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forestbathing-studies-blog · 7 years ago

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. the effects of fire, human clearance and grazing probably limited forest cover to about 50% of the land area of Scotland even at its maximum. The stock of woodland declined alarmingly during the First World War and at the end of the war the Acland Report recommended that Britain should secure a strategic reserve of timber. The Forestry Commission was formed to meet this need. State forest parks were established in 1935.[10][11][12][4]

Emergency felling controls had been introduced in the First and Second World Wars, and these were made permanent in the Forestry Act 1951. Landowners were also given financial incentives to devote land to forests under the Dedication Scheme, which in 1981 became the Forestry Grant Scheme. By the early 1970s, the annual rate of planting exceeded 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) per annum. Most of this planting comprised fast-growing conifers. Later in the century the balance shifted, with fewer than 20,000 hectares (49,000 acres) per annum being planted during the 1990s, but broadleaf planting actually increased, exceeding 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) per year in 1987. By the mid-1990s, more than half of new planting was broadleaf.[7][13]

Historical woodland cover of England. The Domesday Book of 1086 indicated cover of 15%, "but significant loss of woodland started over four thousand years ago in prehistory". By the beginning of the 20th century this had dropped to 5%. The government believes 12% can be reached again by 2060.[14]

In 1988, the Woodland Grant Scheme replaced the Forestry Grant Scheme, paying nearly twice as much for broadleaf woodland as conifers. (In England, the Woodland Grant Scheme was subsequently replaced by the English Woodland Grant Scheme, which operates six separate kinds of grant for forestry projects.)[15][16] That year, the Farm Woodlands Scheme was also introduced, and replaced by the Farm Woodland Premium Scheme in 1992.[17] In the 1990s, a programme of afforestation resulted in the establishment of Community Forests and the National Forest, which celebrated the planting of its seven millionth tree in 2006

The writer must seek isolation, whether he or she likes it or not. So I walk through the forests and hills back to my train, marveling that yet again I found my way. Through Matsuo Bashō, veritable father of haiku, we learn that the true writer does not lead a sedentary life, and indeed must walk in order to express his or her syllables. Bashō walked for 156 days through Japan in his legendary 'Deep Road to the Far North' series of haibun that defined the term. Japan still remains a heavily forested country – at least 70% of the surface is forested. By doing so Bashō also demonstrated that the true haiku and haibun haijin’s tool is not the pen but the wooden staff. Not only does this staff lift branches and part bushes to see the dew drops and flower petals, but it can also be leant on when searching the sky for floating eagles, patterned clouds and drifting cherry blossoms. The wooden staff also taps haiku on a road perfectly, like a variant of morse code to nature; ”win—ter…is…o—ver…my…staff…is…carved…dog…barks…to…each…tap.”

A haibun journey is a pilgrimage, where what happens on the way makes the destination. And the wanderer is not only Quixotic in his, or her nature. A sword of any kind must therefore be put aside for other quests. As haibun merely take from what is walked through on paths onto lines on pages, and a blade only serves to distance the reader from the writer's words. The semiotic staff therefore takes on even more symbolic meaning.

wooden staff— reflected in the shine of samurai sword

Not Don Quixote, nor wandering samurai, then what? Like the Navajo in the south western states, who use wooden tools on mother earth lest they leave scars, I don’t set out to make an impression that might not heal.

samurai’s sword slices candle still stands, and burns and yet…

http://fractalenlightenment.com/16617/life/walk-in-the-forest-to-heal-oneself

Forest holidays. Saudi Arabia date plantation Hofuf Finland

I long for nature’s products. Not the creams from companies with names like Natura, or Flower, Plantigen, with pictures of flowers or berries on the front, and packed with goodness knows what chemicals in a plastic container ultimately destined for the garbage dump. Lies on the cover and junk in the container. Thank goodness we are finally waking up to the dangers of antibacterial soap and hand gel. And the lack of contact with germs may actually be much more harmful in the long run than we think.

When my copper shop was in full swing before it collapsed and went bust, we were trying to persuade health authorities to change door handles, kidney bowls, keyboards and other items to copper surfaces. There is no better antimicrobal surface in the world. None. Southampton hospital is changing door handles to copper or brass ones — brass is a copper alloy. If all hospitals in GB did the same it is estimated 20,000 lives a year would be saved. That is a serious estimate. Of course more lives would be saved if doctors did not wear ties, which hang down on one patient then onto the next.

