October 1, 2024 Physical and mental wellbeing through forest therapy By Kimberly Hughes Editor’s Definition: What is forest bathing? Also known as shinrin-yoku, forest bathing is the practice of immersing oneself in a forest environment to promote physical and mental well-being by connecting with nature through sensory experiences. I first visited Japan when I was sixteen years old. A friend from Tokyo had invited me.
We had met while we both studying at my U.S. high school, and one of the first places she took me was Kamakura.
It was summer, and although I was used to the hot temperatures of the scorching Arizona desert, I found myself completely mesmerized by the unfamiliar combination of lush green trees, sultry humid air and deafening sound of chirping cicadas. “The cicadas sound so loud, it almost feels like silence,” I remember saying to my friend. And while this felt somewhat contradictory, I later learned that legendary poet Matsuo Basho had penned a haiku which describes a similar sentiment.
After visiting a forested mountain temple in Yamagata Prefecture, he wrote: Ah, such vast stillness! Even the cicada’s cry Sinks into the stone. Learning this, I felt vindicated that my seemingly counterintuitive observation was, in fact, an inadvertent echo of an ancient literary master. And now, I also understand that I was likely tapping into a sort of primal awareness that I had never before accessed as a hyper-urbanized American teenager.
Something that today one mig.
