The woods in March

Long before the pandemic set the world on edge, therapists and other wise ones have recommended the idea of “forest bathing.”

In simplest terms, being in the woods is good for you.

Humans have known that for eons, but it took someone in the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to come up with a word for it in the early 1980s: “shinrin-yoku” … roughly translated as “forest bath.” The government officially encouraged its citizens to go into the woods.

Sound advice.

Lately I’ve explored woodsy parks with a dear, six-foot-away friend. I’ve known her since first grade, our friendship as deeply rooted as the trees we wander through. (It’s not only the forest that’s therapeutic.)

The woods tell an essential story: Life always changes, and life endures. No matter what else may be happening in the world, the treetops will transform, from bare branches, to the hint of buds, and now the unfurling of leaves. Come summer, the forest will offer welcome shade, until fall — in a flash of brilliance — turns all that leafy green into orange, and yellow, and red. Each leaf lets go, leaving the branches bare once more.

Robert Frost was right. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. 

Go see. 

The woods in April