We also developed an entirely natural gel we called Yakutia ● Copper Honey, then Yakutia ● Copper Dew, put into aluminium tins. Medical organisations use zinc creams for scar tissue reparation — and zinc shares very similiar properties as copper, except that these days copper receives controversial press. It didn’t use to. Traditionally copper buckets stored water and kept it fresh, and traditionally, and accordingly, many less people suffered from arthritis. When I take part in my pilgrimage through Siberia, with no destination, I wear copper insoles in my boots. I want a woolen sweater, not the popular fleece, which has plastic fibres now found in fish from the world’s oceans. I won’t wear the garish coloured technical performance sports shirts that are specially designed for people not on pilgrimages, but rather a hemp shirt and jute bag, both that grow naturally without draining an area of water like cotton does. I long to be properly back in touch with nature.

sunlit waterfall in my wooden cup the taste of a rainbow

I walked for hours, a little of it in the light of dusk, for in Siberia at this time of the year, now that we have passed through the longest night, we now get dusklight for a few minutes a day. I thought some of the snow had melted, and stepped out into the whiteness with less forbearance than usual. But I was misled by my windowpane and it's view, and that in fact between the footprints in the snow lay patches patches of dark, expressionless ice. We are in January. The sun will not rise until 11.00 am and the snow will not melt until June, so what was I thinking about? The deer have not even taken to the ice yet; they can smell the water, and they are still digging in the snow for the last of the Autumn roots, destroying the forests say the rich landowners, but they despise reindeer herders.

The sun will set just after 2:00 pm, though in fact it never really rises over the horizon anymore, but at least it will rise earlier and set later, and then we will no longer remember the almost total darkness for a few weeks, twenty four hours a day. During those days sanity is not a given, but a conscious choice, like an oxygen mask a diver consciously keeps strapped tight as he descends into the depths, ever tempted though, to succumb to the belief that he can breathe in the deep blue, like those here believe they can survive winter with a bottle and by keeping their watch off, or that they can walk home alone without being tied to another, so that in a blizzard they will only be found the next morning, if it is morning. The mist swirls around me like yesterday's troubles and tomorrow's uncertainties, making the horizon, like time, blurred. I am reminded of The Beatles, and The Glass Onion, and hum it without soul, ‛We fooled you all, the walrus was Paul..’ Winter goes on and on, motionless, humourless, and no longer virginal.

I arrived at my destination at dusk to pay a visit to a family of Bosnian refugees I knew from the old days. Arriving at dusk means arrived at about 1.45 pm and stayed for a cup of coffee, then set off for my train station again, for hours of walking in the winter dark can be a risky affair if one stumbles.

So why did you come so far

‛So why did you come so far, all my daughters are married!’ joked my Bosnian friend.

‛I’m on a haibun pilgrimage,’ I said, ‛walk, write, walk, write.’

He paused, nodding his head and stroking his chin: ‛Pilgrims and refugees are both the same,’ he said.

northern lights at the edge of the city nature whispers in colour

pots, pans and unknown medical cures. But not everyone is only a trader. A Siberian ethnic Yakut, distinguished by his weatherbeaten Asiatic features and headband takes my photograph on an old Kiev medium format camera, spending time to get the composition just right as I sit on my jute duffel bag. He tells me he can send me the photo, in black and white, if I give him my address. I tell him it is ok. I enjoyed my brief stint at fame and don’t need to physically possess the moment.

‛You have a Yakut heart!’ he laughs, confirming my guess at his ethnicity. They say that we are only ever six persons away from knowing any person on this planet, or there are six degrees of separation between us, so that a mazimum of six steps can be used to connect any two persons. The average distance of 1,500 random users in Twitter is 3.435 degrees. I scan the station. The possibilities seem almost endless.

sunlight through windows an orchestra of voices a beautiful departure!

Who has heard of Toliatti and its gulags? About 15 years ago I drank a glass or two of homemade wine on a front porch, with a retired postman who’d walked home from Toliatti, on the Volga. Yes, that’s right, he didn’t walk inToliatti, but from the non-descript decrepid town somewhere on a trainline in the middle of Russia.

Delivering the post had been his job — to the Hungarian eighth army who had invaded the Soviet Union in support of German troops during the Second World War, a not inconsequential fact when you consider the Russian/Soviet determination to ensure that did not happen again by creating the Warsaw Pact countries.

But János delivered mail. He collected it from the train, or trucks and delivered it to the front line troops. This is a more important role than it first appears, for a man cannot fight without news that has loved ones are well.

