I am in Prescott, Arizona at my Forest Therapy Guide Immersive Training. These are my memories of the moments on a walk with Ben Page, one of the orators of the ANFT training program. Our training group of 25 or so eager Forest Therapy Guides-in-training join me in this magical forest to learn, listen and fine tune our practices. Ben Page has been on my radar for more than a year now. A person that has the headroom to share his experiences in the forest and how to tap into the indescribable feeling of connecting to nature – the embodiment of place. The land that is dotted with pines, giant boulders and a babbling stream with golden-hued wildflowers is our classroom. My heart goes back to the time on the walk that we were deep in the Ponderosa Pines and doing the Forest Therapy invitation, “What’s in Motion?”.
A Forest Therapy walk includes a standard sequence of these invitations that comprise the walk itself. The “What’s in Motion” invitation goes something like this, “This is a time for you to slow down and notice things moving in nature. Maybe you can notice something moving and slow down for a few extra minutes to get even get closer. As you move, a Kalimba will play to remind you to stay in this moment, because our mind naturally wanders. When you hear the Kalimba, let that sound bring you back to what’s in motion.”
The pines had an iridescent quality to them with long needles that sparkled in the sunlight while they whistled in the wind. There were granite boulders that dotted the land in all sizes that were graced with light green lichen decorating them with too many variations of color to list. The grasses found me mesmerized with their delicate sprouts. They swayed in the cold wind like tiny dancers at a recital. The earth was sandy and had little pebbles ground-up to provide a crunchy sound that hit just right. I always feel at home with this sound: ahhhh…a crunchy trail again.
After the invitation was given, I bolted quickly away from the group to get some space and suddenly heard a Kalimba (a tiny African thumb piano) with its slow-paced twinkling, and our respected teacher who was in all-black, slowly, I mean s-l-o-w-l-y, slinked his tall physique through the forest: modeling the art of slowing down.
I took a deep breath and stopped in my tracks. All that I could think was…Magical! It has taken me a long time to get to this place, this place of calm where the forest suddenly changes and feels like it becomes part of me. Where I let go of my ego and my worry-mind, my old thought pattern mind, my heart that has been emotionally abused in the past, and my psyche that tells me I am never enough. Including the remnants of recovered alcoholism and self-deprecating self-talk that continue to haunt me. With one big breath, I get to let all of that baggage go and let the forest wash over me.
For a long time, part of my journey on this path has opened up doors to experience freedom. Everything shifted and there was an enchantment as my fellow guides in training, slowly stepped and exuded auras of energy as they went off into nature to find their place in the forest and possibly in their hearts. I could feel their energy around me. I felt as if I was floating instead of walking during this time in nature. My fellow guides added to the surreal landscape as ‘orbs’ floating and searching beside me. I felt comforted in knowing we are all connected with this invisible heart string, a sort of altered state. To see the outlines of these bodies searching and creating their own connection amplified the feeling of the invitation to discover and notice – a summons or a guide to “just be”. To just be in the moment with all the grace and beauty that surrounds us.
I stopped in my tracks, once again to just notice. Recognizing. Being. Finding it okay to be in this moment with dots of icy snow still on top of tree stumps. And I realized…nature is the same as me and I am the same as nature. We are all sentient beings. And for that transformative moment with Ben as my guide, I felt like this was the only place I will ever be. I was awash with a sense of awe and wonder. The Greater Good Science Center states in regard to awe, “Inducing goosebumps and dropped jaws, awe experiences are remarkable in their own right. Moreover, a growing body of research suggests that experiencing awe may lead to a wide range of benefits, from happiness and health to perhaps more unexpected benefits such as generosity, humility and critical thinking.”
As I kept wandering, I landed directly in my heart and could observe just really what’s in motion all around me – completely at one with the wonder of it all. It’s one of the most incredible experiences of my life so far. It has left an imprint on my heart, and to ‘our’ Ben Page and the Forest, I am forever grateful. I feel like waiting a year to attend this training was worth it. I am thankful for the connection, for the time, for the sharing of his deep knowledge of nature and guiding. He helped me to try to understand even the smallest bit of this practice we call Forest Therapy. I am clear that this is just the beginning of my learning and when I am in nature, the forest has my back and I can still hear Ben’s last question of this magical walk, “How can I be lost if I never picked a destination?” Another question to ponder the next time I am in the Forest, which will be very soon.