Southern Kettle Moraine

Western Waukesha WI County

Many people know that spending time in nature is good for them, but for those who enjoy understanding things on a scientific level as well as an intuitive one, there is now clinical evidence that spending time in the forest can help with stress, anxiety, grief, depression and many other emotional, mental and even physical ailments.

Time in the forest is beneficial no matter how you do it, and doing a session or series of sessions of guided Yasei Forest Bathing will give you the tools to maximize its positive effects and be able to apply them later by yourself.

“Yasei” means “wild”, and this approach, as championed by Don Elzer and his school in British Columbia, through which I completed a training as a Certified Practitioner between 2020 and 2022, adds the element of collaborative intention with the sentient Life form that a forest is. 

Humans have had a consumeristic approach to the other life forms on the planet for a long time, and even the current wellness approach to forest bathing can become a type of  Wellness consumerism, where we go out into nature only thinking of what we are getting from it, and not, instead, realizing that it can become an EXCHANGE of loving support and intention. As we become aware of and acknowledge that the forest itself is a life form, that the oxygen and phytoncides it produces is a gift for us, we can also become aware of how important it is to bring it respect, gratitude, and understanding, and that such an intentional attitude is a way of reciprocating the gift received.

Rather than simply using the forest and harvesting what it has to offer us, we can step into understanding that as understanding and respectful humans, who benefit from its gifts and who are devoted to helping others shift their thinking and acting from being mere consumers to being, instead, true friends and collaborators. We can help evolve the relationship between humanity and other life forms on our planet Earth … which is in itself a huge Life that we are a part of, and thanks to whom we have a lovely, diverse, and incredibly generous and abundant home. 

In this way, “Wild” Forest Bathing is about not only our own healing, but about how we can contribute to the healing of others, and of our beautiful Earth, who is showing more and more signs of serious suffering after decades of unfettered industrial exploitation of her resources.

 We are all being called to build a new way of relating to ourselves, our planet, to Life itself, and Yasei Shinrin Yoku is one step you can take to enter into this new awareness and new way of becoming a Collaborator, rather than simply a Consumer.