And love was what made János walk. In the middle of the Second War and the middle of Toliatti, János delivered his mail and kept walking. He walked out of Toliatti, next to the Volga, along the trainline, then through the taiga, through the trees, over the hills, across the river and in the meadows. He walked, and walked and walked, all the way back to Eastern Hungary, to the wine-growing town of Tokaj, back to his wife.

When he arrived back, he discovered his sister-in-law had been taken away, just taken to the gulags. So he turned around and walked, attempting to find her, somewhere in the hugeness that was Siberia. He never found out what happened to her, and only had stories of the bitter cold, and equally bitter sense of defeat.

As I sat in Tokaj, Eastern Hungary, drinking his delicious homemade wine, which he kept in his wine cellar dug into the hillside, I noticed her picture hanging on the wall; a beautiful young woman, the portrait soft in the evening glow. They never saw her again.

János spoke no English but the wine talked. We shared many a glass, glancing at the portrait of the young woman who died in the gulag.

sentenced somewhere deep in Siberia —memories make grapes grow

Fellow Travellers 1

American travellers busy sewing or sticking flags of Canada to bags and shirts is legendary and has almost become de rigeur. It is rare, however, that being an American is alone an offense, and cetainly not in Siberia. All the same, the three Americans across from me are very busy plastering Canadian patches on bags and clothing, before practicing the accent with a loy of lilted ‛ays.’

‛I am not sure all the matriachical train station guards in the small towns along the railroad tracks will spot the difference,’ I say.

‛Hey man, you gotta do what you gotta do,’ says one of the three,

‛Where’s Snowden anyway?’ says the other male, ‛I’d like to meet him, maybe even bring him in. There must be some kind of reward.’

‛Well, Canadians wouldn’t be saying that,’ I said, ‛and you never know what kind of microphones they have on trains.’

The two American males went quiet in contemplation, a silence broken only by the pretty sight of the slipping out of her flip flops and painting her toenails bright red.

‛I’d do this in the bathroom normally,’ she chuckled.

She was from Florida, and wasn’t exactly sure where the train was heading.

‛All the way to Vladivostok,’ I answered.

‛And no cute guys,’ she said.

She was good-looking in a disharming sort of way, with strawberry blonde hair, but as such did not stand out in the carriage, aside from her flip flops which set her apart from the high heels worn by the Russian women on the train. Inside the compartment it was too warm as usual in eastern Europe, but most passengers kept their sweaters on regardless, as if judging the temperature by the view outside, where patches of snow flashed by under the fir trees.

Linda put her heels on the seat beside me across from where she sat. ‛I could paint a little white maple leaf on,’ she giggled.

At a small station her two friends dashed off to restock on food, eschewing the fresh pine pastries being sold from baskets on the platform and buying instead overpriced stale buns in plastic packets from the buffet.

‛They even asked if we were American, man,’ said the taller of the two returning.

‛Only the mosquitoes weren't fooled,’ said the other.

http://www.myminnesotawoods.umn.edu/2012/03/the-memory-of-trees-in-a-modern-climate-epigenetics/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3586649/

I learn two things today. First that the population of Perm and the surrounding area are the closest of the Irish along with the Basque in Spain and France.

But I also find out that about 150,000 inmates were imprisoned in more than 150 camps in the Perm region during the late 1940s. This was about a third of the working population of the region.

Perm-36 Labour Camp

Daily Schedule of a Gulag Prisoner Time Activity

6:00 AM Wake up call

6:30 AM Breakfast

7:00 AM Roll-call

7:30 AM1 1/2 hour to march to forests, under guarded escort

6:00 PM1 1/2 hour return march to camp

7:30 PM Dinner

8:00 PM After-dinner camp work duties (chop firewood, shovel snow, gardening, road repair, etc.)

11:00 PM Lights out

Yekatinberg

We are on a journey this month, my partners and I, through Siberia, though the further down the train tracks we travel, the more opens behind us. I, myself, am searching for the Russian soul, that unique, raw soul, with all its flaws worn on its sleeve, where the vodka spills.

Today, we are in Yekatinberg, in the footsteps of Coelho’s words and of the Urals. I feel immediately at home stopping here on this journey, among these mountains outside Yekatinberg’s eastern balconies in pine-scented forests again. I am not a man of the pencil line horizon. So I walk upwards, to the nearest peak, to compose my haiku.

high in mountain forests where even shadows don’t reach nature inspires through silence

Tyumen

In Siberia at last, home to so many who live with nature. Winter is when traps are laid, and fresh water comes from holes dug deep in the ice. Soon the bears will be out again, and hungry, though a bear makes fine food. It is not possible to chase them away when fishing. They will always come back, so must be shot.

