Forest Bathing Recap: Dreaming into the Speaking Land
On Saturday, September 10th a group of Balanced Soul Forest Bathers met at Holliday Park in Indianapolis.
We began our morning together alongside 60 naturalists who had come to the park for training on “reading and understanding” nature. Our forest bathers had come to experience “Dreaming into the Speaking Land” by reading and understanding the forest as an oracle that speaks to us through signs, symbols, and synchronicity. We gathered in a rectangular stone square which turned out to be the foundation imprint of the home of John and Evaline Holliday and their seven children. The farmhouse house was built in 1892 and was three-stories tall with 23 rooms. John Holliday founded the Indianapolis News and was a philanthropist for the city's poor and underserved. Holliday and his wife gifted the land to the city of Indianapolis in 1916, expressing a belief that “the land is to be singularly suited as a place of recreation and the study of nature.”
Earthing
During the Forest Bathing experience, we used a technique called “earthing” to become more present in our surroundings. “Earthing” was done by standing and walking barefoot on, you guessed it, the earth. A tricky gang of squirrels threw walnuts down on our group, it felt a bit like the story of “Chicken Little’, when he felt the sky is falling. The dive-bombing walnuts stopped as soon as our group dispersed. Squirrels can be quite social – but don’t particularly like strange squirrels. Maybe those squirrels thought us “strange” and way too close to their buffet of walnuts.
We played the game Forest Tarot while forest bathing and brought back answers gifted to us from the woods pertaining to questions posed about life issues and concerns. We created stones with messages to be left along a path hoping to create another’s experience of synchronicity.
Forest encounters from the group included: Hooting from an owl, the ruins of a Goddess bust along the trail, the presence of a large male ginkgo tree, trees that looked like they had eyes, sounds of music coming from a distant car, steady sound of birds chirping, a wasp stinging a locust, intense sun beams and then dark, ducks floating in the river, resting on the ground, small calm shells, waterfalls.
We ended our time together with a group Mandala and a Dandelion and Hibiscus tea ceremony.
Join us for our FINAL Balanced Soul Forest Bathing experience this year! Only a few spots remain!
Journaling Among the Trees
October 15, 2022
9-11:30 am
Holliday Park
6363 Spring Mill Road
Indianapolis, IN, 46260
Fee: $30
We will explore gratitude and the experience of a reciprocity practice in giving Mother Nature the gift of earth art.
Click here to sign up today!
Blessings,
Jenny
Gallery from Forest Bathing Experience
