The blood pressure monitor indicates that my blood pressure is 140 80, I write it down on a technical sheet that the Akasawa Natural Park staff has given me. The objective is to compare blood pressure data before and after having performed guided forest therapy (Shinrin-yoku) in the Natural Park recognized as the birthplace of this practice. Next to me, the pressure of 20 ANFT certified forest therapy guides colleagues, who have come from various parts of the world to visit this iconic place in a meeting organized by Future with Forest Association (FwithF) of Japan directed by Nagisa Ono, and dreamed together with Amos Clifford, founder of ANFT before the pandemic.
We have a neatly organized agenda full of academic and practical activities for four days. At the beginning of the day before leaving for our expected forest bathing session, the doctor Shigeyoshi Kumeda PhD, and honorary director of the prefectural hospital Kiso tells us in his lecture that in 1982 the First National Convention of Forest Bathing was held in Akasawa (Agematsu,Nagano prefecture). Tomohide Akiyama at that time was managing director of the Forest Agency, coined the concept of shinring-yoku, which is translated as “forest bathing.” Mr. Akiyama´s goal-aware of the therapy benefits of the kiso hinoki (Chamaecyparis obtusa) forest, one of Japan’s sacred conifers-was to offer healthy alternatives to an urban population with increasing rates of depression and illnesses induced by stress and industrialization.
Dr. Kumeda reports that it was only in 2003 when the term “forest therapy,” in other words, “Forest Bathing with scientific evidence” was coined, and in 2006 the Japanese Society of Forest Therapy (SFT) initiates the certification of Forest Therapy Trails. Today they have 65 forest therapy bases some in partnership with local hospitals. He further argues that phytoncides (alfa-pinene, limonene) are volatile compounds of terpenes which the Akasawa conifers expel to protect themselves. Among the notable researches are those carried out by Dr. Quin Li on phytoncides and the immune system, and that of the professor Yosifumi Miyasaki’s research group from the Chiba University about the effect of shinrin-yoku in the cavity of the prefrontal cortex.
Once the tension was measured, we headed out onto the trail, our local guide Yoko Shimohara speaks in Japanese. I don’t understand, but his voice conveys pause and emotion at the same time, Kota Kawaguchi a forest therapy facilitator from FwithF, translates into English. Japanese Forest Therapy Guides complement the medical work at the Akasawa base. There, since 2006, in spring and autumn every Thursday there is a free consultation with a medical team specialized in preventive medicine. Depending on the patient’s physical condition, the doctor recommends one of the paths of the park and gives the prescription to the guide, who will take you along the appropriate trail. The forest guides at the forest therapy bases know very well the trails, the flora species and their characteristics. They are local inhabitants and have been involved as part of the process of building the trails.
It’s 10:00 a.m. and Yoko takes us on a two-hour sensory tour, revealing the secrets of bushes and properties of the kiso (cypress) forest as the sacred tree of hinoki and other conifers such as sawara and magnolias. She gives us instructions on how to breathe, invites us to smell a fallen hinoki trunk.We pass by the Haruki River where Yoko gets excited telling us that the bridge we crossed is called Dondonbuchi and that she herself named it that way, and according to the signage on the wooden bridge: “It is said that the clouds are reflected on the surface of the river, and that the current swallows them, when doing so, it sounds ‘don, don.'” Her vision is important because the development of the Shinrin-yoku session also integrates local cultural dimension and personal contribution.
She invites us to listen to the sound of the calm current of the creek, and to sleep for a while on the mat that she provides. Under the canopy of kiso hinoki the temperature decreases to about 46 or 48 Farenheit. I find a soft place next to the creek between two tall cypress pines. I lie down but it is impossible to close my eyes. I entertain myself with my gaze upwards that cannot be more comforting: the leaves begin to turn autumn, the light penetrates the tissue of the red and yellow leaves, that filters the light rays and creates a warm mood. It is very different from the tropical Komorebi that I am used to. In photography we would say that we would have a warm light temperature that, I guess, would be around 3200 on the Kelvin scale. Experiencing that revitalizing autumn light, seeing the bark of the tall kiso hinoki forest and its fresh smell, I thoroughly understand the beauty of the Japanese word “Komorebi” and its calming effect, so studied in psychology and advertising.