In a few months the leaves will shimmer in the breeze. In Tyumen I will only see the fort from far. I feel at home among the birch and pine trees.

Tyumen fort shines at night but I shine among the birch trees that rustle with such longing

pine trees gently sway is it the wind blowing or is it my mind?

I looked over at Linda, now applying another colour of nailpolish. I imaged her taking a few barefoot steps with snow melting.

she walks in the snow until the grass at the edge of spring

early blossoms are late how thoughtless yet another haiku about snow

Acrobats

I have come to the singular conclusion that a view must be merited, that it is a right that must be earned, and that this should be our quest. Working hard for a view of the world does not mean the same as slaving away for years for a front porch, in order to be able to sit there, gazing endlessly across a stretch that slowly develops into other front porches. On the contrary.

across river Ob endless taiga nothing else matters

For four hundred years thousands of mammoth tusks have been found in Siberia, from mammoths almost intact, with many organs perfectly frozen and stomachs half full of food - at times the blood still viscuous due to the 'anti-freeze' components found in the blood, so called cryptoprotective properties, as in Arctic amphibians and fish. But why so many in Siberia remains a real mystery. Why did millions of the woolly mammoth move to the cold in Siberia, and how did they die so quickly after eating? Did a massive cold front move suddenly from the Arctic? That would be a climatic condition that does not exist today. If this is the case, it would have been very cold - freezing a mammoth suddenly and quickly is no easy thing at all. It would have taken temperatures as low as -100C. The mystery is far from solved...

fifty thousand mammoth tusks found deep in Yakutia I step on ancients

Novosibirsk

with all its philosophical and spiritual messages. One of the messages is the exploration of Tengriism, which will happen here on this blog to further depth over the next few days, as our train ride through Siberia continues.

Some you reading this have shaman blood, but you do not know it – yet. I once journeyed with a shaman, taking an inner journey as well one that saw many miles rush under wheels. In many ways I am still on that journey, though already I miss my log cabin of an ever-deepening late winter, the dry, powdery cold and morning ice crystals on the window panes playing with light as I stumble around getting breakfast after yet another night without vodka and morning without hangover.'

I find the coffee, and now feel like the luckiest man alive, with Yenisei on the journey too, and the opportunity to roast some coffee on the charcoal dawn fire and serve it to her, as she purrs herself awake and unwraps herself, naked, from the fur.

charcoal from the embers she becomes my winter tiger nude and hot with stripes

I find it difficult in Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia, and do not need to be in the capital of anywhere. Soon she will show me how to draw the birch sap from the trees, and I will literally taste the taiga.

within a ring of fire a story is warmed deep in Siberia

Yenisei

among the pine trees only one set of footprints- mine

It is a long way. Much of the railroad has been laid by the bare hands of prisoners from labour camps, whose prison was Siberia itself. Gulags rarely needed fences or guard towers. Escapees were never going to get far. And the railroad still crushes the bones of those who perished building it.

Not everyone who laid down rail lines in Siberia was a prisoner. Many volunteered, and even stayed afterwards. Those people have a special inner peace about them. An understanding of nature, and a deep respect, too. They are people who prefer the numbing colds of winter to the pleasant summers, full of unforeseen dangers and reckless laziness.

Winter is a time when travel is often easier, across solid lakes and rivers and through frozen forests. It is a time when hospitality is offered, and when bears are not around near villages, nor dangerous ticks and bothersome mosquitos in swampy, muddy forests.

And life is more bare in winter, survival more of a test. It is first an appalling mix for the novice, but soon an appealing one. The sense of freedom is like nothing ever experienced elsewhere, and maybe all the more so because it is worked so hard for.

Freedom in the land of gulags. It is an interesting thought. But for all its history of brutality and horror, Siberia is a vast, mystical land, of shamans who reach where the church or mosque doesn't, and where temperature plunges so low that cement or metal foundations of buildings are useless next to the hardy wooden ones of the taiga, thus proving, once again that nature wins.

inhaling pine scent calmed by the breeze rustling trees spirits of the wild

A Prophecy

Up near the Arctic Circle, there is magic afoot at this time. We know here, that Santa was a shaman in his big black boots, collecting the Fly Agraic mushroom, red with white dots from the forest, and feeding it to his reindeer then drinking the mix when their livers had removed the toxins, or putting them in a big sack and later hanging them to dry above the fireplace. And these magic mushrooms that grow under the fir trees, with ethereal fertilisation, are symbolised now with the draping of silver-coloured tinsel over the so-called Christmas tree, in reality the world tree, the tinsel symbolising sperm.

