February 18, 2025 • 28 mins
Immerse yourself in nature’s healing embrace with the transformative power of forest bathing.
Ana Ka’ahanui, co-founder of Capital Nature, uncovers the secrets behind this mindfulness practice rooted in Japanese culture.
More than just a walk among the trees, Ana shares how forest bathing can lower blood pressure, enhance creativity, and offer a sanctuary for mental and physical well-being in our fast-paced world.
We dive into the principles, benefits, and practices of forest bathing, emphasizing its ability to help individuals reconnect to nature in everyday settings and the joy it brings through mindful sensory experiences. Let’s Go!
This is Part 2 of a two-part episode.
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Mentioned in this Episode:
Connect with Ana Kaahanui: Website I Instagram (Personal) Instagram (Capital Nature) I Facebook (Personal) Facebook (Capital Nature) I Email: ana@capitalnature.org
Ana’s upcoming Forest Bathing Walks in the DMV
Association of Nature & Forest Therapy Guides & Programs (ANFT)
ANFT Certified Guides
Forest Bathing Finder
Some of Ana’s favorite books on forest bathing, nature and trees
The Nature Fix (book)
Night Magic (book)
iNaturalist (app)
Seek by iNaturalist (app)
City Nature Challenge (global)
City Nature Challenge (local)
Virginia Master Naturalists
NOVA Park’s Roving Naturalist
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay,
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(00:20):
Virginia, I'm your host. JessicaBowser,
immerse yourself in nature'shealing embrace with the
transformative power of forestbathing. Ana ka AHA Nui, co
founder of capital nature,uncovers the secrets behind this
mindfulness practice rooted inJapanese culture more than just
(00:41):
a walk among the trees, Annashares how forest bathing can
lower blood pressure, enhancecreativity and offer a sanctuary
for mental and physical wellbeing in our fast paced world,
we dive into the principles,benefits and practices of forest
bathing, emphasizing its abilityto help individuals reconnect to
nature in everyday settings andthe joy it brings through
(01:03):
mindful sensory experiences.
This is part two of forestbathing and the power of nature
connection. Let's go Virginia.
Outdoor Adventures is sponsoredby breaks, Interstate Park,
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(01:25):
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Download the digital trail guideat breaks park.com, or click on
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breaks Interstate Park in theshow notes of your listening
app.
Anna, are there any unlikelyplaces where you've led a forest
bathing walk. I did mention wecan do it anywhere, but probably
one of the most interestingplaces that I've done it in a
city setting is the DC mall, theNational Mall. I was with some
(02:10):
of my colleagues, other guides.
We were asked to lead a walk foran urban forest Summit.
Basically, we were on a cornerwhere there was a little
community garden, and there areabout four or five trees on this
little plot next to the garden,and we were able to execute and
lead a regular forest bathingwalk experience for our group.
And even though we may have hada little bit of more urban noise
(02:32):
than we normally have, forexample, during one of our sort
of quieter breathing exercises,I have the distinct memory of a
car stopping in front of us at astop sign blaring, Pat benatars
Hit me with your best shot. Andso while we all have our eyes
closed and we're trying to getZan and into the moment, we have
Pat Benatar screaming in thebackground, and I'm a Pat
(02:52):
Benatar fan, so I was, I waspretty happy about it. I thought
it was pretty funny. I wouldhave been dancing, yes, you can,
you can that. That's probablythe most urban setting that I've
done it in. That was definitelyone to remember. Yeah,
interesting. So you really can'tdo it anywhere. Yes, yes. Have
you had any particularlymemorable or transformative
experiences with forest bathingthat you'd be willing to share?
I have a couple. Actually, I leda walk a few years ago for the
(03:16):
staff of a nonprofit in DCcalled Ward eight woods. And
Ward eight Woods is a serviceorganization that goes into the
parks. You know, Ward eight hasmany parks, and they pull out
trash and invasives, and so it'shard work. They're going in and
just trudging and pulling outcar tires and taking down vines
and things like that. Some ofthe team that make up that crew
(03:39):
are returning citizens, youknow, previously incarcerated
folks, and so this is their kindof, their their connection to
the community and gettingreintroduced. And so I'm friends
with their executive director,Nathan Harrington, and he said,
you know, Anna, I'd love you togive my team a forest bathing
walk. I think that would, youknow, be really into this,
because they spend so much time,you know, pulling trash and
(04:00):
things out of the parks. And sowe had this walk, I think it was
maybe two years ago now. I tookthis really great group of guys,
you know, down. We were down atoxen run Park, and I took them
down to the stream, and we weredoing an exercise where we
listened to water. I call itdeer ears, where you put your
hands up to your ears to kind ofamplify the sound of the water.
And one of the gentlemen was somoved when he heard the water
(04:24):
that he actually dropped to hisknees because he thought it was
so beautiful. And he said, Youknow, I've been working and
pulling trash out of this out ofthis water. I've never stopped
to think that it would make thisbeautiful sound, and that it was
so beautiful. And so, yeah, itwas kind of very, kind of a
really pivotal moment for him,like he just really got into it.
And so that was beautiful.
(04:46):
Another story, what I like toshare is I sometimes donate my
walks to causes in the area. Andthere's one group that I work
with every year called everyonehome DC. They work with the
unhoused and so they have anauction every year. And so I.
Usually donate a nature walk ora forest bathing walk. And so
the woman, Samantha, that wonthe walk, you know, she invited
a bunch of her girlfriends to goon a walk, and we did this over
(05:09):
in Maryland. And at thebeginning of the walk, when we
were doing introductions, one ofthe women wanted to make it
clear that she was not a natureperson and that she didn't like
to be outside, and she wasn'tsure. She was pretty anxious.
She wasn't sure how this wasgoing to go for her. And so I,
you know, I basically said, youknow, thank you for sharing
that. You know, just, you justgo do whatever's comfortable for
you. You know, just, I want youto feel safe in this
(05:30):
environment. At the end of thewalk, we did an invitation,
which is a sit spot with a tree,where I invite people to go and
find a tree and hang out with itfor a while and just be and then
when we shared after that treesit spot, this lovely lady, she
said, I found a group of threetrees that were together, and I
stood with them, and I sang tothem, and I sang to them,
(05:50):
because I'm in an acapellagroup, and when I came across
these trees that were standingall together, I felt like they
were my acapella group. And so Isang to them for me, that was so
amazing, because two hoursprior, she had been talking
about how she wasn't an outsideperson, the fact that she was at
the end of the walk, singing tothe trees and then sharing it
with us was I just thought, Ithought was pretty amazing.
