A Walk in the Woods by Frosted Moonlight
(SA/2024)
Having taken an early morning stroll in the woods by the light of a frosted moon, I'm sympathetic to the claim made by many dendrophiles that being in the company of trees is beneficial to one's physical and mental wellbeing.
That even a short walk in the woods - depressing as this can be when one sees all the litter and fly-tipped items including paint pots, pushchairs and printers - can help lower blood pressure, keep sugar levels balanced, boost immune systems and even improve cognitive function.
Of course, the Japanese living in a land that is still two-thirds covered with a vast number and diversity of trees, have known this for many years and have even coined a (relatively recent) term [1] for finding oneself by losing oneself amongst them: shinrin-yoku - known in English as forest bathing.
But the Japanese are not unique in recognising the health benefits of this practice; the Roman author Pliny the Elder, for example, argued that the scent of a pine forest was extremely beneficial to those suffering with respiratory problems or recuperating from a long illness.
And I've written on several occasions about D. H. Lawrence's great fascination with trees: click here, for example.
Like Lawrence, I'm conscious of the fact that you can never really know a tree - something which is so much bigger and stronger in life than we are - but only "sit among the roots and nestle against its strong trunk" [2], in silent contemplation [3]. But that's good enough for me.
Notes
[1] The term shinrin-yoku was coined in 1982 by Tomohide Akiyama - Director of the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and
Fisheries - who, worried by increasing urbanisation, hoped to inspire the Japanese public to reconnect with nature and protect their forests by reminding them of the free health benefits that the latter afforded them.
[2] D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 86.
[3] Having said that, Rupert Birkin does rather more than sit in silence with his favourite young sapling; see chapter VIII of Lawrence's novel Women in Love (1920). I discuss dendrophilia in its erotic (and daimonic) aspect in a post published here on 3 October 2020: click here.
