12 Months of Forest Bathing – March 2025

Turning a Nice Walk in the Woods into a Deeper Connection

I woke up this morning, 3/1/2025, to 41 degrees Fahrenheit and partly cloudy skies.

It’s a tease, of course, because those of us in the Northeastern states know we could see snow even in April. And it felt good to not be freezing as I took the dogs into the back yard. It felt really, really good. A small blessing in troubled times.

It’s such an overwhelming time in the world. There are too many actions creating distractions. Too many actions creating disasterous change. So many of my Substack friends are writing about the daily events, about holding onto hope, about taking action. I am going to write about spending time with Nature. And, as a Facebook friend wrote yesterday, “My heart is breaking. The forest helped. Two hours of wandering, meditating, wrapping my arms around trees. They, too, seemed bewildered, unmoored, but then I felt the gentle vibrations of strength. So thankful for the forest.”

Alley Pond Park, Queens, NY. A few years ago, New York City hung these signs on some of the trees.

This is what our practice of forest bathing, forest therapy or ecotherapy is all about. Unless we take what our time with Nature teaches us into our daily lives, it’s just a nice walk in the woods. Nothing wrong with that, by the way, and there’s deeper connections to be made.

So, here’s 12 Months of Forest Bathing – March 2025 – for my paid subscribers. Consider becoming a paid subscriber this year for more of that deeper connection with Nature. It’s really just a cup of coffee a month, not much to ask for, and so grateful to receive.

It’s the time of the year when we’re eager for warmer weather. We can almost feel Spring wanting to break through the cold. In the Northern parts of the world, everything begins to thaw, and yet, Winter is still present. Some places may still be covered with a blanket of snow. Some other, more Southern, places, are looking forward to taking off that extra sweater because Winter isn’t much more than cooler months and no air conditioning.

Witch Hazel with snow at Planting Fields Arboretum, Long Island, NY

Snowdrops.

Pussywillow.

Wherever you live, hopefully you can spot the early bloomers like pussy willows, snowdrops and witch hazel. Maybe you wait for March 1^st to see if the month comes in like a lion or a lamb, that old expression that some of us grew up with.

March is also the month that light and dark become equal partners. The Equinox, equal day and night. Light begins to take over. It’s comforting in times of darkness.

Forest Therapy is a practice, different for each of us. Like any ‘here to there’ experience, there are thresholds we pass through. The beginning of any forest immersion calls for the creation of some liminal space; that time between what was and the next. It’s how meditation and yoga are structured, too.

My teacher, Amos Clifford says, “our mission as guides is to support planetary health by nurturing heart-centered relationship between all peoples and the more than human world of nature.”

He also says, “A guide supports others on the journey thru which they recover and embody their medicines.”