From tree hugging to therapy
If you hear the phrase “forest bathing,” your mind may flash to skinny-dipping at a remote swimming hole in an Ozark creek, but actually it’s a rough translation of a Japanese phrase – Shinrin-yoku – coined in the early 1990s by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forest and Fisheries. Simply put, forest bathing is the act of immersion into the natural environment, slowing down just to be in nature. Turn off your day-to-day “monkey mind” and become aware of the light, fragrances, patterns, textures, sights and sounds of nature. Think of it as an unscripted meditation retreat in nature for an hour or two.
According to a report on July 17, 2017 on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, reporter Allison Aubrey cites an array of studies by Japanese research groups that suggest the forest bathing is healthful. A 2011 study, for example, found that blood pressure and several stress hormones were reduced when comparing the same amount of walking in a city compared with a forest walk. Now the concept is becoming established in the United States. The Association of Nature & Forest Therapy, founded by Amos Clifford, a wildness guide and counselor is training and certifying up to 250 new nature therapy guides every year. See www.natureandforesttherapy.org.
This is not a new idea. Throngs of tourists came to Eureka Springs for decades to take of the healing spring waters and enjoy trails that linked one spring to another. Maybe we’re an old idea, 100 years too early, whose time has finally come.
A walk in a grove of trees may have saved the Constitution. During a day off, on Saturday, July 15, 1787, a group of delegates spent the day in Bartram’s Garden in Philadelphia. Founded in 1728 by John Bartram (1699-1777), the garden was a cohesive representation of native trees and shrubs from all 13 colonies. It was a unique display of symbolic American unity.
Two days later, when the Convention convened again on July 16, 1787, after six weeks of stalemate, three delegates who had visited Bartram’s Garden switched their votes, agreeing to what became known as “The Great Compromise” giving proportional representation in the House of Representatives to each state, along with two members each in the Senate.
The seeds of the American Constitution had finally germinated. There’s still hope. Maybe politicians need a walk in the woods. Leave the golf clubs at home.