Lying down, looking up, I also think about this 300-year-old forest where the hand and will of the human being has been so important. That work has transformed the ecosystem, the culture and the economy, as narrated by Nagisa Ono in his opening talk. The native forest of Hinoki cypress in Akasawa was razed to supply the nascent industry in the Edo era and began to be replanted when the area came under the Owari government: the penalty for cutting down a tree was decapitation. At the end of the Meiji period it became an imperial forest and today this planted coniferous forest of Hinoki, is a heritage of Japan (Kumeda, 2023).
In Shinrin-yoku there are three kanjis: 森林浴. Japanese writing is logographic, that is, that each character or Kanji represents a meaning and not a phonetic syllable. I thank Kota and Angie in Japan, for helping me understand the concepts. The first: 森, by itself means natural forests, the second: 林, planted forests (like the one I was), the two together mean “forest”; the third kanji 浴means “bathing”.
That value given to planted and wild forests in kanji (and therefore Japanese culture) draws my attention, maybe because I am a co-owner of a nature preserve in Colombia where we carry out socio- ecosystem regeneration processes letting the cloud forest grows by itself and some times planting new trees. I am more than a witness of the cloud forest life. Looking and understanding the kanjis, is like seeing a landscape where “domesticated”, and wild forest meet. It implies that we human being are part of what we call nature. From another point of view, it is reconciliation between nature and society, one of the principles that our Foundation stands for. We are always reflexing for why, what, and for whom do we plant trees? Certainly, the inhabitants of Akasawa knew this very well three hundred years ago. For me, the Japanese writing of Shinrin yoku then, has a cosmogonic resignification where the concept of sacred time (the cycle of life) of Shinto is present and is expressed, it implies the relationship between forests, human beings and their consciousness of historicity.
That sacred time is manifested not only in the veneration of the life cycle of trees, but more clearly in the construction of something new with something old. Two centuries-old trees from Akasawa are used to rebuild the great Ise shrine, which is rebuilt every 20 years and is dedicated to the goddess of the Sun: Amaterasu. The shrine was founded two thousand years ago. It is reconstructed as part of the Tokowaka belief, which says that by renewing objects, eternity is maintained, because the knowledge of construction techniques is passed from one generation to another.
The selection and felling of trees to be used is a spiritual and Shinto religious rite. The end of our shinrin-yoku session was held where one of the sacred three hundred hinoki tree was felled. One of the Japanese guides, who have been part of the felling ritual, interpreted exclusively for us the tune that is performed when the tree is felled in with an special technique (Mitsuhimogiri). (you can see it at @shinrin.yoku.colombia)
Upon returning to the medical base, Dr. Kumeda’s team measures our tension again and they show us how the equipment for measuring cortisol in saliva works. My new mark? 119/77, my pressure has dropped. It seems that the forest, the guide (and my own body) have done their job. But beyond the scientific evidence so necessary to “believe” in the medical benefits of the practice, there is the spiritual – not religious – dimension of the same, which sometimes is obliterated due to political correctness or taboo in the West.
Already on the bus back to the hotel, Nagisa San invites us to ask about what we experienced. The question arises as to whether what we experience is the way in which forest therapy is guided or facilitated in Japan, obsessed with the method, we ask again and again (and from the view of the anthropologists present there: an obsession of guides being guided and in an involuntary position of ethnocentrism, quite a challenge to get out of it!). In the end, we reflect: it is a call to empty the prior knowledge to be able to understand something new without preconceptions. It is not an easy task.
Nagisa Ono, director of FwithF and member of the Forest Public Policy Council of Japan takes us to our heart again. She reminds us that more than a method, Shinrin-yoku is an attitude, and for her “Shinrin-yoku” has another meaning inspired by Shinto: “to enter into contact with trees to have spiritual healing (…) for the Japanese the forest is a place where God exists” and points out later in an email interview that the Japanese forest therapy facilitators: “are people who work for the forest, for the people, and for the community. They have that purpose (Sampo-yoshi).”
Shinto is the original religion of Japan, animist and shamanic, where the natural forces and where an infinite number of kami – spirits or gods of natural elements such as the sun, the forest, animals like foxes – are worshiped in the shrines. Purity, harmony and a sense of community stand out as precepts that define acting, serving, and the way of living between human beings, nature and the gods or spirits, in everyday life.