Bowing At The Threshold
A daily ritual of shinrin-yoku or forest bathing has helped me cultivate and strengthen my relationship with Nature.
Lately, I’ve been trying to cultivate a deeper relationship with the forest that skirts around my cabin home. I have the absolute privilege of living exactly seven minutes away from the Prescott National Forest.
This forest is home to deer, peregrine falcons, cottontail rabbits, javelinas, bobcats, king snakes, tassel-eared squirrels, ravens, quail, bluebirds, woodpeckers, the mullein plant family, junipers, ponderosa pine trees, oak trees, and more beings that are part of the more-than-human world.
The more-than-human world is the world of the animals, plants, the soil, clouds, the moon, the sun, the sky - anything that isn’t human or man made, in short, Nature.
When I first heard the terms: “non-human world” and “more-than-human world” my tiny brain couldn’t quite grasp them.
What isn’t human? Everything is part of the human world. I, the human, foolishly and egotistically, thought.
It wasn’t until I started my Ecopsychological journey with Naropa University, that I came to understand, acknowledge and respect the more-than-human realm authentically.
I had an appreciation for Nature, but it was superficial. I found myself aestheticizing Nature; not being able to see past her beauty.
I can now say I have a new-found appreciation and genuine relationship with Mother Nature. I am constantly looking for ways to deepen my relationship with her and help others see the value in cultivating a relationship with the more-than-human world themselves.
A daily ritual of shinrin-yoku or forest bathing has helped me cultivate and strengthen my relationship with Nature and more specifically the forest that surrounds Thumb Butte.
Shinrin in Japanese means ‘forest,’ and yoku means ‘bath’. So shinrin-yoku means bathing in the forest atmosphere, or taking in the forest through our senses. This is not an exercise, or hiking, or jogging. It is simply being in nature, connecting with it through our sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. When we open up our senses, we begin to connect with the natural world. ~Dr. Qing Li
I’ve been reading master forest bather, Dr. Qing Li’s book, Shinrin-Yoku: The Art And Science Of Forest Bathing, How Trees Can Help You Find Health And Happiness (2008) and I’ve found that a two-hour forest bathing practice can help:
Increase energy
Decrease anxiety, depression and anger
Reduce stress and bring about a state of relaxation
Lowers stress hormones: cortisol and adrenaline
Suppresses the sympathetic or fight or flight system
Enhances the parasympathetic or ‘rest and recover’ system
Lowers blood pressure and increases heart-rate variability
Lower stress
Improve cardiovascular and metabolic health
Lower blood-sugar levels
Improve concentration and memory
Improve pain thresholds
Improve energy and mood
Boost the immune system with an increase in the count of the body’s natural killer (NK) cells
Increase anticancer protein production
Help you sleep
Help you lose weight
My forest bathing ritual starts in the morning when I go for a walk with Bosque and my partner.
Before we step into the forest realm, we set an intention, placing our hands over our hearts, closing our eyes and dropping into our breath and our senses.
Then, we bow at the threshold. The threshold can be anything. It's what sets the modern world apart from the natural world. It can be a creek, or a fallen log. In our case it often happens to be two trees that stand parallel to one another as if marking a portal. You will almost always recognize a threshold when you see it if you are paying attention.
You can also always make anything a threshold depending on your intention. There are also liminal thresholds which take place within our psyches rather than manifesting into the physical.
My intention is always the same: To be aware, to be present and open in order to receive the magic and healing quality of the forest.
Setting an intention helps me arrive, become aware and recognize that I am about to enter a sacred space.
The act of bowing shows the forest I have reverence, I am a student, I am humble and I am here to act accordingly.
This land is special. This land is a vortex. I can tell by the way the Juniper trees grow in a spiral form - some of them are warped and twisted as if the trunk had been clay and God was molding her into a whorl.
The land’s energy swirls and draws to its center anything that is in its vicinity like a tornado.
I often leave my phone behind. My camera. Anything that can divorce me from the present moment.
The senses are a bridge to the present, so I focus on those.
