FOREST BATHING 

While mindfulness is about calming the mind by focusing inwardly, forest bathing, briefly put, is about creating calm by focusing outwardly – on the forest.

The method has roots in the Japanese forest bathing practice, shinrin-yoku.

In Japan, Associate Professor, Dr Qing Li has documented how being in a forest, among other effects, can lower our level of the stress hormone cortisol and impact the parasympathetic nervous system.

In recent years, forest bathing and other types of nature therapy have spread from Japan to the rest of the world. Practices vary from country to country and from one forest bathing guide to another, just as it varies whether nature experiences are recognized as a therapy form and may be prescribed by medical professionals.

Two months later, on a Sunday in April, I find myself in front of Dyrehavehuset alongside the other forest bathers. I have left my smartphone and watch in the car. As Bess hands out waterproof seat cushions, she speaks softly and reminds us not to talk during the experience. Even if we see something truly amazing, we are to keep the experience to ourselves, because the others might be in the middle of experiencing something else entirely. Two and a half hours of communing with nature await.

Occasionally, Bess provides guidance – not to what we should experience but to how we can create the right conditions for experiencing.

In the silence, the forest smells different from step to step, and it is easy to notice that the black beetles have blue legs and see the slugs slithering out from their hiding places. I see and sense spruce tips, pinecones, bark, moss, mushrooms, primrose, anemone, buttercup, violet and woodruff and hear the bees buzzing in the cherry tree and the soothing murmur of the brook.

The view from the forest over the water resembles a Golden Age painting – and then again, not.

The lake, which overflowed its banks this winter, has retreated, taking all the debris from the forest floor with it. The roots of the trees are exposed. I am reminded of the old, ravaged, tired human bodies I recently saw in a hospital, where the lack of privacy walls or curtains defied all modesty.

We pause, each one leaning our back against a tree, enjoying the sunshine. Although we maintain a respectful distance to each other, our silent community is intimate – more intimate than if we were talking.

On a couple of occasions, Bess reads a poem to the group.

Suddenly, the time is up, and we are back where we started, in Thuja Grove – called Petite Jura in honour of the land-owner’s Swiss ancestors, Bess explains.

She serves green tea brewed on the spot, reads one more poem and wraps up the experience by asking if anyone wants to say a few words about the experience.

The word ‘presence’ comes up more than once.