Us And Trees, A Green Prescription?

Us And Trees 2024 series, Part four

Through this year’s short Us And Trees series I have focused more on our more ethereal relationship with native trees and woodlands. This has included encouraging us to use what the ancient ‘Cormac’s Glossary’ describes as ‘Imbas Forosnai’.

Imbas being our unscripted senses, our natural instincts of clairvoyance. Forosnai being the inspirations and visions that we create from those responses. I have been exploring how to use our Imbas Forosnai abilities as a way to understand, commune, and communicate with trees.

During my previous edition, I focused on caring for the Native Woodland that we already have through expanding them, and getting many more native trees planted. Also I encourage allowing more space for nature to create its own woodlands though its own natural networking ways.

I have always experienced nourishment and calmness when surrounded by trees and water. Yet, when we are in such natural landscapes I feel that our senses need to be fully tuned in and that we have our ‘wits about us’. 

These days, I feel that too many of us are living as ‘tree people without a forest’. Without that ‘forest’ around us the potential of personal psychic turmoil seems to be awful. Being in the woods and among trees is not for everyone as many people may regard themselves as being desert people, swamp people (which is close to woodland experience), and prairie people. 

For me, being away from woodlands, and especially the water that passes through them, is like being stripped of divine guidance that gives us clear personal prophecy of our present, and clear prompts and visions of where we are going. 

I believe it is important for all of us to be aware of what we may consider and feel is our local tree sanctuary, preferably with water naturally running through it. A sanctuary that we can easily visit to breathe lovely air and feel we are being recharged. 

Some of us may have the advantage of enjoying a ‘tree sanctuary’ on our own land within our garden space, or farm space. 

We used to enjoy this within our Carrowcrory Labyrinth Gardens that included a wonderful relaxing Tree Labyrinth. We have moved away from there now, but here in South Leitrim, where we now live, one of my favourite local spots is around Annaghmaconway Lough, within Bathar na Naomh woodland, near Cloone village, here in South Leitrim. This lovely space is just a few km from where we live. There are nearer lovely ‘go to’ spots such as within the woodland grounds of Lough Rynn hotel. So we have a choice of sanctuary.

Overall, I feel it is incredibly important for us to identify a ‘go to’ space that is our ‘Tree Sanctuary’ or even ‘Tree And Water Sanctuary’. 

Within the previous edition of this Us An Trees series, I mentioned a lovely project starting to spread around Ireland that is inviting farmers, smallholders, school grounds, and community groups to apply for grants to establish a small woodland, small orchard, small pond, a peatland plan, plus an ecologist to visit to advise how to put this all together as a ‘Plan For Nature’. I prefer to call this ‘Create A Sanctuary’.

This project is called ‘The Hare’s Corner’. It was established around Kinvara, Co.Clare, by Burrenbeo, and has now spread around counties Clare, Galway, Mayo, Leitrim and Meath. Achieving these ‘Hare’s Corner’ tasks and enjoying them through absorbing them as sanctuary has a wonderful effect on nourishing our lives. 

‘The Hare’s Corner’ project is also an excellent worthy education for us too, and much more important than the ‘academic’ stuff thrown at us. This is not bookwork, but ‘sense, do, and participate’ work.

I believe most of us can settle in and easily trust woodland, orchard, pond, and bog, surroundings without being overwhelmed, anxious and stressed, despite some invasions by midges, cleggs, and sudden changes of weather. 

Most of us are familiar with the phrase ‘knock on wood’. Most of us interpret that as tapping on a wood branch, or sometimes our head, believing that doing that could bring us ‘luck’. But what is that ‘luck’?. 

There are various ideas of where the ‘knock on wood’ phrase originated from, but the favourite seems to be from Saxon and Germanic origins for calling upon ‘tree spirits’ to guide us. Here in Ireland we may translate that as calling on the Aos Sidhe people, our ancestor spirits within the trees, or the goddess herself.

For many people just the act of tapping on a tree branch or trunk engages feelings of communion, connection, trust, feeling safe, and being protected.

To me, its as if touching or tapping a tree brings back ‘collective memory’ into our psyche. I believe that is one very perceptive way of how we vision and tell what we may call ‘folklore’. 

I would have loved to expand this thought into exploring what we call ‘tree hugging’, but I will return to explore that within my Us And Trees 2015 series

Green Prescription?

Not so many years ago there was a bit of a ‘craze’ of doctors writing out prescriptions for their patients that would say something like ‘take a 30 minute woodland walk, 3 times a week’. This was known as a ‘Green Prescription’

Part of the thinking behind doing that is how people ‘trusted’ what their doctors put onto a prescription. When something is written down as a ‘medicine’ they follow the instructions and consume it! During the past 4 years there has been far less trust in prescription medicine. 

