At the end of the ANFT training to become a certified Forest Therapy guide, guides in training are invited to create a harvest project of their experience. Elizabeth Mills from the Dandelion cohort shares her experience below:
So very much has been harvested in this Association of Nature and Forest Therapy training experience. Because two of them are “the power of silence” and “share the essence,” I will only share in depth about three special gleanings: “connection to the land,” “welcoming all stories” and “the power of trees” —plus a poem.
Connection to the Land
In our first class time, Geeta [ANFT Trainer] sent us out to introduce ourselves to the land. I had never been on a Forest Therapy Walk before, and I was unsure what to say or do. I stepped out to a group of evergreens in my backyard and simply said, “I’m Lizzie, do you remember me?” This was really a soul-deep question from my childhood when I spent barefoot summer days in the North Carolina backwoods, jumping creeks and hunting Lady Slippers. It had been a long time, but here I was in Pennsylvania almost 50 years later, wondering if the earth remembered ME. At that moment, I received a resounding “YEeess”. I was moved to tears from my heart. As I finally headed back to my computer and cohort inside, Mama Hemlock revealed a small gift at her feet just for me: a small feather. I was smitten…and I once again BELONGED.
This sense of belonging is not only vital to me personally but also very significant because I carry a vision to connect our Lancaster County refugee population with the land. They’ve lost so much, including their home terra, flora, and fauna. I now know through my training in Nature and Forest Therapy I have a path forward to help others connect again to their REAL home—Mother Earth. They belong. I am excited to move forward with this long-held vision. The earth is our home—the names and places or boundary lines on a map may change, but wherever we may find ourselves can be our home.
Welcoming All Stories
Interestingly enough, it was also during that very first class time that I vaguely remembered hearing gunshots in my countryside. It’s not uncommon for our neck of the woods, so I didn’t even really register the shots mentally…until that evening when a photo was circulating on social media of my neighbor and the coyote he shot. Words can hardly express the sick feeling I felt when I connected those shots I heard with a coyote. As we have been restoring woodlands here, more and more wildlife has returned and when I captured a photo of a coyote on the trail camera, I was so thrilled. After ten years of work, hacking back invasives and replacing them with native shrubs and trees, it seemed like this was the ultimate payback for something so rare and wild to come run our trails. To have the coyote shot was very difficult and the first of several tests in The Way of the Guide, living out respect for others’ stories. In my agricultural community, many people hunt and regularly shoot wildlife. Our feelings vary on these activities. Could I hold this neighbor’s story lightly and value him as a person when I was so mad at him and sad?
Score one for Nature and Forest Therapy training: Yes, I could. He was so dismayed that I was sad and agreed to bring the coyote down for me to see it up close. He brought his children with him and we talked about the Eastern coyote. I have run into them multiple times since and we are actually friends now, the neighbors and my family. This gleaning has been very, very important to my life. It’s the way I want to live: less judgement, more respecting other people’s perspectives and valuing that journeys don’t have to match mine and are not yet necessarily complete. The Way of the Guide is helping me to welcome all stories and to continue to live from the important place of love for myself, others and the More-Than-Human-World.
Dad and I hiking in Oregon
The Power of Trees
During the six months of this cohort my family would experience multiple unforeseen losses. Four relatives have died, including my trail trekking, nature-loving Dad, and also our beloved pet of 14 years. The last, a member of the More-Than-Human-World, held us well, on our healing journey from losing my husband 18 years ago.
The timing of this Forest Therapy training journey has been perfect for the deepened support I have needed and found in nature. During this training I have naturally grown closer to “my” trees, the talking, the listening, the nurture between us is precious, but after the fourth and fifth family loss recently, a time with them was especially powerful. I was fairly exhausted from supporting my sister who lost her husband, and I was on the back porch of my house in overwhelmed numbness. Suddenly, my tree friends gathered around in the noontime sunshine, each one bringing their beauty, texture, and steadfastness. They aren’t going anywhere soon. They held me right where I was in compounded sorrow for my loved ones, from the tall poplars in the woodland edge whose tops were ever so slightly dancing in the breeze to the blue cedar and burgundy hazelnut in the yard. They are rooted. Three or four others joined in the ensemble and held onto me. I’m okay. Life is good and will go on for a time. All is well. I personally received nurturing, but also as a trained Grief facilitator, I now have another tool for times of searing loss to offer others: Nature and Forest Therapy.
Conclusion
In addition to the potential for supporting the bereaved (including refugees), and respecting others’ stories in general, there has been a gleaning of more patience and respect in other relationships in my life as well. I am not as quick to judge those who look or think differently than I do, and I don’t get as upset by others’ differing opinions. I have harvested a new way to live. “All is welcome” as an attitude is a great direction in which to grow, “the power of silence” and that “the essence is enough” are more harvested treasures. Lastly, I have miraculously survived six months of loss and have truly learned a mysterious secret along the way: how to hold joy and grief simultaneously. This we must do when we love the earth and others well.
Joy is an ever-breaking, beautiful dawn.
It streams early light
Covering grief from
All that has been,
All that could have been,
All that “should” be…
And brings a sweet, pink hue to NOW.
This moment
This breath
This planet
This heartbeat
This hope.
Grief lives,
But joy triumphs.
Joy is all that IS:
This dawn
This butterfly
This tree
This flower
This rock
This ocean, fish, river, turtle, creek, MOTHER.
Grief is alive and well,
But JOY triumphs.
~Elizabeth Mills, Dandelion Cohort, 2022