(06:13):
Those are two examples thatpretty much stick out for me
right now. That's really lovely.
And forest bathing isn't woo wooat all. Right? It's not Woo,
woo, yeah. I wish people wouldjust not think that that it's
woo, woo. But yeah, yeah,definitely. Oh, that's really
lovely. Other than forestbathing, can you recommend other
ways to connect with nature? Oh,yeah, there's so many different
so many different ways peoplecan do things like nature
(06:35):
journaling. People could dobirding. There's actually a word
for mindful birding. It's calledOrna therapy. My friend Holly
Merker has co written a bookcalled Orna therapy. I think her
website is ornatherapy.combasically, studies have shown
that the same kinds of mentalbenefits that people get from
forest bathing, you get fromexperiencing when you're
(06:56):
birding, when you're payingattention to the bird sound and
the movement, and they'revisually seeing them. And so I
am a birder, and I know you're abirder too. The fact that Holly,
she's actually a certified guideto the same organization that I
am, you know, she leads sort oflike combo locks, where it's a
combination of forest bathingand birding, which I think is
just awesome. One of the thingsthat I'm most passionate about,
(07:18):
well, first of all, my passion,just in general, is connecting
people to nature. And so theways that I do that are through
forest bathing, but also throughcitizen science. It's also
called community orparticipatory science. Now the
name seems to be changing, butin my opinion, as long as you
say it or do it, it doesn'tmatter what it's called, but
let's call it participatoryscience right now. And what that
means is, you know, scientistsare out there doing studies and
(07:41):
collecting data, and they justcan't get all the data by
themselves. They need peoplelike us, lay people that aren't
necessarily scientists, but thatcan collect data. And they've
developed all kinds of tools,both manual tools and digital
tools. And there's an app that Iuse called iNaturalist. It has a
companion app called seek, butbasically this app is a way for
people to take pictures andupload them to the app, and then
(08:05):
millions of people are usingthis app and can help
crowdsource identification ifyou don't know what kind of bee
that is or what kind of Daisythat is, there are people on
iNaturalist that do know. Andpeople can chime in and say, I
think this is a fleabane, or Ithink this is a that Daisy or
Philadelphia fleabane orwhatever. And then if two out of
three people agree on what theidentification is, it becomes
(08:27):
what is known as research grade.
So when I learned a coupleactually, probably close to 10
years now, that my photos,because I am a photographer,
that my photos of nature couldcontribute to scientific
research, I was sold. I'mthinking, everyone's using their
phones all the time. Everyone'soutdoors. They're taking
pictures of that butterfly.
They're taking pictures of thatcaterpillar or that pretty
(08:48):
flower. If everybody knew that,you know, Hey, did you know that
if you just upload thosepictures to this app, you're
contributing to science. And youmight ask like, Well, where does
the data go? Well, when itbecomes research grade, there's
a website called G Biff, theglobal biodiversity Information
Facility. It's this massiveclearinghouse of data. And so
all of these data points go upinto G Biff, and then people can
(09:09):
use those for research papers.
So a lot of things are cited. SoiNaturalist as an organization,
they can say, every year, likeour data from you guys, you the
citizen scientists, thecommunity scientists contributed
to X number of reports becauseof the data that you found.
Another really compelling reasonI think that people should be
using something like iNaturalistis it helps land managers make
(09:31):
decisions. And so, for example,if a certain Park is getting a
lot of hits, a lot ofobservations on a certain type
of invasive plant, the landmanagers, I can speak
specifically have one theArlington County Natural
Resources Manager, Alonzo Abugoddess, also known as the
capital naturalist. He'sactually on the advisory board
of my my capital naturenonprofit that I co founded,
(09:51):
because he's a resources NaturalResources Manager. They look at
that data, and then they can seelike, oh, X Park looks like they
have a lot more wineberry.
Like, we better get people outthere to to pick that stuff up.
And so I just think that's areally, you know, that's it's a
win win. It's a win win. Peopleare out anyway. They're paying
attention to things they'relearning iNaturalist is also a
(10:12):
social platform. I have made somany naturalist friends through
the platform based oninteractions that I've had about
identifying a certain type ofmushroom or a slime mold or
something like that. You'relike, you just make connections.
And what's really great is, Ithink one of my favorite
memories is I was at Wolf TrapPark, natural park, leading a
forest bathing walk, and therewas a woman that I had connected
with on iNaturalist, and shehappened to be there on a
(10:35):
volunteer day pulling weeds atWolf Trap, and she heard that I
was there in the park, and shewaited around in the parking
lot, and then introduced herselfto me, and she said, Hey, I'm
Isabella. I'm Isabella fromiNaturalist, and it was so cool
to like meet her in person. Youknow that practice of going out
and being in nature andgathering this information is
just, I just, I think it's justa wonderful
(10:58):
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(11:20):
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(12:26):
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(12:50):
online by clicking on visitGrayson County in the show notes
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The biggest community scienceevent that happens in the area
is an annual event called thecity nature challenge, and it's
going to be happening April 25to through the 28th it's four
days. And basically the goal isto see how many people we can
(13:12):
get outdoors, see how manypeople can make observations
using the app iNaturalist, andhow many species we can identify
collectively as a group. Thisyear, there will be over 600
cities around the worldparticipating, and DC, for the
last eight or nine years, hasalways been in the top 10
cities. We have a very engagedgroup of community scientists.
(13:32):
We have a website city naturechallenge dc.org which will be
listing different trainings forhow to use the app online. And
then also, will have a map and alist of all the events that will
be happening over those fourdays if you wanted to go out and
join a group, or instructions onhow you can do it yourself. So
the city nature challenges withthe bio Blitz. It's basically a
(13:52):
census of nature. Things need tobe wild like so it's not going
to be your potted plant, it'snot going to be your pet cat.
But I love to tell kids that itcould be evidence of nature. So
it can be footprints, it couldbe poop, it could be bones, it
could be skin, you know, itcould be a feather, it could be
anything that that points to anorganism or something living.
And if it's identifiable, thenit's, it's fair game as an
(14:15):
observation. And so that'sreally fun. Like, I think last
year I was a bull run after therain, and I got my first possum
prints I never got. I thought Ihad gotten raccoon prints, but
another naturalist pointed out,Anna, you have two sets of
prints in your photos, and theother one is an opossum. I had
no idea. So anyway, I encourageeveryone to get out. And what's
great is it's some familyfriendly so it's multi
(14:35):
generational. You know, kids arelow to the ground. They can see
stuff. They see stuff that theirparents don't see Mom and Dad.
