Hector Garcia - Forest Bathing

There is nothing you can see that it is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that it is not the moon.

Matsuo Basho

A Green Twig in Your Heart

T he seed for this book was planted in the forests of Hakone, a small city in Kanagawa Prefecture. After our book Ikigai divulged the secrets of Japanese centenaries to readers in many parts of the world, we decided to take a trip with some friends and get as far away from Japanese cities as possible, with a mind to exploring the regions wilderness and lakes. We shared a house high in a leafy forest with a well-known psychologist, a biologist, and a philosopher.

The next morninghaving slept on the floor, as is still the custom in traditional Japanese homeswe discovered that what the owner of the property had promised us was true. From the veranda, Mount Fuji was clearly visible in all its splendor. We couldnt take our eyes off that mythical, snow-capped summit, so after breakfast we made green tea and took out the musical instruments wed brought along to do some singing and songwriting on our trip.

We makeshift minstrels had only a small Casio keyboard, a guitalele (half guitar and half ukulele) and our own voices. Inspired by the views of Lake Hakone and by the thick carpeting of trees that surrounded the sacred mountain, we began to lightheartedly improvise a simple song:

Good morning Fuji,
Green mountains,
Blue sky.
Hello Mount Fuji,
Sometimes shy,
Hiding behind clouds.
Hello Fuji,
White snow,
It is your hat.

Buoyed by the tea and that silly song, we left to take a walk through the majestic forests that led all the way down to the lake. All five of us had accumulated a years worth of stress caused by our relentless lives in the city where our calendars were chock full of commitments, and obligations seemed to stampede over us in an already overcrowded, polluted environment. This heavy load disappeared as if by magic as soon as we entered the forest. Wed decided to disconnect our cell phones, and as we stepped into the thick woods, a deeply longed-for serenity took hold of us.

We walked slowly, watching the play of sunlight on the branches, mindful of the subtle symphony of natures sounds and smells. An obstinate cicada practiced its solo to the accompaniment of birdsong and the delicate wind section of a smooth and constant breeze. From time to time, we stopped to appreciate the scent of flowers and wild herbs, mixed by skillful alchemy with resin from the trees; the same alchemy that had suddenly made all our problems disappear. Nobody was thinking about the stress of work anymore, or about the bitter aftertaste left from the academic year wed just put an end to with this trip. All our anxiety and worries had dissolved thanks to the power of nature and fresh air. Without even knowing it, we were practicing the art of shinrin-yoku, literally translated as forest bathing. The calm we had been unable to achieve during the year by means of relaxing massages, mindfulness sessions or even a sedative or two was now bestowed on us like a charm the moment we immersed ourselves in the greenery.

One of the conclusions we came to after living with the worlds oldest people in Okinawas village of centenaries was that to live surrounded by nature was key to understanding the secret of their longevity. Ogimi is in one of the densest regions of the Yanbaru jungle that covers northern Okinawa. During our fieldwork, we asked one hundred old people about their diet, physical exercise, relationships with neighbors, and about ikigai: what it is that gets them out of bed and ready to live one more day. The nature that surrounds them plays a fundamental role in their physical, mental and spiritual well-being. As we mentioned at the end of our first book, in the 7th law of ikigai, despite the fact that most of us live in cities, we need to connect with nature on a regular basis, to go back and recharge our spiritual batteries.

Raimon, a famous singer-songwriter from Xativa, Valencia, sang the words of poet Joan Salvat-Papasseit: when you forget where you come from, you forget who you are. In this book well explain how so many of the ailments afflicting city dwellers originate in our disconnect from nature. Being orphaned from the mother who gave us the breath of life, spending our days, weeks and months surrounded by concrete blocks, separated from the natural habitat of our species is like being locked up in jail without realizing it. Dr. Shoma Morita, a pioneer of motivational therapy in the 1940s, began treatment by sending his patients to the forest, where he urged them to walk, chop firewood and rest among the trees. The results he obtained spectacularly surpassed the advances achieved in doctors offices with medication. So is nature our best medicine? If it is, then how can we get back to nature and incorporate its essence into our busy urban lives?