Also, I think these three things have pushed the ‘Green Prescription’ medicine out of favour now. One is the ongoing pressure upon doctors to prescribe more and more pharma drugs, plus some threats placed upon them if they dare speak of natural remedies to their patients. 

Second, is that it is currently becoming more and more difficult to get an appointment with a local GP to get a prescription, often with many GPs now having a waiting list of several weeks. 

Third is the attraction of online medical guidance resources, especially phone apps. The most popular of those seem to be the apps that count our steps. I wish there were apps dedicated to counting our steps within woodlands, maybe including incentives to take photos of flowers, plants, and trees on the way to identify what is around us and discover their potential uses?   

I would like to talk a bit about Shinrin Yoku now, with its current much more popular name of ‘Forest Bathing’ The first time I came across the Shinrin Yoku practice was just before working on my mature student’s degree thesis, during the mid 80s. My Shrinrin Yoku research did not make it to the final cut into my thesis, yet the practice still fascinates me. 

Back then when I was looking into Shinrin Yoku, it was a developing Japanese practice as an attempt to reduce stress from the very intensive Japanese workplaces and ethics. 

Woodlands, in Japan, had been arranged somewhat to make them more attractive, welcoming, convenient and relaxing. This included providing easy walking paths, and beautiful spaces to pause, relax, and maybe enjoy a family picnic. 

Before entering such a Shinrin Yoku walk, the staff at the gatehouse entrance would give everyone a basic medical exam measuring blood pressure, pulse, breathing, blood sugar, and maybe one or two other things. Then, as people left the Shinrin Yoku wood they went through the same medical examination. Each person would leave with a print-out showing what medical benefits had been achieved during their time in the woods. 

Someone from North California, I forget his name, but someone who obviously practised meditation and yoga, was inspired by this Japanese practice, and set up a similar woodland walk near where he lived in North California. 

Instead of serving the Japanese way of giving people medicals as they entered and left the woods, he hosted and guided visitors through a meditation, breathing, visualisation, and yoga session. 

As his guiding service became popular he advanced his practice into workshops, and then developed these into teaching people how to host ‘Forest Bathing’ sessions themselves in woodlands near where they live. 

These ‘Forest Bathing’ teaching courses became more and more expensive over the years, due to their popularity. People from Ireland, the UK, and Europe started attending. 

For these people, this side of the pond, this is a huge investment to pay for flights, quite expensive accommodation and meals, plus the teaching course fees. 

When these people returned to Ireland, and elsewhere in Europe, after their training with their new pristine diplomas, they got started with their new ‘Forest Bathing’ enterprise. They usually charge anything between €50 to €250 per person to try and recover their training investment, an investment that was probably a risky borrowed commitment too. 

My point here is that I do not believe anyone really needs to become one of these ‘trained’ forest bathing guides, or facilitators, with their pretty lingo to achieve ‘communion’ in the woods. Some of the motivation for doing such a course and receiving a diploma is to bring on a feeling of personal security of being professional and trustworthy, with integrity, in practice. 

It may need some psychic bravery to attempt to do this ‘forest bathing’ practise yourself from your own natural instincts rather than motivated by course work. 

With a ‘diy’ approach we need to try ‘practising’ this over and over again to become more comfortable and in tune. This becomes more exciting and fulfilling as we engage in doing this. We return to being like small children of ‘wonder’. This is what the fancy sounding ‘Forest Bathing’ is mainly about. 

Jan hugging a ‘big tree’

If anyone does have a passion for meditation and yoga teaching, and are willing to step outside of their controlled indoor locations, and do what they do outside, then these ‘Forest Bathing’ larks could work very well for those people.

There are also the choices of engaging in ‘Forest Bathing’, or just woodland indulgence, alone or with a group. I like to do both. When we are within a group experiencing this, I feel it is like being children again sharing our wonder. 

It is lovely when everyone in the group bonds and encourages each other to confidently use their senses and recognising experiences. 

Sharing a picnic with a group also really brings everyone together too. We used to also share poetry and story sessions too, and this adds to our visionary responses from the shared woodland experiences. 

Another thought is that woodlands are not just for retreat and therapy, though I feel it is very important that we recharge within them. 

Woodlands also provide us with food, shelter, fuel and medicine. We can also engage with those ‘labours’ through ‘communion’ with the trees, plants and woodland. Some people may call this ‘asking permission.’

thanks to Kate Cloudsparks forwarding this to me today.

And with those concluding thoughts, I will now finish this year’s short series of ‘Us And Trees’, with what I trust serves you with a wholesome conclusion. Soon, I will post a gazetteer edition of all of this year’s and last year’s ‘Us And Trees’ editions. 

For the next ‘Nature Folklore’ series, I will enter into ‘Bealtaine Frolics’. This will include preparations of trees ahead for the joys of Bealtaine.

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