You have to be 13 or older tohave an iNaturalist account. Mom
or Dad might have their phonewith the account or their
device. Grandma can hold thatpine cone while they're taking a
picture. So it's families can doit. School groups can do it.
Churches can do anybody can doit. So we highly recommend
(14:56):
people get out for the citynature challenge. Oh, that
sounds like a lot of fun. I.
Will link it in the show notes,circling back to different ways
that people connect with nature.
You talked about journaling andbirding and this community or
participatory science. How muchtime does someone need to
actually spend, like doing theseactivities to see results? You
know, the studies have shownrecently that two hours per week
(15:19):
is kind of the sweet spot forseeing results, for seeing these
physical and mental benefits.
That's where they are right now,about about two hours a week.
And that doesn't have to be twohours all at one time. It could
be spread out over the week. Soeven small bursts or doses going
out, like you do to look at yourgarden, all of that adds up, you
(15:39):
know, all of it adds up to thetwo hours. Yeah, at least the
middle ones. Also, there is agentleman named Tim Beatley from
the University of Virginia. Heis with the Biophilic Cities
Network. You know, Biophiliameans love of life, love of
nature. And the Biophilic CitiesNetwork is the sort of
consortium of cities thatbasically are walking the walk
and sharing the fact that theyhave nature. They have an
(16:00):
infrastructure for natureconnection for people in some of
the trainings that we'veattended, that he's done, he has
a colleague at University ofVirginia who has made something
called the nature pyramid. Andso it's the bottom pyramid is
kind of like the daily dosage ofnature, just kind of like, if
you're going out and checkingyour mail or something like
that, then there's the weekly,then there's the monthly, then
(16:20):
there's the yearly. And so itkind of goes up in a pyramid. So
the in terms of frequency, sothe daily is the biggest one at
the bottom, and then weekly,maybe you venture out a little
bit further, and then themonthly, you know, maybe you
visit another state, orsomething like that. And then
the the yearly, maybe once ayear you go out, go out of the
country. And so I kind of likelooking at it sort of as a
nutrition pyramid, but fornature, I think it was a really
(16:43):
nice way for them to come upwith explaining that to people.
I've seen that pyramid before,and it makes a lot of sense,
because in your day to day, likemost people are not going out
and hiking every single day,like they're not getting in
their car and driving someplacefar out and going out now, if
you live somewhere near trailsand you're, say, walking your
dog every day, maybe. But that'sthat's a little bit different,
right? So it's like the dailyactivities versus the like
(17:06):
actually planning a trip andgoing somewhere. I wanted to
mention a couple other things interms of nature connection. One
of the things that I actuallyhaven't personally practiced,
but I want to try, is thegrounding or earthing you take
your shoes off in your barefoot, because, you know, we
gather all these, we gather allthis electricity onto us,
personally as humans, which ispositive energy. And then I
learned that the Earth isactually has negative energy. So
(17:28):
by making that connection,you're you're neutralizing it,
and you're rebalancing yourself.
And so I want to, I want to trythat more. I mean, I've done
walks. I've done some walks.
Actually, I had a walk onceduring COVID. I was supposed to
be doing a forest bathing walkfor a wedding during COVID, and
it was canceled, unfortunately.
But the the arboretum let thewedding couple, the day of the
supposed wedding, bring sixpeople to the closed Arboretum
(17:51):
and have it for four hours tothemselves. And so they invited
me to come anyway, and we didsort of a forest bathing walk
just for them, but we did it. Weall did it barefoot. So we
literally were running aroundthe arboretum for a couple hours
in bare feet, and that was just,it's just an amazing feeling.
And so I haven't done that asmuch, but it's something that I
want to learn more about, and Iwant to do myself. And I'm sure,
(18:12):
you know, lots of people outthere do it, so that's
grounding. The other thing is,you mentioned your garden, just
being outside and, you know,putting your hands in the dirt
and touching all the touchingall the leaves of the flowers
like that's, I mean, that is anamazing nature connection, you
know, and you're actually makinga physical impact on what's
going on with your native plantsand things like that. So
(18:32):
gardening is another way justsimple walks where you're just
not doing anything andgrounding. One more thing I
wanted to mention, if you can'tconnect your house, go to
YouTube and look up naturesounds videos, nature videos,
because even just having thesounds on in the background and
watching the imagery, it doesn'tmatter if it's like, you know,
(18:53):
from Hawaii, or if it's fromVirginia or whatever, having
that on in the background isvery therapeutic. And so that
could be just sort of like yourgateway, like, hey, just or if
you're like, wanting to get intobirding, put it on one of those
videos that just has bird soundsso that you can hear it and just
be listening to it. Maybe you'llstart recognizing some of the
species, or something like that.
(19:13):
So that's a very easy way tokind of slow down and calm
yourself. Is to is to just pullup some of these videos and have
them going on in the background,which I highly recommend, even
when I'm working. So I told youthat the origin of forest
bathing was of Shinran Yoko wasin Japan, and I had the such
luck and opportunity to go toJapan back in October on a sort
(19:34):
of cultural exchange with theirguides. And so about 20 of us
international guides from allover that went and met up with
the Japanese guides and went tothree of the different forests
where they practice forestbathing, including the one where
the term forest bathing was wasformed. You know, was was
invented, if you will. And wegot to do forest bathing there.
And so be leading up to my trip,I just played nothing on
(19:57):
YouTube, but like nature ofJapan video.
Those like in the background,just so that I can kind of prep
myself for when I actually gotto go there. So highly
recommend. It's funny that youmentioned grounding, because I
just did an episode. The guestname is Alejandra, from girls
who hike Virginia, and we hikedold rag together, and when we
got up there, she took her shoesoff. And mind you, this was
(20:18):
like, in winter, so it wasfreezing, but she's up there
walking on the rocks in her barefeet. And I was like, what do
you do? What are you doing? Andshe told me that she had heard
about this thing calledgrounding, that she had learned
about, and that she wanted totry it. And then after she tried
it, she really, really enjoyedit. Now she does it as part of
her regular practice. Sowhenever she gets to the summit,
she takes off her shoes and shewalks around and just connects
(20:40):
to the earth, and she's like,you know, scrambling up boulders
and stuff too, and her barefeet, which I think is
impressive, and she said it justchanges the experience for her.
But that also afterwards, herfeet just feel really good, like
they've just been massaged whenshe puts them back in her boots.