Of course, after eating the magic mushrooms the deer fly, and Santa laughs, with red cheeks. The Siberian tribal and Saami people's myth of the world tree is real. If you would like to treat yourself to one of these mushrooms, make sure you boil it first, unless you have any reindeer around. And then come North, and see our northern lights, and watch, touch our magic, none-materialistic world. Just remember the Swedish saying, 'there is no cold weather, only cold clothes.'

northern lights the magic world speaks shaman inspired

Therapy from another culture

Almaty

If I remember right, when I was working in Kazakhstan, I measured the country to be as wide as Ukraine to Portugal. Hearts pretty much as wide too.

For Kazakhs, hospitality is a tradition learnt from deep within. A guest into a Kazakh home is welcomed with a cup of Kazakh tea; fragant, with indefinable and potent herbs — potent because there must be something in it to have your mind soon dreaming of never ‘’returning home’’, and of putting your own yurt in the grasslands next to the forested mountains.

It is a country of the future, possibly to rank alongside China and Brazil. Sudden new buildings seem to slide up from nowhere, almost, in the bare steppes of Northern Kazakhstan, in the new capital Astana. Almaty retains its former grandeur as capital, greatly aided by the mountains around it, where cool pine trees border paths. Yet each building’s modern, intricate design often reflects a homage to the past. The golden egg building is one, with the Kazakh theme of start of civilisation, and other buildings use much of the Kazakh connection to wildlife and nature as influence.

But I worked far from Astana, at an oil refinery near Tengiz, in Eastern Kazakhstan, somewhere far from anywhere. In the evenings the Kazakh women of the base (proud, as Kazakh women are the only Muslem women who do not wear the hijab, or cover their heads, and more Kazakh women are in upper management positions than in North America) would sometimes perform Kazakh folklore, wearing traditional dress and playing local instruments.

Here is one thing I learnt which I want to share here, as it works: After eating we stood upKazakhs briefly bring their open hands up to their cheeks or neck, flat palms facing the body and about 2'’ or 5 cms or so away from the body. They bring their palms down slowly past the chest down past the stomach and then away from their body in a wide downward movement. The action takes about 5 seconds, and can be repeated. It can also be done at any time, though definitely works well after eating: without any question of a doubt it aids digestion and brings a relaxed, yet ‘’perked-up’’ feeling.

When I tried to climb the Mont Blanc I remember when I took my gloves off, to try to keep the tent pegged into the glacier during a blizzard. I could barely move my fingers. And that was in July in France, in weather so cold I suppose there should not have been a blizzard, except maybe it wasn't. The wind was howling so strongly it may have just looked like one. It swept away my foam mattress, too, which made for a very difficult night, and movement was not possible in waist deep snow and a cliff edge somewhere, even with a headlamp.

in the taiga I long for no more than taiga

Stragglers are we. Thousands of miles over kilometres of bones. All for what? Sometimes, like now, its good to get off before the end of the journey, then the journey does not end.

The traps are set. The night is young. The snow is fresh. I’ve seen the tracks. The conditions are difficult for the elk right now. The snow is not strong enough to support elks, so they often get stuck, making easy meat for hungry wolves and awakening bears. And an elk, or caribou in north America, can provide food for a long time.

Good. I am nearly all out of frozen fish. I set off this morning into the cold snap, lowering temperatures now hovering at minus twenty two degrees. The cat is huddled on the bed in the cabin and frozen wood has been placed onto the fire. I could do with a cup of tea but will have one when I get back.

long polar winter no sunrise or sunset not asleep not awake

Shamans

Shamans, in yurts, teepees, chant their song Resounding rhythm flowing, to the drum Echoes tapped across the wintry sun ☼ And the sun, a pale echo Tipped so far from the horizon in its trance That the snow shines only by moonlight ☼ While the signs that show Spring has come Are still the sounds of the Shaman's drum The shaman, her eyes lit by fire, the yurt by song ☼ So dance, beauty, dance, dance until the sun rises For soon you will chance upon fields of fresh flowers And lie in meadows perfumed by long-melted snows

The Road of Bones

On the Road of Bones you never travel alone. Here breath suddenly freezes, and drops in tiny fragments, tinkling like a wind chime. In this cold words travel no further than a few feet, and they say words themselves freeze when the temperature drops far enough to make metal crack. This is the notorious road built by the prisoners of the Gulags, the torture camps.The road stretches to Magadan on the Pacific ocean, from Yakutsk in Yakutia, a vast mysterious republic within the even larger emptiness of Siberia. A republic that would be the eighth largest country in the world if fully independent, with a population of just 1 Million.