As I walk on the trail, I notice the unique colors of the lichen so striking against the grey rocks. I see the different shades of green of the trees. I get closer to the tree trunks and notice the different textures and patterns. Then I get even closer and smell.
My favorite trees to visit and smell are Ponderosa Pine Trees. They have a sweet scent of butterscotch or caramel, and now that it’s warmer out her scent is heightened, bringing me to a state of elation every time we embrace.
My friend Amber, says you have to kiss and smell for the full effect. And so, often times I do that too.
I touch and caress the soft mullein leaves, they are furry and fuzzy caressing me back as I run my fingers through them.
I listen to the birds singing like a waterfall washing over me.
I taste the sweet medicine of simplicity of being enveloped by the forest with nothing to do, nowhere in particular to go and without the force of trying to be anything but being here, now, open & aware.
In the forest I am a child again. A playful energy overcomes me, and I am filled with awe and wonder. The smallest things make me rejoice: the sun’s reflection dancing like star clusters on the creek, the shadow play of the leaves as the sunshine seeps through the trees and the blades of grass trembling softly as the wind strokes them.
Everything is alive. Everything in the forest has a spirit. The Earth is animate and no one can tell me otherwise.
All the moss sitting on the creekbed call to me, “pet me!” so I run over there and pet those soft little green hairs with my fingers.
Everywhere I look I find poetry.
In the Juniper trees growing from cracks in the stone I see poems of resilience and hope.
I read poems of strength & power in unity in the trunk of the Ponderosa Pine trees as they stand rooted, watching over the land, communicating and connecting with other trees through the mycelium.
In the burnt black land, the fallen and charred trees I read poems of loss and despair.
The fungi growing on the decaying logs however, teach me how death is an essential process for rebirth.
In Nature there is an abundance of symbols, and metaphors that the more-than-human world offers to either communicate with us or mirror us. This allows us to transition from the rational mode of thinking to imaginative, and from linear to storytelling. We can expand our sense of self more easily when we shift to the imaginary.
This shift in perspective, this shift to broaden your sense of self to include the whole of Nature is perhaps the greatest invitation and the medicine our domesticated society needs to drink.
And in order for this shift to happen we must first return to our animal senses.
From David Abram’s perspective (author of Waking Our Animal Senses: Language and the Ecology of Sensory Experience), it is only by returning to our senses, reawakening the forgotten intimacy and solidarity between the human animal and the animate Earth, that we have a chance of bridging the gap between the natural world and the human world. (Harding, 2006)
That being said, I invite you to join me in a meditative experience.
Sensing the Earth as Animate, a meditative experiment:
Go out to a place in nature you feel comfortable in and lie down flat on your back. Relax and close your eyes, taking a few deep breaths. Become aware of your body and the parts that are touching the ground. Feel the Earth as the gentle pull of gravity supports you and grounds you upon the land. Perceive gravity as the force of love that Mother Nature feels for the atoms, the matter and the elements that make up your physical body. This love is like none other; it holds you safely and prevents your body from floating up beyond the atmosphere and into outer space. Rejoice in the unconditional love and protection you are receiving from the Earth by inviting in an inner smile. Smile to all your organs. Smile to all your cells. Take another deep breath this time opening your eyes. Notice the plants, the trees, and the sky in your environment. As you breathe, focus on the way your chest rises as you inhale and then become aware of how your chest falls and decompresses gently as you exhale. As you inhale once more, become conscious of the fact that this breath is being provided to you by the plant kingdom, and as you exhale, you are returning back that breath to the plants and trees, so that it may be recycled infinitely, and so that you may have the breath of life each and every waking moment of your life. Now you are connected. Now you are one. Dwell in this sense of oneness for as long as you please.
When you walk upon the land, tune into the senses. Remember your connection.
When you go indoors and the bright blue light of your phone calls to you, remember your connection.
you are not separate from Nature.
You are Nature.
As Alan Watts says, “You didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.”
I hope you can remember your connection with the more-than-human world every single day. And in moments of dis-connection, that you are able remember to cultivate that relationship with Nature, and your inner-Self through contemplative practices that help you arrive at meditative states.
it’s important for both people and planet.
may you walk in strength and beauty,
Moonsong Monarch