Yeah, I definitely, I mean, Idefinitely want to do it more. I
want to do it more. It's funny,like, I think for me on a walk,
(21:03):
like, usually when I go on awalk, and we try to be remind
people that they need to, like,be mindful of ticks. If it's
tick season, you know, so youhave socks and things on and so,
you know, the pulling all thatstuff off and then putting it
back on and putting, you know,back and forth. So logistically
for me during my walks, it justdoesn't work for me right now.
But you never know, I might bein a different scenario. You
know, where it's totallyappropriate for Hey, just like
(21:24):
it was at that one time thearboretum, like, hey, let's just
throw our shoes off and goaround. Yeah, right.
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(21:47):
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everyone at Virginia stateparks. Discover your next state
park adventure by clicking onVirginia state parks in the show
notes of your listening app.
(22:10):
Are there any other resourcesthat you recommend that you
haven't already mentioned? Well,I have a lot of books that I
like to recommend, recommend topeople, so I will share that
with you. One of my favoritebooks about nature connection is
called the nature fix byFlorence Williams. She's a
friend of mine. She's a forestbathing guide. She's a science
writer. It's all about thescience of nature connection. So
like, if you're kind of like ascience nerd or or just want to
(22:32):
know about how it literally isall working out all this
connection to our senses. Shetraveled all around the world
for this and worked with alldifferent types of researchers
and doctors. And I just thinkthat's really fast. Think that's
really fascinating. I mentionedI'm a dendrophile, so I love
trees. So I have all kinds oftree books that I love. There's
a book that one of my favoritebooks that I've read recently is
called Night Magic, and it's allabout exploring nature at night.
(22:56):
And so each chapter is dedicatedto a different sort of grouping
of species. So for example, it'sbats, or it's glow worms, or
it's moths. She kind of takesyou on this journey of, like,
what it's like to be out atnight. You know, people kind of
have a preconceived notion that,like darkness is is scary and
evil, and she wants to make itso that, you know, people will
(23:17):
appreciate going out in thedark. We, as we evolved, you
know, we were in the dark, andso when we were meant to see in
the dark and experience thingsin the dark. And so it's a
really, if you're if you'reinterested in learning about
that kind of thing, it's adefinite read. So I will
definitely give you a list of Ihave a couple slides and
presentations that I do thathave clickable links to all the
Amazon books that I like torecommend to people. Yeah, that
(23:39):
would be great, because you'vegot a long list of books, and I
am proud to say that I have reada lot of them, but there's a lot
more that I was like, Oh, thisone's gonna be good. And so you
haven't been one to me that Ijust downloaded the bad
naturalist. That's right, badnaturalist that just came out
this month. I think in thepublisher sent me a copy before
it was available to the public.
So I'm still I'm very close tothe end of it, but I'm really
(24:02):
enjoying that one. And thatauthor is from Virginia, so it
feels very much like home, likewhen she's talking about the
different places in the book,I'm like, Oh yeah, I know where
that is. So, like, there's thathomegrown connection. I guess I
can't wait to get into it. I'vealready downloaded I listened to
my books on audible, so I can'twait to listen to it. Okay,
Anna, I think we're gonna haveto land this plane pretty soon.
(24:23):
How can listeners connect withyou? Well, my nonprofit that I
co founded with Stella Tarneyeight years ago is capital
nature, and that's capital withan Al so capital nature.org,
and basically we, we formedbecause we really wanted to
connect people to the uniquenature opportunities in the DC
metro area. You know, there werethe there's the tree people and
(24:45):
the bird people and the bugpeople, but we wanted to kind of
be a, maybe a one stop shopwhere people could kind of go to
our website, look at our eventcalendar, where we've cultivated
and curated a list from some ofour favorite partners in the
area of like, what they'redoing, speaking of nature
events.
Our friend Matt felperin, theNova parks, roving naturalist.
We love to promote his events.
So we like to put all differenttypes of things. If you wanted
(25:06):
to do a tree walk, a mushroomforay, pulling weeds,
stewardship activities, we tryto get people to go, you know,
we encourage people to go to ourwebsite to check that out. So,
capital nature.org, we're alsoon Facebook and Instagram,
perfect. I actually mentionedMatt in my last little episode,
and I put a link to all of hisreally cool educational outdoor
programming, but I will drop itin this one as well. And can I
(25:27):
tell you a little secret?
Actually, you might already knowthis, but nobody else knows
this. Matt and I are going up toMinnesota next week to go
birding like up near Duluth, andI am so excited I can't even
sleep at night. You guys. I youguys did mention that when we
were out birding together thispast weekend, and I'm gonna be
honest, I'm jealous. I wouldlove to go with you guys,
(25:50):
because I know you're gonna seethe great gray owls. Probably
right, yes, oh my god, that isthe one bird that I want to see
so badly. Like that, yournemesis bird? Well, no, because
I've never been in the right,the right area to look for it.
So I can't say that I've been,like, out looking for it, never
found it, which is really what anemesis bird is, but is it is
the bird that i is top of mylist that I want to see so
(26:12):
badly. I told Matt, I'm like, beready for it. I'm probably just
gonna start sobbing, yes, yes. Ican't wait to hear about it.
I'm, you know, take pictureswhile you're there, obviously.
So I can't wait to see, yeah,that's it's. I just love when
you get together with peoplethat share your passion. It just
kind of really enhances it,right? You know, it's like, when
everybody's like, so into thebirds, or so into the trees and
(26:35):
so into the mushrooms, you know,that type of thing. Yeah, it's
really exciting. And we've beentalking every night about what
species we're going to see, andyou know, what kind of mammals
are going to be up there, andwhat the weather's going to be
like, and how to get ready forit. And it's just, it's like two
kids in a candy shop, or just,you're going to have to tell
Matt to remind him, from me thatplease make some iNaturalist
observations while you guys areup there. Oh, I don't need to
(26:57):
remind him. You know, he's allover that.
All right. Well, thank you,Anna. I am so grateful to you
for coming on Virginia outdooradventures to share your love
and passion for forest bathingand connecting with nature. I do
hope the listeners get a lot outof this, and I hope they check
out the links that I'll drop inthe show notes with all of his
wonderful resources, includingsome of your own walks. So maybe
(27:19):
you'll see some listeners onyour walks coming up in the near
future. I hope so. This was sogreat. I mean, I could talk
about forest bathing and lovefor nature connection all day.
So I'm so glad that you had meon to just kind of go on on what
some of the things that I loveand that I'm passionate about.
So I really hope I see some ofyour listeners on my walks.
Thanks so much. Awesome. Thanks.
