Forest bathing (shinrin-yoku) is a contemporary Japanese healing practice (with Shinto roots) which prescribes immersion in nature: walking, meditating, even cooking in the forest, as well as moving at a snail’s pace and listening to the trees.

In a not dissimilar mode, our walking party of a dozen or so active inner-west seniors has been inching (and imaging) its way towards Newcastle on the 260 km Great North Walk now for several years (see earlier posts). Although our ‘progress’ has been modest, each leg (indeed almost every step) has contained a revelation. Recently, on a glorious early-winter weekend, we drove two hours’ north from Rozelle to camp and hike beside Wollombi Brook in the towering Olney State Forest. Our next adventure will take us into the Watagan Mountains (watagan is an aboriginal word meaning ‘the place of many ridges’).

I would like to acknowledge the Darkinjung people, Custodians of the Country we’ve traversed, and to pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

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See also Forest bathing and the 'more than human world' - ABC RN Soul Search, broadcast 1 June 2023