Shinrin-Yoku, [forest bathing]

I’ve had a lifelong loving relationship with nature and animals. My first best friend was my neighbor’s Dalmatian dog, Smokey. I grew up in rural America on farms. Earth and trees were everything to me. I made pretend birthday cakes out of mud. I coated my five year old self in mud for the fun of it. I rinsed off outside in a galvanized wash tub with ice cold water pumped from the well. I sunned myself warm again by lying in the grassy backyard. 

Trees were more than landscaping backdrops, they felt like friends and mentors. The beech tree held my wooden flat seated swing. The plum trees provided snacks. The maple trees provided shade for my friends and me to spread out under on a homemade quilt and play pretend with our dolls. The white poplar, named Uncle Joe, was my confidant and advisor. When my parents were going through their divorce while I was in the eighth grade, I would skip school to walk all day in the woods by myself. 

All my adult life wherever in the world I may be, I know where to find the trees. Woods. Forests. Parks. Arboretums. Backyards. A couple of weeks ago I was blessed to experience something called Shinrin-Yoku, [ forest-bathing ] with a group of people and a guide at the Arboretum. 

I had read about Shinrin-Yoku a few years ago. After that, I would often refer to my walks in the woods as forest bathing. I had even looked into the idea of becoming a guide. So, when a new friend of mine invited me to join an international club that just happened to be offering a Shinrin-Yoku group session, that just happened to be at my local Arboretum, I was on it! 

We were twelve women meeting our gentleman guide in the parking lot. Almost half the women were Japanese. (It is an international friends club by the way.) Our guide told us that because of work, he had traveled to Japan twice a year for 25 years. He had learned about Shinrin-Yoku from his Japanese friends. When he returned to America he wanted to be a guide. He discovered there was a global association of forest therapy that offered training, which he took a few years ago. Fate had allowed for everything and everyone to come together over the years and there we were ready to collectively take in the forest atmosphere.

The Arboretum had become my recent haunt since early Summertime. Sometimes I would go daily. I was getting familiar with the 127 acre spread, its paths, woods, gardens, and even some of the workers who tended the gardens. The little path that took in the gardens was flat and easy for my visiting best friend who came to catch up and restore and nurse her injured knee and spirit this past summer. I continued to visit it on my own and walk the larger paths into the woods, especially because it was less marshy than the parks that harbored savage and hungry mosquitos all season. I felt a familiar and at-home-kind-of-peace when I visited. There was much there to remind me of the large farm where I had lived as a child. The mansion reminded me of our landlord’s oversized house, and the acres and acres of property had similar woods, fields, and streams. The energy is also similar, stately and yet welcoming, orderly and safe. 

It’s a nice place to go forest bathing. 

This was my first meeting with the club, I only knew my friend and she and I hadn’t seen each other in over a year. There was a welcoming energy all around as we greeted each other with smiles. Our guide ushered us in a timely fashion over to the little park between the parking lot and the mansion.  Here, we experienced our first circle.

He briefed us about Shinrin-Yoku [forest bathing], bathing in the forest’s atmosphere. This is a type of therapy started in Japan in the 1980s. Modern life has taken most of us away from our natural surroundings and we have paid a steep price. When we go forest bathing we take in the atmosphere and feel better. There’s a reason for that.

Trees, all plants, take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen. They also release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that have antiviral and antifungal properties. These protect the trees from their harmful invaders. We also benefit from breathing in these VOCs. It increases our production of natural killer cells, or NK, a special type of white blood cells. These cells in our bodies kill off infection and tumor cells that are invading us. 

There’s more.

Forest bathing with its sights and sounds and pauses, also has been shown to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and blood sugar, give us better concentration, and diminish pain. When we forest bathe, our bodies start to produce our own chemicals, or happy hormones that improve our health and spirits. 

What a rather beautiful design and natural mutually beneficial relationship we have here. We are far from separate from nature, we are nature. 

Our guide then told us what to expect that day during our session with the trees. We would walk only short distances and stop and form a circle to receive an invitation, then meet back for another circle. We were to be mostly silent so we could embrace more fully our surroundings. Talking would only be in the circle and only the necessary minimum. One by one we introduced ourselves by name, by place of birth, and by why we came here to engage in Shinrin-Yoku. 

Then he had us get comfortable, we could sit or stand. Some sat on the bench. Others leaned on trees. Some sat on the ground. I stood. We closed our eyes and he guided us through a progressive relaxation. Piece by piece, our bodies accepted the energy from the sun. We felt the warmth and the breeze on our skin. Our ears listened. We heard birds chirping and power mowers and planes. Our feet sprouted roots and went into the ground and our minds’ eyes followed the network of roots. We bent down and touched the ground with our bare hands, then brought our hands to our noses and took in the earth’s fragrance. Then we held our hands cupped in front of us to receive and hold the energy being sent. We put our hands to our hearts. We listened to our hearts. 

