“Forest Bathing,” It’s good for what ails you

There’s an old saying in Louisiana, which goes: “Février est pas bâtard,” meaning (very) roughly “February isn’t half-hearted.” If that’s only a little less clear than troubled water, there’s another expression, quite similar, said still in France: “L’hiver est pas bâtard; s’il vient pas tôt, il vient tard” (“Winter isn’t half-hearted; if it doesn’t come early, it comes tardy”), which might make the meaning of this proverb a bit clearer: winter, whatever it has spent the last few months doing, is still winter, and the cold of its final weeks can be as biting as that of its first.  But this is Louisiana, not France.  Here, our only cold spells are those that follow cold fronts, when frigid, dry air masses emerge from deep in the frozen interior of the continent and race south to the Gulf; and, after their passage, we always return, oftentimes gradually but sometimes swiftly, to days of light, comfortable heat; and it is these lulling periods between cold fronts, these days of chill breezes that push you into the exquisite warmth of the sun, that are the perfect opportunity for something that is rarely so inviting during other parts of the year: passing time outside, in nature, in the natural world — in what nature-lovers like myself like to call “the real world.”

In Japan, they have a custom that they term “shinrin yoku,” literally translated as “forest-bathing,” which gives a name to a very simple idea: being in the woods, or in nature more generally, is good for you — and you don’t have to be a nature nut or tree hugger to appreciate the good that the natural world can do for you: if you’re a hunter or fisher, you already know well the quiet peace of still moments passed in the woods or on the water, far from the noise of town and of daily life.  So, if you want — or need — to escape, may I suggest a bit of forest-bathing: head to the woods, find yourself a path, well-trod and well-marked — or make yourself a new one — and walk; listen to the cedar waxwings, the towhees and the warblers before they leave for the thawing north, and walk among the flowers that are born and live their lives before the leaves of the forest’s trees ever cast the first yellow shadows of spring — or take a kayak down the Teche, up Bayou Fuselier, across Lake Martin, count the alligators and turtles and raccoons, or drop a fishing line and see what’s interested in the bait; watch the fire of dawn catch in the tops of the naked cypress, when the gray, downturned smoke of their beards of moss dance slightly and stately in the gentle stirring of the cold morning air, still mauve in that slice of the world below the flaming sky above and its likeness in the water below; walk along the beach, see if you can smell the flowers of the Yucatan on the first winds of spring.  Take advantage of the occasion to thaw out your bones, especially the ones in your legs, stiff from a winter — or a lifetime — of neglect.  Leave behind the world of buildings and bosses for a little while and spend some time in the real world — since, as the late Marion Marcotte said, “c’est bon pour tous les maladies et tous les caprices quelqu’un peut avoir dans la vie.” (“It’s good for every sickness and every caprice that anyone can have in life.”).  In other words: “It’s good for what ails you.”