On adventure, on adventure. OnVirginia, outdoor adventures is
(27:41):
inspired by and supported bylisteners like you, which is why
your messages and feedback meanso much to me. You can text me
directly by clicking on SendJessica a text message in your
show notes, I answer questions,respond to comments and share
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(28:01):
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Thanks for listening until nexttime. Adventure on you.
From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay,
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outdoor adventures Podcast isyour local guide for hiking,
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(00:20):
Virginia, I'm your host. JessicaBowser,
immerse yourself in nature'shealing embrace with the
transformative power of forestbathing. Ana ka AHA Nui, co
founder of capital nature,uncovers the secrets behind this
mindfulness practice rooted inJapanese culture more than just
(00:41):
a walk among the trees, Annashares how forest bathing can
lower blood pressure, enhancecreativity and offer a sanctuary
for mental and physical wellbeing in our fast paced world,
we dive into the principles,benefits and practices of forest
bathing, emphasizing its abilityto help individuals reconnect to
nature in everyday settings andthe joy it brings through
(01:03):
mindful sensory experiences.
This is part two of forestbathing and the power of nature
connection. Let's go Virginia.
Outdoor Adventures is sponsoredby breaks, Interstate Park,
brakes Park is a hikingdestination in the heart of
Appalachia, every trail featuressomething that will awe you,
(01:25):
including geologic formations,scenic views of the canyon,
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Download the digital trail guideat breaks park.com, or click on
(01:49):
breaks Interstate Park in theshow notes of your listening
app.
Anna, are there any unlikelyplaces where you've led a forest
bathing walk. I did mention wecan do it anywhere, but probably
one of the most interestingplaces that I've done it in a
city setting is the DC mall, theNational Mall. I was with some
(02:10):
of my colleagues, other guides.
We were asked to lead a walk foran urban forest Summit.
Basically, we were on a cornerwhere there was a little
community garden, and there areabout four or five trees on this
little plot next to the garden,and we were able to execute and
lead a regular forest bathingwalk experience for our group.
And even though we may have hada little bit of more urban noise
(02:32):
than we normally have, forexample, during one of our sort
of quieter breathing exercises,I have the distinct memory of a
car stopping in front of us at astop sign blaring, Pat benatars
Hit me with your best shot. Andso while we all have our eyes
closed and we're trying to getZan and into the moment, we have
Pat Benatar screaming in thebackground, and I'm a Pat
(02:52):
Benatar fan, so I was, I waspretty happy about it. I thought
it was pretty funny. I wouldhave been dancing, yes, you can,
you can that. That's probablythe most urban setting that I've
done it in. That was definitelyone to remember. Yeah,
interesting. So you really can'tdo it anywhere. Yes, yes. Have
you had any particularlymemorable or transformative
experiences with forest bathingthat you'd be willing to share?
I have a couple. Actually, I leda walk a few years ago for the
(03:16):
staff of a nonprofit in DCcalled Ward eight woods. And
Ward eight Woods is a serviceorganization that goes into the
parks. You know, Ward eight hasmany parks, and they pull out
trash and invasives, and so it'shard work. They're going in and
just trudging and pulling outcar tires and taking down vines
and things like that. Some ofthe team that make up that crew
(03:39):
are returning citizens, youknow, previously incarcerated
folks, and so this is their kindof, their their connection to
the community and gettingreintroduced. And so I'm friends
with their executive director,Nathan Harrington, and he said,
you know, Anna, I'd love you togive my team a forest bathing
walk. I think that would, youknow, be really into this,
because they spend so much time,you know, pulling trash and
(04:00):
things out of the parks. And sowe had this walk, I think it was
maybe two years ago now. I tookthis really great group of guys,
you know, down. We were down atoxen run Park, and I took them
down to the stream, and we weredoing an exercise where we
listened to water. I call itdeer ears, where you put your
hands up to your ears to kind ofamplify the sound of the water.
And one of the gentlemen was somoved when he heard the water
(04:24):
that he actually dropped to hisknees because he thought it was
so beautiful. And he said, Youknow, I've been working and
pulling trash out of this out ofthis water. I've never stopped
to think that it would make thisbeautiful sound, and that it was
so beautiful. And so, yeah, itwas kind of very, kind of a
really pivotal moment for him,like he just really got into it.
And so that was beautiful.
(04:46):
Another story, what I like toshare is I sometimes donate my
walks to causes in the area. Andthere's one group that I work
with every year called everyonehome DC. They work with the
unhoused and so they have anauction every year. And so I.
Usually donate a nature walk ora forest bathing walk. And so
the woman, Samantha, that wonthe walk, you know, she invited
a bunch of her girlfriends to goon a walk, and we did this over
(05:09):
in Maryland. And at thebeginning of the walk, when we
were doing introductions, one ofthe women wanted to make it
clear that she was not a natureperson and that she didn't like
to be outside, and she wasn'tsure. She was pretty anxious.
She wasn't sure how this wasgoing to go for her. And so I,
you know, I basically said, youknow, thank you for sharing
that. You know, just, you justgo do whatever's comfortable for
you. You know, just, I want youto feel safe in this
(05:30):
environment. At the end of thewalk, we did an invitation,
which is a sit spot with a tree,where I invite people to go and
find a tree and hang out with itfor a while and just be and then
when we shared after that treesit spot, this lovely lady, she
said, I found a group of threetrees that were together, and I
stood with them, and I sang tothem, and I sang to them,
(05:50):
because I'm in an acapellagroup, and when I came across
these trees that were standingall together, I felt like they
were my acapella group. And so Isang to them for me, that was so
amazing, because two hoursprior, she had been talking
about how she wasn't an outsideperson, the fact that she was at
the end of the walk, singing tothe trees and then sharing it
with us was I just thought, Ithought was pretty amazing.
(06:13):
Those are two examples thatpretty much stick out for me
right now. That's really lovely.
