Bridges to Being

Shinrin-Yoku, which translates as forest bathing, originated in the 1980s in Japan as a way to promote the health benefits of exposure to natural environments. Inspired by Shinrin-Yoku and practiced worldwide, Forest Therapy offers a slow meditative walk in a natural setting where participants experience a certain sequence of focused elements with the guidance of a trained forest therapy practitioner. The practice of forest therapy allows one to connect deeply with oneself, with others, and with the more-than-human world. 

As participants are encouraged to focus their attention on their senses, thresholds are entered and a liminal state experienced. Like bridges which carry us over rivers, roads, or railroad tracks,  thresholds allow us to cross from the tamed world where troubles and cares threaten to overwhelm, to slowly settle into our role in the more-than-human world where we experience calm, discovery, and transformation. In this liminal state, participants often report experiencing deeply-rooted memories, feelings, messages, and at times a sense of emotional healing. While science has documented several profound physical and mental health benefits provided by a guided forest therapy experience, it is in approaching and crossing bridges into our liminal state where we find ourselves grounded to the present moment through our senses and our spirits renewed. 

Although the somatic experience of a forest therapy walk, when we become fully aware of what we are noticing with our sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, and heart sense, is quite different from a walk in the woods when we are focused on the world of ideas, we often slip between bodyfulness and mindfulness during our practice, in effect crossing back and forth over bridges throughout the practice. There is beauty and benefit in this. Yet, it is when we cross thresholds into the practice of bodyfulness through a deep sensory connection in nature that we experience the most startling and refreshing effects on our total person - body, mind, and heart.