FOREST BATHING

Blue Ridge Forest, NC

The Japanese Art of Shinrin-Yoku

 

Growing up in the central Kansas heartland of America instilled in me a sense of wonder and awe for the grand skyscapes that offered a wide panorama of deep blue sunny days interspersed with immense roiling thunder clouds.  So, I was never introduced to the experience of walking under vast canopies of towering trees until much later in life.  I’ve written many times since then about varied experiences of being outside in nature hunting along the rolling prairies, fishing along serene creeks and rivers, walking the beaches of the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts and hiking in the mountains across this vast country.

 

But it was only recently here in North Carolina that I discovered the Japanese term of shinrin-yoku, meaning forest bath, as we experience life under the canopy of cascading forest trees.  It’s been noted that we human beings have evolved our body and brain out in nature for 99.9% of our existence.  Most Americans now spend 93% of our time inside or in vehicles.  Prior to the advent of air conditioning, we would spend more time outside, but now we leave our air-conditioned homes to drive to our destinations in air-conditioned vehicles and enter urban air-conditioned buildings.  Our technology and fast paced lives have isolated us from nature and contributed to aggravated conditions such as cancer, strokes, higher blood pressure, ulcers, depression, anxiety, and compromised immune systems.

 

The Japanese formally embraced and defined Forest Bathing as one means of social prescribing activities to counter the effects of modern life and there is evidence that the benefits are worth pursuing.  A casual, meditative walk in the woods is a way to regain balance and temporarily escape the stress of everyday life.  And a chemical that is released by trees and plants called phytoncides has been found to bolster the immune system.  Organic compounds, pollen, fungi and bacteria contribute to the micro-organisms we humans need for a robust and diverse microbiome.  We can inhale their exhalation and exhale their inhalation as we coexist symbiotically.  The art of Forest Bathing is not a cure for illness but it can be a proactive preventative.  And it is a great place to commune with our Creator. 

 

This forest therapy can heighten our awareness of the present moment through our five senses by taking in the bathing impressions of nature all around us without the interfering noise of modern life.  And once we establish a calming quiet place in nature, we can always return there, if only in our mind.      

A walk in the woods,

The art of Forest Bathing,

Return to nature.

“ONLY VERBAL”

Pledging Delta, Animal House

President Hoover, Pinto, Flounder & Bluto 

I called my central bank today to confirm the payoff amount for a home equity loan I wanted to close without any remaining balance.  My call was transferred to an unknown country in all probability and was answered by a pleasant voice on the receiving end. 

The associate was obviously reading off of a script and took my personal information to confirm that I wasn’t a complete stranger calling to pay off my balance in my name.  Then she read off a long litany of statements closing with a requested response to either acknowledge that I wanted a “no charge” statement sent or just a verbal reply.  I stated that I only needed a number and that a verbal response would be fine, since I knew the present balance minus a few days’ interest.

She replied that I answered too quickly and that she would once again have to read me my rights.  So, I impatiently waited for her to read me all my rights and she concluded by instructing me to repeat only verbal.  I couldn’t help myself so I replied “Only verbal”, drawing on my senior memory of the pledges in the movie Animal House repeating “I, state your name…” as the pledges were initiated into the Delta Tau Chi fraternity.

This response seemed to have crossed the line with my long-time banking institution and I was told that I would now have to listen to the rules one more time and respond “Verbal” which I did and we parted amiably as I got a bonus post and the number I needed while my new friend got another senior story to tell during her next break.

Or to quote Dean Wormer, “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life!”

TWO BROTHERS LOST TO WAR AFTER THE ARMISTICE

Floyd (L), Friend, Lewis (R), New Guinea

Gold Star Flag, Emporia, KS

My nephew Mike Davis recently acquired a box of documents at a family reunion in Kansas that was primarily collected by my grandmother Davis who had three sons that were immediately called into service along with hundreds of thousands of their countrymen in WWII.  Mike assembled all of this family treasure into scrap books along with other supplemental research.  When I recently received the book on these three sons, I was immediately surprised by seeing a small surviving flag that I knew was special.  I was just a young child during the war, so my recollection of events is weak, but I do vividly remember the small flag with three stars that our grandmother proudly hung in her front window.  Two of the stars represented her sons Floyd in the army and Johnny who was assigned to a destroyer escort, while the third silver star honored uncle Lewis who was assigned to the 251^st Hospital group and didn’t survive the horrors of the war.  Our grandmother kept newspaper clippings of all the local young recruits that went off to war and was dedicated to the work of the Gold Star Mothers organization.  One of those young men was Harold A. Spatz from nearby Lebo, Kansas who flew on the infamous Doolittle raid over Tokyo.  When his plane along with the others ran out of fuel on their return he was captured by the Japanese and executed by firing squad on October 15, 1942, the day I was born.

My Uncle Floyd Davis arrived in the Pacific Theater in 1942 with the 8^th Fighter Control Squadron and remained there to witness our US brass flying to secure Japan’s surrender in 1945.  Their mission was to set up and man the new radar equipment that had been developed in England to detect incoming enemy planes and coordinate the US 8^th Fighter Squadron planes’ response.  Mike also found a book written by J.C. Stanaway & L.J. Hickey titled Attack and Conquer about the 8^th fighter group and the control squadron.  Soon after arriving in Australia, the radar control squadron was assigned to set up a defensive radar position atop a mountain off the SW coast of New Guinea.  Before long they spotted an invading fleet of seven troop barges close to their position.  They were able to radio in for air support which sank all the barges but not before about 400 troops had made it ashore.  The men were ordered to destroy their equipment and get the hell out of there.  It took an arduous sixteen days of maneuvering on foot through quicksand, rivers and thick jungle growth while enduring lacerations, fungus and malaria before they could be rescued.  We don’t know if Floyd was on this mission, but we do know he was there at that time and contracted malaria on the islands.  Most veterans didn’t discuss much about the war.

Uncle Lewis also found himself on the island of New Guinea working with the destroyed minds and bodies of innumerable young men at a makeshift hospital.  They both were amazed when they discovered that they had traveled on totally separate secret paths around the world in the midst of a world war and were only about thirty miles apart!  Lewis was able to get a short pass to visit his brother and they wrote back to the states that they had a great reunion with some of Floyd’s squad.

Both young men survived the war and were close to the Japanese surrender on the battleship Missouri.  Louis reenlisted and was assigned to a post in Georgia.  An investigation reported that after falling asleep on a noisy train in the dead of night he awoke from what could have been a frightening nightmare with the sound of planes strafing incoming wounded and he bolted outside to his death.  Floyd returned safely back to Kansas but never recovered from the alcohol that consumed his body in the midst of the jungle warfare and he eventually succumbed to it.  The unimaginable circumstance that ripped these young men from life on an American farm in the heartland and deposited them in the middle of a Pacific island jungle hell didn’t take their lives then, but it held on until it succeeded.  

After reflecting, I realized that the horrific experience for Floyd and Lewis had to create a PTSD result which nobody was prepared to acknowledge or treat at that time.  May they and their mother now be united in peace.