Here in Yakutia the temperature can plunge to -60C, rendering the road a gamble that only those needing to escape a misdemeanor take, or those imbibed with a certain madness. But who would go in summer, when the mud and mosquitoes make escape well nigh impossible and madness well nigh sure?

So the best time to go is in late winter, before the melting of snow and floods, when the cold is loosening its bitter grip - but even then it is dangerous, for when the temperature rises it begins to snow heavily again, after being too cold to snow during the winter months. And the wolves are hungry by then. And I mean hungry. Last winter a pack of 400 wolves killed 300 horses before they were finally driven away. But we gamble. We leave behind the rugged Yakutians who want us to stay until June, the summer solstice, and the start of the new year in Yakutia, when the republic is full of festivities, and greets the rising sun in the morning as one. We take the Road of Bones, where if voices have really frozen then the painful sounds of the Gulag prisoners is best not heard during the thaw if one is to keep one's sanity.

sun rises ice on pines tinkles in breeze drum - snow from branch hits ground

Ulan Ude is near the Mongolia I always wanted to walk through, and the Kazakhstan I know and like so much. Kazakhstan, perhaps the most tolerant country in the world.

All our thoughts are different in Ulan Ude. It is a chance to explore the Buddhist nature that lies within each of us. I sit facing the last of the taiga, the last birch tree, and compose my haiku.

pine needles make a comfortable rest oh! stinging ants!

And I return to the train. The Tran-Siberian, and stare at the early morning dawn.

Mud

I have seen the draining mud. Like many I played in the creeks for endless childhood hours, vagrantly defying, yet again, rules about set dinner times and sleep in my fantasy of youth, captured and explained now only in my imagination.

But I knew then, as part of my defiance, that mud is glorious, and a natural plaything. In the childhood of our civilisation we knew that too. When I walked the River Nile and sat with villagers for tea they still complained, years later, about the lack of life-giving floods, that used to provide nutrients to the parched and starved land, now changed in the name of control and real estate by the river, but for the select few.

And sitting in fountain square, in Baku, Azerbaijan, I learn from my Bengali friend, recently escaped from the latest Bangladesh flooding, how harmful the dykes and walls we built through the past generations have been, how these blockades were cleverly-designed to contain the rising waters from the Himalayas. Now the rivers rise no more. They spill, and rush over the walls suddenly, when there is barrier no more at a certain height, a masse of water spreading miles wide, all at once.

It is perhaps the same people who always carry umbrellas who conceive of the notion of blocking nature, the ones who want to disinfect themselves from the pleasure of kicking a puddle just to see. They, the seekers of sand beach and cement house can only think vertically, and can only watch a sunset from the umpteenth floor of an office insulated from the earth where it sprouted.

In the creek across a field now of memories I too made little boats from leaves and twigs and watched them float downriver slowly, or more quickly when the rains came. The creek, like my childhood, is no more, and the skill of building the best tiny boat has gone too, from lack of practice or opportunity, replaced instead by plastic models bought with cereal packs full of the latest ways of modifying taste.

But my memories are still fashioned by twigs and trees and leaves, by not avoiding puddles and staying away from the concrete of car-strewn streets wherever I can.

after the storm colourful pieces of sky in mud puddles

The Gobi

When I arrived in Baku 15 years ago, I spent the first night in a caravanserai. There, I bought a chain; a set of prayer beads, in turquoise stone. I say 'bought' but I had no local Manats, the Azeri currency.

"No problem," said the street sales man, "pay me when you see me next."

A few weeks later I saw him, in a crowd surrounding the then president Aliev's walk though the old town, near the caravanserai. I paid him, and thus became part of the mutual trust we shared for each other.

in a caravanserai on the edge of the orient I told my own fortune

Chita

I did what he asked, and only opened the small rice paper holding his three lines a few moments ago, in order to finish my passage with the haiku. It was written in Buriat script, so I was forced to call upon a Mongolian friend far in Mongolia, in Ulan Baator, to perhaps translate it. He could not, but in turn called his friend living in northern Mongolia, a Buriat living near Chita, in Ereentsav, to help. His friend told me he had a pair of Buriat winter boots he was sure I might like, and very useful for the cold Lappland winters. In turn I remembered my gortex jacket, bought once in a mountain town but too small for me, and promised to forward it.

