Fries - Forest bathing retreat: find wholeness in the company of trees

The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment.

Edited by Liz Bevilacqua

Art direction and book design by Carolyn Eckert

Text production by Erin Dawson

Cover photography by Andrew Walton/Unsplash, back flap; Anton Darius Sollers/Unsplash, front, t.l.; Carl Johan Johansson, front, b.l.; Grant McCurdy/Unsplash, front flap; Ian Schneider/Unsplash, Author photo: Susan Quinn; inside back; Nate & Amanda Howard/Stocksy United, back; Kazuend/Unsplash, inside front; Remi Walle/Unsplash, spine, top; Rodion Kutsaev/Unsplash, front, t.r. and spine, b.; Stephen Matera, front, b.r.

additional photography credits on page 191

Illustrations Amy Stafford, Blixa 6 Studios,

2018 by Hannah Fries

Ebook production by Kristy L. MacWilliams

Ebook version 1.0

August 21, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other without written permission from the publisher.

The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of the author or Storey Publishing. The author and publisher disclaim any liability in connection with the use of this information.

Storey books are available for special premium and promotional uses and for customized editions. For further information, please call 800-793-9396.

Storey Publishing

210 MASS MoCA Way

North Adams, MA 01247

www.storey.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fries, Hannah, author.

Title: Forest bathing retreat : find wholeness in the company of trees /

Hannah Fries.

Description: North Adams, MA : Storey Publishing, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018012740 (print) | LCCN 2018017016 (ebook) | ISBN 9781635860955 (ebook) | ISBN 9781635860948 (paper with flaps : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Forest reservesTherapeutic use. | Nature, Healing power of. | Mind and body.

Classification: LCC RZ999 (ebook) | LCC RZ999 .F75 2018 (print) | DDC

615.8/515dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018012740

dedicated to my parents,
dendrophiles both

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon mens hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robin Wall Kimmerer Author of Braiding Sweetgrass

My daily calendar is filled with appointments and classes; and, if I were so inclined, I could calculate the number of lifetime hours I have spent in meetings... or on a conference call or answering email. I most emphatically do not want to know that number, which would only make me cringe and send me wailing out the door. The tally I really care about is how many cumulative months I have spent in the company of trees. I believe the number would total years, hopefully decades, that I have spent botanizing, birding, hiking, camping, picking berries, digging medicines, gathering firewood, teaching, doing science, or working toward some other purposeful woodland pursuit. Often during these outdoor activities I am interrupted by the imperative of more important tasks like sitting on a stone wall watching clouds or a balsamiferous afternoon spent lying on my stomach in deep pine needles listening for centipede footfalls on a moss carpet. As it turns out, I have spent a lifetime engaging in forest therapy, all the while thinking I was just playing in the woods. My mother, endlessly emptying my pockets of stones and seedpods, despairing of my muddy knees and elbows (which I still sport as a grandmother), would be relieved to know that what she called daydreaming in the woods is now called forest bathing though I never came home clean!

What was once as natural as breathing, to be in the presence of trees and birds and that elegant walking stick insect masquerading as a twig, has vanished from many lives. Today, most of us live in cities and the hours in front of a screen vastly surpass the hours beneath leaves. How many miles do we walk without our feet ever touching the softness of the forest floor? What green spaces we do have are often manicured playgrounds, shaped to our will. We have constructed barriers around our lives, sealed in plastic wrap as if insulating ourselves from the living, breathing, gorgeously teeming world.

Forest Bathing Retreat is an invitation from Hannah Fries to become more permeable to the natural world around you.

The name forest bathing arose from an understanding of the deep therapeutic benefits, both physical and spiritual, of being in the company of trees. It is a translation of the Japanese term shinrin-yoku, coined in the 1980s as a form of forest therapy to treat the many ailments which arise from urban life, calendars full of stress, and pavement beneath our feet.

I can attest to its soul-filling qualities. There is a vibrant reciprocity between the leaves and birds and seemingly silent trunks and the warm-blooded human sitting on the log, an exchange of mutual knowing that we are made lonely without. Like the health-giving benefits of bathing in mineral springs that spawned an era of taking the waters in resorts and clinics, forest bathing is a sensory immersion in green light and birdsong that leaves the bather renewed and clean.

I am blessed to have spent a life in the woods, but if the woods are out of reach, you can saunter through the pages here. This handsome volume invites you to be fully intentional, not to walk through the woods in order to get somewhere, but with the sole purpose of being fully present to yourself and to the lives around you. In sections labeled Breathe, Connect, Heal, and Give Thanks, Fries invites a deeper connection to the natural world.

Like the skilled and graceful editor she is, Fries has curated a collection of literary prose and poetry and evocative forest images that invite you to slow down and connect deeply with each sense fully tuned to the tone of the forest. She takes your hand and guides you down a winding path of wonder that offers peace and companionship of the forest world. Like the dendrophile she is, she has chosen words and images that play together like sunflecks through the treetops. Like the gifted poet she is, she bestows delicious words that we didnt know we needed, offering a prescription for our minimum daily requirement of