And forest bathing isn't woo wooat all. Right? It's not Woo,
woo, yeah. I wish people wouldjust not think that that it's
woo, woo. But yeah, yeah,definitely. Oh, that's really
lovely. Other than forestbathing, can you recommend other
ways to connect with nature? Oh,yeah, there's so many different
so many different ways peoplecan do things like nature
(06:35):
journaling. People could dobirding. There's actually a word
for mindful birding. It's calledOrna therapy. My friend Holly
Merker has co written a bookcalled Orna therapy. I think her
website is ornatherapy.combasically, studies have shown
that the same kinds of mentalbenefits that people get from
forest bathing, you get fromexperiencing when you're
(06:56):
birding, when you're payingattention to the bird sound and
the movement, and they'revisually seeing them. And so I
am a birder, and I know you're abirder too. The fact that Holly,
she's actually a certified guideto the same organization that I
am, you know, she leads sort oflike combo locks, where it's a
combination of forest bathingand birding, which I think is
just awesome. One of the thingsthat I'm most passionate about,
(07:18):
well, first of all, my passion,just in general, is connecting
people to nature. And so theways that I do that are through
forest bathing, but also throughcitizen science. It's also
called community orparticipatory science. Now the
name seems to be changing, butin my opinion, as long as you
say it or do it, it doesn'tmatter what it's called, but
let's call it participatoryscience right now. And what that
means is, you know, scientistsare out there doing studies and
(07:41):
collecting data, and they justcan't get all the data by
themselves. They need peoplelike us, lay people that aren't
necessarily scientists, but thatcan collect data. And they've
developed all kinds of tools,both manual tools and digital
tools. And there's an app that Iuse called iNaturalist. It has a
companion app called seek, butbasically this app is a way for
people to take pictures andupload them to the app, and then
(08:05):
millions of people are usingthis app and can help
crowdsource identification ifyou don't know what kind of bee
that is or what kind of Daisythat is, there are people on
iNaturalist that do know. Andpeople can chime in and say, I
think this is a fleabane, or Ithink this is a that Daisy or
Philadelphia fleabane orwhatever. And then if two out of
three people agree on what theidentification is, it becomes
(08:27):
what is known as research grade.
So when I learned a coupleactually, probably close to 10
years now, that my photos,because I am a photographer,
that my photos of nature couldcontribute to scientific
research, I was sold. I'mthinking, everyone's using their
phones all the time. Everyone'soutdoors. They're taking
pictures of that butterfly.
They're taking pictures of thatcaterpillar or that pretty
(08:48):
flower. If everybody knew that,you know, Hey, did you know that
if you just upload thosepictures to this app, you're
contributing to science. And youmight ask like, Well, where does
the data go? Well, when itbecomes research grade, there's
a website called G Biff, theglobal biodiversity Information
Facility. It's this massiveclearinghouse of data. And so
all of these data points go upinto G Biff, and then people can
(09:09):
use those for research papers.
So a lot of things are cited. SoiNaturalist as an organization,
they can say, every year, likeour data from you guys, you the
citizen scientists, thecommunity scientists contributed
to X number of reports becauseof the data that you found.
Another really compelling reasonI think that people should be
using something like iNaturalistis it helps land managers make
(09:31):
decisions. And so, for example,if a certain Park is getting a
lot of hits, a lot ofobservations on a certain type
of invasive plant, the landmanagers, I can speak
specifically have one theArlington County Natural
Resources Manager, Alonzo Abugoddess, also known as the
capital naturalist. He'sactually on the advisory board
of my my capital naturenonprofit that I co founded,
(09:51):
because he's a resources NaturalResources Manager. They look at
that data, and then they can seelike, oh, X Park looks like they
have a lot more wineberry.
Like, we better get people outthere to to pick that stuff up.
And so I just think that's areally, you know, that's it's a
win win. It's a win win. Peopleare out anyway. They're paying
attention to things they'relearning iNaturalist is also a
(10:12):
social platform. I have made somany naturalist friends through
the platform based oninteractions that I've had about
identifying a certain type ofmushroom or a slime mold or
something like that. You'relike, you just make connections.
And what's really great is, Ithink one of my favorite
memories is I was at Wolf TrapPark, natural park, leading a
forest bathing walk, and therewas a woman that I had connected
with on iNaturalist, and shehappened to be there on a
(10:35):
volunteer day pulling weeds atWolf Trap, and she heard that I
was there in the park, and shewaited around in the parking
lot, and then introduced herselfto me, and she said, Hey, I'm
Isabella. I'm Isabella fromiNaturalist, and it was so cool
to like meet her in person. Youknow that practice of going out
and being in nature andgathering this information is
just, I just, I think it's justa wonderful
(10:58):
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The biggest community scienceevent that happens in the area
is an annual event called thecity nature challenge, and it's
going to be happening April 25to through the 28th it's four
days. And basically the goal isto see how many people we can
(13:12):
get outdoors, see how manypeople can make observations
using the app iNaturalist, andhow many species we can identify
collectively as a group. Thisyear, there will be over 600
cities around the worldparticipating, and DC, for the
last eight or nine years, hasalways been in the top 10
cities. We have a very engagedgroup of community scientists.
(13:32):
We have a website city naturechallenge dc.org which will be
listing different trainings forhow to use the app online. And
then also, will have a map and alist of all the events that will
be happening over those fourdays if you wanted to go out and
join a group, or instructions onhow you can do it yourself. So
the city nature challenges withthe bio Blitz. It's basically a
(13:52):
census of nature. Things need tobe wild like so it's not going
to be your potted plant, it'snot going to be your pet cat.
But I love to tell kids that itcould be evidence of nature. So
it can be footprints, it couldbe poop, it could be bones, it
could be skin, you know, itcould be a feather, it could be
anything that that points to anorganism or something living.
And if it's identifiable, thenit's, it's fair game as an
(14:15):
observation. And so that'sreally fun. Like, I think last
year I was a bull run after therain, and I got my first possum
prints I never got. I thought Ihad gotten raccoon prints, but
another naturalist pointed out,Anna, you have two sets of
prints in your photos, and theother one is an opossum. I had
no idea. So anyway, I encourageeveryone to get out. And what's
great is it's some familyfriendly so it's multi
(14:35):
generational. You know, kids arelow to the ground. They can see
stuff. They see stuff that theirparents don't see Mom and Dad.
You have to be 13 or older tohave an iNaturalist account. Mom
or Dad might have their phonewith the account or their
device. Grandma can hold thatpine cone while they're taking a
picture. So it's families can doit. School groups can do it.
Churches can do anybody can doit. So we highly recommend
(14:56):
people get out for the citynature challenge. Oh, that
sounds like a lot of fun. I.
Will link it in the show notes,circling back to different ways
that people connect with nature.
You talked about journaling andbirding and this community or
participatory science. How muchtime does someone need to
actually spend, like doing theseactivities to see results? You
know, the studies have shownrecently that two hours per week
(15:19):
is kind of the sweet spot forseeing results, for seeing these
physical and mental benefits.
That's where they are right now,about about two hours a week.