The haiku he wrote

rain tinged with sand the storm brings dust from the steppes grasslands lands among me

We often talk about taking the train, but of course, the train takes you, just like a dream does. Everytime one steps up the steps of a train carriage, one steps into a dream.

on the train deep into the soul of Siberia we share bread and dreams

The ice patterns blown onto plants are more beautiful than the flowers that briefly bloom in summer, and more fragile. But my journey into Siberia brought me equally tender and graceful moments. They are moments on the landscape of my mind that is the memory of a journey, ever eastwards from Moscow. We passed through many temples that passed through different moments in history themselves, and are in reality only remnants, reminders of former days and ideas. For the true Siberian religion is shamanism, and it is not possible to travel through the Siberian taiga without meeting a shaman, and without taking another journey into the spirit world without one of the shamans encountered on a muddy village path, or up in a grassland meadow.

I know shamanism well from the Saami people in Lappland, and indeed fell in love with a shaman once, and travelled far with her. But that is a story I have recounted elsewhere. Still now, though, I find female shamans are able to reach further into the sky, and shamanism is a part of Tengriism, with its spiritual home of Kazakhstan, but also Yakutia, in the north.Tengriism is the religion or philosophy of open spaces. No traveller or journey man or woman can remain untouched by its simple and compelling spirituality.

to know your path follow the shadows of the tracks above you

Amur

Amur sounds like 'Amour' in French, which means Love, and is a most-fitting theme as we near the end of our journey. Amur, love, mila, in Latvian, uthando, in Zulu, liubav, beautifully, in Croatian, like Russian. And then I remember it is 'rakkaus,' embarrassingly, in Finnish, and I understand the lack of romance in that country, that I left behind in my thoughts. In Swahili it is upendo, Polish miłość, echoing somewhat nearby Latvia. In Javanese it is katrasen, which disappoints somewhat. In Khmer it looks the nicest, ក្ដីស្រឡាញ់, and I think of languages like Persian, Arabic, Japanese and Mandarin, and their beautiful calligraphy, and reflect on how important that art is.

I look at the flow of the Amur, nature's caligraphy, alive, moving, even though frozen on the surface now. But it is underneath that I took my journey, that we took our train into Siberia. I know I will be back. Back to watch the sun rise over the sparkling untouched snow, and carve its rays through the trees of the taiga, when I will be able to unwrap my haiku by hand with my wooden staff, onto the sandy banks of the river that sounds like love to some.

haiku not yet inscribed -promised for a return journey then drained into sand

There is always one person willing and able to break the mold, one who has that rebellious soul, and sometimes I am lucky enough to meet them. Each time I do, I recognise that innate need to step forward, or even sideways, to walk out of step or in another direction. They carry me. For them I will do everything, and they are much more rare than you think. They are not the ones who tell you they speak their own mind in a self-satisfied grin, but are instead the ones of small gestures at significant moments.

There was the Russian soldier I knew who had served in the Gobi desert and Afghanistan, who had a permanent karate tic, that is to say he was always chopping the air suddenly, in supermarkets and other not-natural karate chop environments.

We lived together, rather ludicrously, in the Russian embassy in Budapest - a long story if there ever was one, and our job was a little more ludicrous; to look after some high-spending Ukrainian teenage girls who thought we were the two most uncool people walking the civilised streets of bourbonville, but as they seemed impeccably connected all the way up to president Yeltsin of Russia, we remained uncoolly present, and very uncool to any cool young men who approached them, which made us even more uncool in the Ukrainian pink-outfitted teenage eyes, which further developed my Russian ex-soldier friend's karate tic, and wiped supermarket shelves of produce alongside the Danube river that cuts Buda from Pest. Those were uncommon days.

Three years later he called me from Korea, where he was studying ancient medicine similar to acupuncture, but with tiny burning pots, to congratulate me on the birth of my first daughter of three in Aberdeen, Scotland. How he got my number, or knew where I was, who knows.

there are people to meet while we walk that make it important to walk

one eagle in the blue sky

one wolf among the trees

one heart beat

hawk flies free but hunts for his master who feeds him

Vladivostok

Vladovostok is the kind of city I would like to arrive in at dawn. There has always been something fascinating about this last city on a train line one could start in Portugal if one so desired, and finish here, with a few waits on station platforms in-between.

