (1976), I applied for and received a grant from the State of Vermont to develop a course entitled, “Skiing, Seeing, Being.”  I know: whoa?!?!  It was an attempt to get at why what we were doing was not just fun, but also generative, even educational.  

Green Mountain Valley School campus

The basic premise was a well established theory of education championed by John Dewey whose home is enshrined in Burlington, Vermont: that we learn through a process of having experiences and then reflecting on them, describing them, and, thereby embedding them in our memory.  

So, I wondered, are we learning through skiing?  I suspected two things.  First of all, that you don’t learn from the experience unless you reflect on it.  You’re just free range adolescent chickens, having fun no doubt, but not really getting anywhere, except slightly happier. But, secondly, I thought that if we created a practice of reflection that it could migrate into other areas, like learning how to write and read (that I was supposed to be teaching), and thereby develop a sense of self, of being.

So, it was a practice of skiing (experience), seeing (reflection, class with Ash), and being (discovered through describing and writing, integration into self).

It turned out to be a fun and productive practice.  After all, the students were ski junkies and loved to talk about skiing, particularly their peak experiences.  Our classroom discussions were stimulated by a simple prompt: “Tell us about what happened today on snow.”  Then, at the end of class came the “assignment:”

“Ok, for tomorrow, bring in a written version of what you related today.”  

Green Mountain Valley School student ski racer

Over the course of the ski racing season, each student collected their “stories.”  During the last weeks of the semester they re-read their writings and discovered patterns in their experiences and reflections.  The final questions were: “How do your experiences contribute to who you are becoming?  What does ski racing mean to you?  Can you draw connections to other parts of your life?” To enrich our discussions and perspective we read from a variety of sources.  They included Naked Poetry, a marvelous anthology of modern poets, and Six Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler

I regret that I didn’t collect and keep some of their writings.  Many were transformative.  Just last month, over 400 GMVS alum gathered to celebrate its 50th anniversary.  Three of my former students confided in me that that class had changed and directed their lives; that they had discovered a way to find meaning in their experiences; and that, as one said through tears, “I discovered the essence of joy, and, as best I can, I live it every day.”

Skiing Seeing Being.

Green Mountain Valley School ski racers

Circles

Full moon watercolor by Anne Pratt, Louise’s sister

The perfect pearl of a moon hung in a navy blue, velvet sky over the trees, over the fields, framed by our bedroom windows. Our room was illuminated with a soft light. I am always amazed by the full moon, especially. A perfect bright circle in the sky. What more do we need to guide us to be whole?

I have been aware of circles of all kinds this month. I visited a kindergarten in Cambridge, Massachusetts last week. Eighteen children and a teacher sat in a perfect circle at morning meeting, listening, engaged, respectful, happy, learning. This is a cultivated practice in a classroom. I wrote about circles of learning in conversation and dialogue in a blog post five years ago. How to be fully present for one another. Facing all others, taking a place in a circle of classmates, friends, or new people, becoming an essential part of a whole.

Kindergarten circle for read alouds, The College School.

The Buddhist bell at morning meditation is a perfect brass bowl that sings a beautiful tone when invited to ring with a soft wooden “shu-moku.” The shape and the sound is meant to clear our minds, to bring us back to our basic goodness, to prepare us for mediation. The larger the bell, the deeper and more sonorous the sound. Our family has listened to the bell for many years starting when we attended retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh in the 80s. We often ring a bell at meals, stopping to be grateful for each other, and the food on our table, and all the hard work that has brought the food to us and us to the table.

Thich Nhat Hanh ringing the bell, California family retreat, 1989

We attended a funeral of a dear friend a few weeks ago. It was Episcopal and followed the liturgy. We were uplifted by the heavenly choir and organ, the diverse clergy in vestments made of African cloth, the order of the service, both mournful and stately, and gorgeous and at full volume. Somehow, I felt no limits in this service. No walls between all the traditions that I have been lucky enough to be a part of. At the end of the service, the clergy and young acolytes all surrounded the cremains that were in a box surrounded by white roses. There was period of silence and moments of bearing witness for all of us, all together. This was a circle of grief and ritual, coming and going, birth and death.

Later, I thought of reading about elephant herds who surround an elephant who has died in a perfect circle. I thought of our family of two parents and two sons instinctively holding hands and encircling my mother moments after she had died. I thought of our family’s and many families’ practice of group hugs, forming a circle of arms and bodies entwined,, to give thanks, to laugh, to squeeze one another, to be encircled in love.

I thought of the circle of song and music that I have attended lately at a new place called Gather on Saturdays in the town of Middlebury, Vermont, initiated by the local Bread Loaf Mountain Zen Community. People of all walks of life gather here for comfort, for food, for a listening ear, for friendship, for care. This poster hangs outside the space, which is in the middle of downtown Middlebury:

Why do we Gather?

We gather for comfort. We gather to celebrate. We gather to mourn. We gather to mark transitions. We gather to honor and acknowledge. We gather to welcome and to say goodbye. We gather to be safe. We gather to pray. We gather to laugh. We gather to recover. We gather to create. We gather to find our way. We gather to wish each other well. We gather to make decisions. We gather to be silent together. We gather to build community. We gather to solve problems we can’t solve on our own. We gather to show strength. We gather to be vulnerable. We gather because we need one another.

Something inside us calls us to gather and to form circles at beginnings and endings, at times of ritual, at times of joy and happiness. As you enter this summer, may you find many circles of beauty and care…in the natural world, in friendship, in sorrow and in joy. With many blessings to each of you.

Miracles of Spring at Home

Everything blooming at once…apple trees, daffodils, lilacs. The lush yellow green of spring enveloping us. The deep blue sky over us. We somehow feel that this time of year is heaven on earth in Vermont. We hope that spring is beautiful for you wherever you are and as we near the end of the school year, that your work and your lives are joyous and fulfilling.

The orchard we live in in full bloom

Lilacs transplanted from Ashley’s home farm 30 years ago!

Late blooming daffodils

Crabapple about to flower

Herb and tomato “starts” for the garden

Forget-me-nots transplanted from a dear friend’s garden, now beside our front steps