Nature Stories

You’re a nature lover.

Your most poignant memories,

Most pivotal moments,

Happened in nature.

You can still see the place, in detail. You can feel it.

You keep that precious memory tucked away.

If you share it with someone who doesn’t get it, you risk losing the magic.

And yet, to keep them to yourself thins their impact.

We get it.

And we want to share those stories with others who get it.

Give your memories a place to breathe their meaning. Expand the enchantment.

We want to relive them with you.

These stories bring us together.

This page is dedicated to your nature stories.

The ones that light you up.

The ones you’d share with a kindred friend over midnight coffee.

Enjoy…

Andrew Hood

Imagine my delight when I learned that the apparently indifferent tree companions with whom I share my 365 woodland ‘bedrooms’, have been bestowing upon my health and wellbeing.

Four years ago, the financial necessity to choose between keeping my house or my sculptor’s studio presented no challenge. And so I happily waved adieu to my suburban indoor bedrooms, in exchange for the outdoor, night-time accommodation offered by the deciduous woodlands of West Berkshire, Oxfordshire and nearby Wiltshire in England.

Back then I had never heard of Forest Bathing. Instead this was a proper adventure, perfectly suited to the artist’s temperament and impecuniousness. But I can admit to the immediate suspicion that something extraordinary was taking effect. That I have not suffered any ailment of any kind in the years since I ‘went feral’ may be coincidence ; so too might be the unusually (for my age) high energy levels I enjoy.

But when a day’s sculpting stone is done, what is manifestly true is the ineffable joy of an after-dark walk or bicycle ride further into the countryside and the plunging into the deep interior of the woods. There I abandon myself into to the arms of Morpheus with a sense of peace and security that was never possible behind the locked doors of my house.

And what can compare to such regular, close proximity to animal life, or to waking beneath a rudimentary canopy weighed down with snow, or to sleep, surrounded by an ocean of bluebells?

George Krause, Traveling Bare

Image via Lindsey Cuneo

Shannon Pole

A couple of years ago I was on an empowerment retreat on Vancouver Island, and our hotel was right on the ocean. I live in the Eastern Time Zone, and on this trip west, instead of adjusting to the time zone, I kept myself on Eastern time to more easily be able to wake-up for morning sunrises, which I did everyday.

Now, on the 3rd or 4th morning I woke up, ready for the sunrise over the water… and was met with rain. Soft drizzly rain, and rain. While I could have snuggled back into bed, instead I put on my rubber boots & rain coat, packed a quick breakfast and headed outside to a hiking trail I had spied in previous days.

As I wandered among the trees I came across a tree circle, creating a beautiful open space in the forest. And on one side, there was a cluster of 3 trees forming the perfect space to nestle in for awhile.

Sunrises are beautiful, and one of my favourite breakfasts of all time was snuggled against those trees, with an umbrella overhead 🙂

Jessica Collins, founder

*This story originally appeared on the ANFT blog.

Image via

Learning the Ropes Course

We were dozens of feet off the ground, balancing on an inch of rope, slowly one foot in front of the other, crossing over toward the next platform, one cautious step at a time. Holding the side ropes for support and knowing full well I was securely attached in my harness, I still felt sick when I looked down.

I tried to plead with the camp counselors. No. I’m not doing it. I’m going to stay down with the other girl who’s afraid of heights. Somehow though, they made me go up on the ropes course: across a balance beam, up a netted ladder, over more obstacles that made me queasy, knowing there was no other way out now.

At the end of the harrowing ropes course, I climbed up a ladder to the tallest tower without side barriers I’d ever been on, faced with a terrifying zip line back down to the ground. This was a zip line like none I’ve ever seen since.

I was shaking. Uncontrollably.

The counselor at the top had a kind voice. 

She sat me down and kneeled beside me and asked what frightened me.

I’d been on a zip line like this before at a waterpark. I fell straight into the water because I couldn’t hold on. The water cushioned my fall then. I’d be jolted against the end of a rope this time.

I assumed I wouldn’t be able to hold on this time either.

I had a safety harness on, but my parents had also signed a document waiving liability against death before I left for camp. That’s always reassuring.

Because of that, death became an option in my mind.

It was a long way down. A long way in which I had to hold myself up by my upper body strength and just let my feet dangle as I fell down, down, down.

A few members of my youth group waited for me at the bottom, cheering and calling out encouragements. I appreciated them for waiting for me, but I didn’t believe what they were saying.

The girl with the kind voice refocused my attention and had me take some deep breaths. She told me to take my time. I focused on her instead. 

After a little bit of back and forth from “just let me climb down” to “this is the only way down,” I decided to try it her way.

She closed her eyes and had me close mine.

“I want you to remember this experience. So, I want you to take a deep breath through your nose and smell the air as much as you can.”

I took a deep breath and felt the pure, chilled air as much as I smelled the organic fall fragrance. That smell is so lucid to me, even to this day. (I think her strategy worked.)

With my eyes still closed, she told me to listen. I could hear my fellow youth groupies chatting over a hundred feet away, a bit of rustling in the leaves, and a deep padded quiet in the forest around me.

She gently persuaded me to relax.

I assumed they’d let me climb back down eventually. So I played along. But the fear was slipping away, drop by drop.

She whispered next to me to take in the whole scene, to give myself over to faith.

I grabbed the handlebar and looked down with a huge swallow. Nope. Not gonna happen.

The counselor, somehow not frustrated with me, fed me the sweetest words, without adrenaline, without rush in her voice, without irritation: “you know you can do this. Just let go and you’ll be on the ground in three seconds. Like this: One. two. Three.”

I thought about going on three. Nope. Not gonna happen.

Pushing myself off that platform was terrifying even though I knew it would ultimately be exhilarating.

I took another deep breath, letting the crisp air and the deep silence penetrate me. “Okay, let’s count again. “One. Two. Three.” Nope. “It’s alright sweetie. Just because you couldn’t hold on before doesn’t mean you can’t hold on now.”

“Let’s count one more time. One. Two. Three.”

And I let go. Completely on a whim.

I flew to the ground in one, two, three… With every butterfly I’ve ever known to exist flying around like lunatics in my stomach.

And after dangling over the forest floor for three seconds, my feet landed and took me running across the ground.

And my friends at the bottom all cheered their hearts out when they saw me coming. They’d been waiting for me for awhile.

And they caught me and high-fived me and swooped in around me. And amidst the support, I took a few moments to look back at the platform I came from thinking, holy cow, I just did that!

I was proud.

I felt supported.

I did it!

That experience on the zip line was the first time I learned how to gather the sensory input around me and carry it with me. To stop, tune in, and etch a memory in my mind, in all its tactile and sensory detail.

It was the first time I learned how to let the forest soothe me and protect me as I attempted something scary. It was the first time I learned how to ground myself in nature, to let nature quiet that negative, untrustworthy voice in my head.

I’m pretty protective of this story, because sometimes I worry that sharing it too many times will bump the power out of it and turn it into one of those “awww, mom, we’ve heard that story a million times” kind of story. But I’m sharing it with you today because it’s exactly the type of story that encapsulates forest bathing for me.

It was the first time I experienced nature, the forest, in high definition. In a way that I knew I wanted to do it again and again. In a way that made the biting fear fade into tolerable apprehension, which allowed me to overcome a fear I didn’t think I could.

I still hear that gentle voice beside me, coaxing me with the most empowering words. I could just kiss that camp counselor who doubled as my first unofficial forest bathing guide. She was so sweet and taught me so much in those few minutes up on that zip line tower.

That ropes course was the first place I really saw myself in context of the endless forest and let go.