“Respect the man of noble races other than your own, who carries out, in a different place, a combat parallel to yours — to ours. He is your ally. He is our ally, be he at the other end of the world. Love all living things whose humble task is not apposed in any way to yours, to ours: men with simple hearts, honest, without vanity and malice,
and all the animals, because they are beautiful, without exception and with exception indifferent to whatever idea there may be. Love them, and you will see the eternal in the glance of their eyes of jet, amber, or emerald.
Love also the trees,
the plants,
the water that runs through the meadow and on to the sea without knowing where it goes;
love the mountain,
the desert,
the forest,
the immense sky, full of light or full of clouds; because all these exceed man and reveal the eternal to you”
-Savitri Devi
Tag Archives: Forest
Trees are Temples & Forests are Cathedrals
“When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than the ordinary, and shutting out the sky with their thickly inter-twined branches, do not the stately shadows of the wood, the stillness of the place, …and the doomed cavern then strike you with the presence of a deity?”
– Seneca
“Going to the woods is going home.”
-John Muir
“My roots are in the depths of the woods.”
– Galle
To me, nature is sacred; trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.”
– Mikhail Gorbachev
Trail of the Cedars
“for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it
and death could never end it.”
-Archie Randolph Ammons
There is certainly a timeless quality to this cedar forest. A boardwalk traverses the ancient woods and in peacefulness and quiet you walk. Beauty at every turn, at every angle, no matter where you look. In every season, sweetness. Long breaths. Shimmering sunshine splattered, trickling water, rushing big water, rocks of every color, rabbit, deer, bear… an full ecosystem breathing life in unison and thriving. In that abundance and balance there is solace.
In many native cultures the cedar symbolizes healing, cleansing, prosperity and protection and those qualities are deeply felt here.
Forest Bathing
Oh yes, a luxuriant cleansing forest bath. A total immersion into the very soul and heart of the experience of being in and with the forest. A pleasing, rejuvenating, captivating, engaging absorption of Life and of communion.
There is a Japanese practice called shinrin-yoku that in translation means “forest bathing”. In this practice participants are asked to fully engage with nature using all five senses. The only mission is to be with the forest in a mindful and focused way with your sight, taste, hearing, touch and smell.
Not only is the experience pleasing and stress reducing there are other reported health benefits.
From the article “This Japanese Practice Could Transform Your Day” by Nicole Frehsee (Huffington Post):
“A study conducted across 24 forests in Japan found that when people strolled in a wooded area, their levels of the stress hormone cortisol plummeted almost 16 percent more than when they walked in an urban environment. And the effects were quickly apparent: Subjects’ blood pressure showed improvement after about 15 minutes of the practice. But one of the biggest benefits may come from breathing in chemicals called phytoncides, emitted by trees and plants. Women who logged two to four hours in a forest on two consecutive days saw a nearly 40 percent surge in the activity of cancer-fighting white blood cells, according to one study. “Phytoncide exposure reduces stress hormones, indirectly increasing the immune system’s ability to kill tumor cells,” says Tokyo-based researcher Qing Li, MD, PhD, who has studied shinrin-yoku. Even if you don’t live near a forest, studies suggest that just looking at green space — say, the trees outside your office window — helps reduce muscle tension and blood pressure.”
Find your forest and go inside, your senses alert and your mind open. Focus on the experience itself. Feel it. Absorb it. Enjoy the cleanse and the rejuvenation from your forest bath.
Green Goodness
The earth is rich and vibrant with carpets and curtains of myriad greens after June’s nurturing rain and snow showers. Radiantly emanating a strong life force. Sweetly breathing in, while we breath out. Cleansing. Deeply satisfying. Feeding the soul and our primitive need for the solace and the promise of what a green environment brings – food and water, sustenance for body and soul.
From “Psychological Properties of Color”:
“GREEN. Balance
Positive: Harmony, balance, refreshment, universal love, rest, restoration, reassurance, environmental awareness, equilibrium, peace.
Green strikes the eye in such a way as to require no adjustment whatever and is, therefore, restful. Being in the centre of the spectrum, it is the color of balance – a more important concept than many people realize. When the world about us contains plenty of green, this indicates the presence of water, and little danger of famine, so we are reassured by green, on a primitive level.”
“And the needles of the pine trees, freshly washed to a deep, rich green, shimmered with droplets that blinked like clear crystals.”
-Billie Letts
“Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises”
-Pedro Calderon de la Barca
Get Into the Forest Again
The forest is a sanctuary, a temple of contemplation, connection and peace. Serenity surrounds with a warm cohesiveness – an encasing womb. Comfort, meditation, life expressing itself, all waiting for our immersion. Honest and raw. Inviting and absorbing. A sweet embrace.
When you can, get into the forest again!
“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool unlying life will rush in.”
D.H. Lawrence
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
-John Muir
“We must not always talk in the market-place of what
happens to us in the forest.”
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
“A forest bird never wants a cage.”
-Henrik Ibsen
“When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.”
-Thomas Carlyle