And that doesn't have to be twohours all at one time. It could
be spread out over the week. Soeven small bursts or doses going
out, like you do to look at yourgarden, all of that adds up, you
(15:39):
know, all of it adds up to thetwo hours. Yeah, at least the
middle ones. Also, there is agentleman named Tim Beatley from
the University of Virginia. Heis with the Biophilic Cities
Network. You know, Biophiliameans love of life, love of
nature. And the Biophilic CitiesNetwork is the sort of
consortium of cities thatbasically are walking the walk
and sharing the fact that theyhave nature. They have an
(16:00):
infrastructure for natureconnection for people in some of
the trainings that we'veattended, that he's done, he has
a colleague at University ofVirginia who has made something
called the nature pyramid. Andso it's the bottom pyramid is
kind of like the daily dosage ofnature, just kind of like, if
you're going out and checkingyour mail or something like
that, then there's the weekly,then there's the monthly, then
(16:20):
there's the yearly. And so itkind of goes up in a pyramid. So
the in terms of frequency, sothe daily is the biggest one at
the bottom, and then weekly,maybe you venture out a little
bit further, and then themonthly, you know, maybe you
visit another state, orsomething like that. And then
the the yearly, maybe once ayear you go out, go out of the
country. And so I kind of likelooking at it sort of as a
nutrition pyramid, but fornature, I think it was a really
(16:43):
nice way for them to come upwith explaining that to people.
I've seen that pyramid before,and it makes a lot of sense,
because in your day to day, likemost people are not going out
and hiking every single day,like they're not getting in
their car and driving someplacefar out and going out now, if
you live somewhere near trailsand you're, say, walking your
dog every day, maybe. But that'sthat's a little bit different,
right? So it's like the dailyactivities versus the like
(17:06):
actually planning a trip andgoing somewhere. I wanted to
mention a couple other things interms of nature connection. One
of the things that I actuallyhaven't personally practiced,
but I want to try, is thegrounding or earthing you take
your shoes off in your barefoot, because, you know, we
gather all these, we gather allthis electricity onto us,
personally as humans, which ispositive energy. And then I
learned that the Earth isactually has negative energy. So
(17:28):
by making that connection,you're you're neutralizing it,
and you're rebalancing yourself.
And so I want to, I want to trythat more. I mean, I've done
walks. I've done some walks.
Actually, I had a walk onceduring COVID. I was supposed to
be doing a forest bathing walkfor a wedding during COVID, and
it was canceled, unfortunately.
But the the arboretum let thewedding couple, the day of the
supposed wedding, bring sixpeople to the closed Arboretum
(17:51):
and have it for four hours tothemselves. And so they invited
me to come anyway, and we didsort of a forest bathing walk
just for them, but we did it. Weall did it barefoot. So we
literally were running aroundthe arboretum for a couple hours
in bare feet, and that was just,it's just an amazing feeling.
And so I haven't done that asmuch, but it's something that I
want to learn more about, and Iwant to do myself. And I'm sure,
(18:12):
you know, lots of people outthere do it, so that's
grounding. The other thing is,you mentioned your garden, just
being outside and, you know,putting your hands in the dirt
and touching all the touchingall the leaves of the flowers
like that's, I mean, that is anamazing nature connection, you
know, and you're actually makinga physical impact on what's
going on with your native plantsand things like that. So
(18:32):
gardening is another way justsimple walks where you're just
not doing anything andgrounding. One more thing I
wanted to mention, if you can'tconnect your house, go to
YouTube and look up naturesounds videos, nature videos,
because even just having thesounds on in the background and
watching the imagery, it doesn'tmatter if it's like, you know,
(18:53):
from Hawaii, or if it's fromVirginia or whatever, having
that on in the background isvery therapeutic. And so that
could be just sort of like yourgateway, like, hey, just or if
you're like, wanting to get intobirding, put it on one of those
videos that just has bird soundsso that you can hear it and just
be listening to it. Maybe you'llstart recognizing some of the
species, or something like that.
(19:13):
So that's a very easy way tokind of slow down and calm
yourself. Is to is to just pullup some of these videos and have
them going on in the background,which I highly recommend, even
when I'm working. So I told youthat the origin of forest
bathing was of Shinran Yoko wasin Japan, and I had the such
luck and opportunity to go toJapan back in October on a sort
(19:34):
of cultural exchange with theirguides. And so about 20 of us
international guides from allover that went and met up with
the Japanese guides and went tothree of the different forests
where they practice forestbathing, including the one where
the term forest bathing was wasformed. You know, was was
invented, if you will. And wegot to do forest bathing there.
And so be leading up to my trip,I just played nothing on
(19:57):
YouTube, but like nature ofJapan video.
Those like in the background,just so that I can kind of prep
myself for when I actually gotto go there. So highly
recommend. It's funny that youmentioned grounding, because I
just did an episode. The guestname is Alejandra, from girls
who hike Virginia, and we hikedold rag together, and when we
got up there, she took her shoesoff. And mind you, this was
(20:18):
like, in winter, so it wasfreezing, but she's up there
walking on the rocks in her barefeet. And I was like, what do
you do? What are you doing? Andshe told me that she had heard
about this thing calledgrounding, that she had learned
about, and that she wanted totry it. And then after she tried
it, she really, really enjoyedit. Now she does it as part of
her regular practice. Sowhenever she gets to the summit,
she takes off her shoes and shewalks around and just connects
(20:40):
to the earth, and she's like,you know, scrambling up boulders
and stuff too, and her barefeet, which I think is
impressive, and she said it justchanges the experience for her.
But that also afterwards, herfeet just feel really good, like
they've just been massaged whenshe puts them back in her boots.
Yeah, I definitely, I mean, Idefinitely want to do it more. I
want to do it more. It's funny,like, I think for me on a walk,
(21:03):
like, usually when I go on awalk, and we try to be remind
people that they need to, like,be mindful of ticks. If it's
tick season, you know, so youhave socks and things on and so,
you know, the pulling all thatstuff off and then putting it
back on and putting, you know,back and forth. So logistically
for me during my walks, it justdoesn't work for me right now.
But you never know, I might bein a different scenario. You
know, where it's totallyappropriate for Hey, just like
(21:24):
it was at that one time thearboretum, like, hey, let's just
throw our shoes off and goaround. Yeah, right.
Whether you're after a relaxingpicnic or a two week vacation,
leave life's daily pressuresbehind and reconnect with nature
and family at a nearby StatePark, you'll find plenty of
programs, events and activitiesamong 42 parks, plus 1000s of
(21:47):
campsites, hundreds of cabins,more than 500 miles of trails
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park adventure by clicking onVirginia state parks in the show
notes of your listening app.