One by one we shared what this was like for us. I appreciated the pause and the sound of nearby birds. Most noticeable to me was how I stopped being aware of the others around me. I was in a space without objects. 

Our next invitation was to silently follow him as he led us through the gardens on the other side of the mansion to a space past the gazebo to an opening under some trees. We were to listen and we were to be mindful of motion and movement. As we walked through the gardens, I smiled as a single leaf floated gently to the ground, as if on cue. The wind moved through the trees, a plane and a few birds flew overhead. I thought how the trees had sap coursing through them as did we, also have our own circulatory system. The earth and path were solid beneath our feet, but yet the Earth was rotating and revolving at great speed. 

We made another circle in the clearing under the trees, and shared our observations.

Our next invitation was to go out individually and hide. The intent was twofold. What would we find there and what would find us? Again, not too far. Just far enough.

Even though I have walked this area numerous times, there was a path I had not taken. I smiled at that phrase, and started down that path. There was a tree immediately on the left that faced a few bushes behind it and overlooked a field. I hid behind it. I leaned my back on its trunk and looked out. I closed my eyes and wondered what would find me. I wondered if there was something deep and profound to that. A plane flew loudly overhead. I opened my eyes, turned around, and looked at the tree. I put my hand on the tree and a spotted lanternfly landed on my hand. The spotted lanternfly is a pretty looking moth type creature. It’s native to China and has invaded the region in the past few years and is quite detrimental to trees. Read into that what you will.

Back at the circle we were told we would be meeting a new friend. Silently we followed and walked on the paved path and turned back towards the parking lot. To our left is another little park. The trees are close together in a cluster. Huge and majestic trees adjacent to a fern park with a winding cobblestone path. Before the little park was here, there was the private tennis court where the former residing family played as they summered here a hundred years ago. We stayed in the area with the trees and made another circle. 

The new friend was going to be a tree. A tree that our body, not our mind, was attracted to. We were to have a conversation. Introduce ourselves. Listen.

There were several trees there.

Majestic. Beautiful. Stately.

Linden. Weeping Katsura. Red Oak.

Feeling magnanimous, I waited to allow the others to cosy up with the celebrity trees. After all, I could easily come back anytime, and I would. I already knew these trees. It didn’t take long for the pairings to form. If this was a dance, the music had started and I still needed a partner. 

I found her. She was an older lady. A sycamore maple. She had many broken-off limbs, yet despite that, she connoted strength. The base of her is large and shows huge intertwining roots that wrap around and around. I looked up and saw a little cubby built into her with a store of nuts for dining on later. I sensed she had a lot to tell. We both knew there was little time for that, so we simply breathed in each other’s gifts to the other. I felt a kinship. 

Back at the circle it was apparent that: nothing happens by accident. Most had partnered with their special tree and also had felt kindred to it.  The relaying from some of the ladies, of the stories the trees told, were stuff of magical places. We were certainly getting into the spirit of the trees. 

We had one more invitation.

The guide had a bag full of small rolled up scrolls the size of a fortune cookie, tied in a twine bow. Our instructions inside them were handwritten. Mine was, “Let your body go limp and listen.”

I knew I simply had to go inside the canopy of the Weeping Katsura. She’s one of my favorites. She has marked some life milestones with me. We have pictures together that my daughter took years ago. If I was going to go limp, I wanted the privacy her curtains would provide. 

At the previous circle, the woman who had befriended her said she looked like a painting. A Gustav Klimt painting. I agree. She is a force of nature. She is a work of art. I adore her.

I walked through the space where the thin hanging branches naturally parted. To pull back the curtain by hand would have felt too intrusive to me. I was delighted in the scene her stout and curvy branches provided. I sat on one and stroked the other. It was smooth to my touch. I took pause and pleasure in her company before following the instruction. I closed my eyes, I let my body go limp, and I listened.

Beautiful songbirds nearby, and the whir of cars on the highway only a few miles away, and the loud jets overhead. It struck me that in addition to the mutual relationship we have individually, we live together in our societies sharing space. This society of trees in the Arboretum could live so well and easily in the midst of, of what, of New Jersey. New Jersey, the most densely populated state. New Jersey, the state with the most miles of highways. New Jersey with its miles and acres of Arboretums, parks, forests, and woods, and backyards. 

We were having this deep, meaningful, and restorative experience not deep in a rainforest, miles from civilization, we were in New Jersey surrounded by planes, trains, and automobiles. 

At our last and parting circle the guide marveled at our collective depth and apparent respectful appreciation of this shared experience. 

He read Nikita Gill’s poem, “You have become a forest” to us. In it, she commends us for our growth, our strength, and our ability to turn things around, among other traits. 

May it be so.

May it be so.

(The End.)

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