Do you ever feel like you’ve been cleansed after you’ve been out in nature, particularly under the sun?

I’ve noticed that my house just has a cleaner quality after I come in from outside.

As though being in the sun and dirt has transformed my perception.

As though nature has made me feel cleansed from within and outwardly.

 

In the same way as you might put your bed sheets or towels on the line to bleach in the sun…

…You expose your body and soul to the natural elements to be cleansed.

 

I was trying to see if there was a word in the English language for this concept of nature cleansing, but I couldn’t find one.

As an English scholar and nature lover, I feel like it definitely needs its own word.

This sense of cleansing is a bit different than shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing. Forest bathing is a sense of immersion in a natural environment, which doesn’t quite encapsulate the quality of returning from nature feeling cleansed.

So, I went looking at Greek and Latin words for the concept of nature cleansing or nature purification.

 

Side note: in my search, I did find this neat Pinterest board with all kinds of meaningful nature words, and the nature word nerd in me nearly threw a party.

 

So, here’s what I found.

• Physi means nature
• Hagnos means to cleanse or purify

Put ’em together and you have exactly what I’m talking about. Physihagnos…

Um…that seemed a little clunky, so I kept searching…

• Renewal in Latin is irae
• Nature in Latin is naturae
• Purgatio in Latin is cleansing or purging

Getting close.

I suppose I could invent a word with those, but I wanted to see if a word existed already out there somewhere.

So, I turned to Scandinavian terms.

Nature cleanse in Swedish is naturen renar and nature cleansing is naturrening. Nature purification is also naturrening.

The Norwegian translation of “nature cleansing” and “nature purification” are naturrensing.

I’d love to hear from our Swedish and Norwegian folks if naturrening and naturrensing carry the meaning we’re trying to encapsulate here. These terms flow off the American tongue quite easily and contain the recognizable “naturre” prefix.

I love how the concepts like hygge, ikigai, lagom, wabi-sabi, and friluftsliv have become popularized. Sometimes, the English language is insufficient at explaining these things.

That’s true for nature cleansing.

So, maybe we can borrow a Nordic one.

Naturrensing

Today’s forest bathing invitation: get outside today, get your hands dirty and expose your (sunscreened) skin to the sun. Then, pay attention to how you and your environment seem cleansed when you go back inside.

 

Tell me in the comments…do you feel the same sense of cleansing after being in nature? Do you have another word for it?