As a certified Forest Therapy Guide, I can’t predict or promise how your walk will unfold or what you’ll experience. The forest meets everyone in a distinct and surprising way—sometimes gentle, sometimes profound. All I offer here is my experience of the practice of forest therapy: my own encounters, the emerging science, and a few prompts so you can discover the medicine of the forest for yourself.

Long before I discovered Forest Therapy (at 48 years old), I had always known that the forest held something special. On any given day at 12 years old, I could be found deep in the woods, playing on the river, or high up in a tree. It was one of the few places that I felt safe, and the forest felt like home to me. I had no language for it then, only a felt knowing: I belong here.

Noticing:  What childhood memory of nature still hums in your body?

Forest‑therapy sits at the meeting point of the measurable and the mysterious. Scientists measure cortisol and immune‑cell response; participants speak of awe, guidance, even miracles. Whether you call it magic or simply transformation, the pattern is the same: what enters the forest is not what walks back out.

Noticing: When have you felt altered by a wild place?

A 2‑ to 2.5‑hour, guide‑led, sensory immersion in a woodland setting. We move slowly: no fitness goals, no plant quizzes, and nothing to do other than enjoy the experience

1. Arrival: Welcoming, overview, connection
2. Invitations and sharing circles:  touch bark, watch clouds drift, follow what draws you.
3. Tea ceremony:  wild‑harvested or local tea, closing reflections, gentle return.

That’s it, and the only thing to bring is sunscreen, bug spray, and an open mind.

Noticing: What would it be like to experience 2 hours in the forest with freedom to explore, connect, and share?

• Stress‑hormone reset: Two hours in mature woodland lowers salivary cortisol by 12–16 %
• Immune boost:  Inhaling tree‑emitted Terpenes (Pinene, Limonene) can elevate natural‑killer cell activity for up to 7 days.
• Mood & anxiety relief: Decrease in rumination and anxiety after guided walks.

For what science cannot quantify, I offer lived moments of magic that can’t be explained or measured.

• A gust carries the exact perfume my grandmother wore…thirty years after her passing.
• A tree taps my shoulder though its lowest limbs hang ten feet above.
• We finish a tiny fairy house; a chickadee lands within seconds, tilting its head as if inspecting our craft.
• Snow hushes the trail the instant a prayer is whispered for peace.
• Hugging a centuries‑old tree and feeling unconditional love.
• Pouring rain drenching from head-to-toe accompanied by the biggest smile and laughter

Noticing:  Which burden might you bring to the woods and set down among the trees?

1. Find a Guide Near You: Over 2,500 ANFT‑certified guides lead walks worldwide. Search “forest therapy near me” or visit the ANFT directory.
2. Try a Solo Sit Spot: Choose one safe, permission‑granted patch of canopy and sit for 15 minutes. Let the forest lead.
3. Walk with us:  If you’re in Southern Maine, join us for a guided session. Booking details at lightandlove.com/forest-therapy

Every trail visit is a new conversation with the more‑than‑human world, and you can make forest therapy a seasonal ritual or as needed. Either way, let the forest remind you what you’ve always known but have forgotten. When you’re ready, the invitation is waiting.

Noticing:  What is the forest whispering to you right now? 

We typically conclude our tea ceremony with a poem, and it only seems fitting to end this with a poem that was inspired from one of my forest therapy walks.

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