Week 24: Forest-bathing or Shinrin-yoku

I came across forest-bathing thanks to an email advertisement of organized activities near Brussels. The fact that it took place in a forest under a full moon sounded very attractive to me but at the same time also a little bit mysterious. It was time to find out what forest-bathing is all about!

At 7pm, I went to the meeting place at the entrance of the forest. There were four of us, all women. Lena, our guide for the evening, explained what we were going to do and then off we went.

What did we do? We really took in the forest. We walked very slow, taking notice of our footsteps, breathing, as well as the sounds of the environment. We collected fallen leaves, branches and intuitively made a piece of art with it. We listened to the wisdom of the trees. And we shared our experiences.

At the end, in near darkness, we drank some freshly made herbal tea and ate a waffle while talking about how much energy being in nature had given us.

Again a unique experience, but one worth repeating.

Lena’s website is in Dutch only and can be found here:

https://www.boslucht.be/