(22:10):
Are there any other resourcesthat you recommend that you
haven't already mentioned? Well,I have a lot of books that I
like to recommend, recommend topeople, so I will share that
with you. One of my favoritebooks about nature connection is
called the nature fix byFlorence Williams. She's a
friend of mine. She's a forestbathing guide. She's a science
writer. It's all about thescience of nature connection. So
like, if you're kind of like ascience nerd or or just want to
(22:32):
know about how it literally isall working out all this
connection to our senses. Shetraveled all around the world
for this and worked with alldifferent types of researchers
and doctors. And I just thinkthat's really fast. Think that's
really fascinating. I mentionedI'm a dendrophile, so I love
trees. So I have all kinds oftree books that I love. There's
a book that one of my favoritebooks that I've read recently is
called Night Magic, and it's allabout exploring nature at night.
(22:56):
And so each chapter is dedicatedto a different sort of grouping
of species. So for example, it'sbats, or it's glow worms, or
it's moths. She kind of takesyou on this journey of, like,
what it's like to be out atnight. You know, people kind of
have a preconceived notion that,like darkness is is scary and
evil, and she wants to make itso that, you know, people will
(23:17):
appreciate going out in thedark. We, as we evolved, you
know, we were in the dark, andso when we were meant to see in
the dark and experience thingsin the dark. And so it's a
really, if you're if you'reinterested in learning about
that kind of thing, it's adefinite read. So I will
definitely give you a list of Ihave a couple slides and
presentations that I do thathave clickable links to all the
Amazon books that I like torecommend to people. Yeah, that
(23:39):
would be great, because you'vegot a long list of books, and I
am proud to say that I have reada lot of them, but there's a lot
more that I was like, Oh, thisone's gonna be good. And so you
haven't been one to me that Ijust downloaded the bad
naturalist. That's right, badnaturalist that just came out
this month. I think in thepublisher sent me a copy before
it was available to the public.
So I'm still I'm very close tothe end of it, but I'm really
(24:02):
enjoying that one. And thatauthor is from Virginia, so it
feels very much like home, likewhen she's talking about the
different places in the book,I'm like, Oh yeah, I know where
that is. So, like, there's thathomegrown connection. I guess I
can't wait to get into it. I'vealready downloaded I listened to
my books on audible, so I can'twait to listen to it. Okay,
Anna, I think we're gonna haveto land this plane pretty soon.
(24:23):
How can listeners connect withyou? Well, my nonprofit that I
co founded with Stella Tarneyeight years ago is capital
nature, and that's capital withan Al so capital nature.org,
and basically we, we formedbecause we really wanted to
connect people to the uniquenature opportunities in the DC
metro area. You know, there werethe there's the tree people and
(24:45):
the bird people and the bugpeople, but we wanted to kind of
be a, maybe a one stop shopwhere people could kind of go to
our website, look at our eventcalendar, where we've cultivated
and curated a list from some ofour favorite partners in the
area of like, what they'redoing, speaking of nature
events.
Our friend Matt felperin, theNova parks, roving naturalist.
We love to promote his events.
So we like to put all differenttypes of things. If you wanted
(25:06):
to do a tree walk, a mushroomforay, pulling weeds,
stewardship activities, we tryto get people to go, you know,
we encourage people to go to ourwebsite to check that out. So,
capital nature.org, we're alsoon Facebook and Instagram,
perfect. I actually mentionedMatt in my last little episode,
and I put a link to all of hisreally cool educational outdoor
programming, but I will drop itin this one as well. And can I
(25:27):
tell you a little secret?
Actually, you might already knowthis, but nobody else knows
this. Matt and I are going up toMinnesota next week to go
birding like up near Duluth, andI am so excited I can't even
sleep at night. You guys. I youguys did mention that when we
were out birding together thispast weekend, and I'm gonna be
honest, I'm jealous. I wouldlove to go with you guys,
(25:50):
because I know you're gonna seethe great gray owls. Probably
right, yes, oh my god, that isthe one bird that I want to see
so badly. Like that, yournemesis bird? Well, no, because
I've never been in the right,the right area to look for it.
So I can't say that I've been,like, out looking for it, never
found it, which is really what anemesis bird is, but is it is
the bird that i is top of mylist that I want to see so
(26:12):
badly. I told Matt, I'm like, beready for it. I'm probably just
gonna start sobbing, yes, yes. Ican't wait to hear about it.
I'm, you know, take pictureswhile you're there, obviously.
So I can't wait to see, yeah,that's it's. I just love when
you get together with peoplethat share your passion. It just
kind of really enhances it,right? You know, it's like, when
everybody's like, so into thebirds, or so into the trees and
(26:35):
so into the mushrooms, you know,that type of thing. Yeah, it's
really exciting. And we've beentalking every night about what
species we're going to see, andyou know, what kind of mammals
are going to be up there, andwhat the weather's going to be
like, and how to get ready forit. And it's just, it's like two
kids in a candy shop, or just,you're going to have to tell
Matt to remind him, from me thatplease make some iNaturalist
observations while you guys areup there. Oh, I don't need to
(26:57):
remind him. You know, he's allover that.
All right. Well, thank you,Anna. I am so grateful to you
for coming on Virginia outdooradventures to share your love
and passion for forest bathingand connecting with nature. I do
hope the listeners get a lot outof this, and I hope they check
out the links that I'll drop inthe show notes with all of his
wonderful resources, includingsome of your own walks. So maybe
(27:19):
you'll see some listeners onyour walks coming up in the near
future. I hope so. This was sogreat. I mean, I could talk
about forest bathing and lovefor nature connection all day.
So I'm so glad that you had meon to just kind of go on on what
some of the things that I loveand that I'm passionate about.
So I really hope I see some ofyour listeners on my walks.
Thanks so much. Awesome. Thanks.
On adventure, on adventure. OnVirginia, outdoor adventures is
(27:41):
inspired by and supported bylisteners like you, which is why
your messages and feedback meanso much to me. You can text me
directly by clicking on SendJessica a text message in your
show notes, I answer questions,respond to comments and share
your feedback on the show. Nevermiss a new episode. Sign up for
(28:01):
my email newsletter and receivemy listener resource guide with
the top podcast episodes, aVirginia outdoor bucket list and
exclusive brand discounts for mylisteners. Click on newsletter.
Sign up in your show notes orvisit Virginia outdoor
adventures.com.
Thanks for listening until nexttime. Adventure on you.
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