Gifts.

Old Mission Gazette has the antidote ...

Experiencing the seasonal moods of the forest is particularly inviting. In the fall, the rustle of leaves and blasts of brown, orange and yellow paint a silhouette of quiet solitude away from the hustle and bustle of Traverse City a short distance away. Winter snowshoe adventures offer the effervescent quiet of the forest blanketed with deep snow and the glistening of sunlight streaming through snow frocked evergreen hemlock bows or the bare branches of oaks and maples.

When buds first appear and the trails are slick with brown-gray dirt and patches of dark mud, the signs of spring present themselves as hints of green from the ground to the treetops. Summertime hues of dark green upon darker green accentuated by shadows cast from dusk to dawn remind us of how sacred the land is as the shadows often resemble fleeting spirits.

The forest offers a somber solitude which elicits an awareness of its many gifts as well as the gifts we have within ourselves. No matter the season, the forest offers its gifts if only we would venture in to explore them.

Far.

I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.

Alan Watts

Celebrate.

Wyeth, Cat Spruce, 1954

FOREST MUSIC

There’s a sad loneliness about my heart, –
A deep, deep solitude the spirit feels
Amid this multitude. The things of art
Pall on the senses – from its pageantry,
Loathing, my eye turns off; and my ear shrinks
From the harsh dissonance that fills the air.

My soul is growing sick – I will away
And gather balm from a sweet forest walk!
There, as the breezes through the branches sweep,
Is heard aerial minstrelsy, like harps
Untouched, unseen, that on the spirit’s ear
Pour out their numbers till they lull to peace
The tumult of the bosom. There’s a voice
Of music in the rustling of the leaves;
And the green boughs are hung with living lutes,
Whose strings will only vibrate to his hand
Who made them, while they sound his untaught praise!

The whole wild wood is one vast instrument
Of thousand, thousand keys; and all its notes
Come in sweet harmony, while Nature plays
To celebrate the presence of her God!

Hannah Flagg Gould

Flood.

Bathing.

Forest bathing—basically just being in the presence of trees—became part of a national public health program in Japan in 1982 when the forestry ministry coined the phrase shinrin-yoku and promoted topiary as therapy. Nature appreciation—picnicking en masse under the cherry blossoms, for example—is a national pastime in Japan, so forest bathing quickly took. The environment’s wisdom has long been evident to the culture: Japan’s Zen masters asked: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears, does it make a sound?

To discover the answer, masters do nothing, and gain illumination. Forest bathing works similarly: Just be with trees. No hiking, no counting steps on a Fitbit. You can sit or meander, but the point is to relax rather than accomplish anything.

CONNECT