In Vladivostok we are near the North Korean border but also near to Japan. Imagine, though, travelling through the whole of Russia, of Siberia, and arriving here, in this mysterious city. One does not immediately think of beginning another journey, and on the Trans Siberian we skirt close to Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan, they must be experienced too.

For now I would be satisfied to sit on a bench facing the Pacific. And I remember Irina, in Western Ukraine in 1991, joking with me about coming on the Trans Siberian, when the price was a carton of Malboro cigarettes, and smiling when I said "Vladivostok or bust!"

hello Irina! I am here at last, facing the sea -without you

her beauty

thousands of miles away

in the immediacy of my mind

It is said the if Bill Gates needed to assign someone to a complex, arduous project, he would give it to a lazy person, because they would simplify it to the easiest level.

Edward de Bono advocated an even easier step; including random factors into the problem to force thought patterns that are not the norm. Costs too high? Here, bring them down using this orange in the equation. Travel does that. Each next corner is different, and therefore subject to creativity and inspiration.

Into Ukraine

I dream of wheatfields, golden, waving slowly in the breeze, the sky spotless, and so blue, of embroidered sleeves, fingers with cherry red nailpolish ripping a chunk of bread, and dippping it in salt before handing it to me. I dream of mountains where carts trundle up mountain lanes, and pastures are decorated with haystacks yielding to the horizon, and pine trees linger next to their aroma on mountain paths. I dream of the Black Sea, in a world where simple enjoyments still have a meaning, of shashlik, of people who have endured a history not many in Europe have, yet remain proud of their almost unique hospitality.

On a geography field trip to Hyères, in the south of France late at night I stood in the sea. Technically, it was not part of the official activities of the school trip, and I stood in nothing except the sea, having removed bathing trunks. My Ukrainian classmate had lifted her flowery skirt up her thighs and walked in, as close to me as she dared raise her skirt, and beckoned. In the sea at waist height, each step was precious, but I joined her, and in fact she let the hems of her skirt drop down as we kissed, and I both learnt about and felt the passion of the Ukraine.

Years later, when I took a troop of Ukrainian college actors around Eastern Europe with a play I had written, called 'How to catch a man,' a tragicomedy, I stayed on to teach a while in a Western Ukraine fresh from the dissolved Soviet Union, and was seduced by the rustic charm of the Carpathian mountains, the people of which I knew as market traders in various countries on the border – in Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and what is now Serbia, selling all their household belongings in that turbulent era, rugs, shawls, knives, forks, samovars, skis, toothbrushes, jams that exploded from jars, barometres crafted in solid wood and gas masks from a variety of wars.

I bought the ornate samovars, plates, barometres and jugs, and an orange-coloured wine, which I sampled in the middle of a street with my Californian Chuck Norris-like US Peace Corps pal, newly returned from a tour of the country himself, in which he'd stayed with gypsies and nearly returned married. So thrilled was I with Ukraine, even its dangerous mafia, that I planned to set up a business in Sevastopol. It never happened, but I visited Odessa and L'viv, and of course Kiev, and now approaching a grey and silver age, I knew I had to again visit the country that had been so much in the news and in my life. and as we drove towards the border I sat note book in hand, pen ready, I felt the exitement of journeys old, and this one, new, to a country that had sealed my interest with its first kiss, thigh-deep on a beach at midnight in the south of France, all those years ago.

She returned to the Ukraine from Canada, as some maybe do.

`Ah, well done man!´ I said, in tailor-ruffled white suit, as my fifth piece of luggage, a large heavy chest, was pulled off the steam train onto a platform, where it landed with a clunk. `Smoothly fielded! After all, its full of champers!´

I did not really say that, and only thought it, but then that was really for a start to yet another novel without end, frequent notes in my pockets and bags, like train tickets from long-forgotten journeys with all-too temporary aims.

I would have taken my travels like that in another epoch no doubt, and somehow a travel book set in most eras including this one seem to lend themselves to the romanticm of travel that somehow quickly fizzles out in the reality of plastic bag-lumered crowds waiting at airports around the yet again the same branded fast food joints and industrial beers or that drink that still symbolised freedom in much of Eastern Europe in the early 1990s: Coca Cola.

Thirty years ago, after my first midnight kiss, I would have arrived romantically by train, had the Ukrainian girl herself been foolhardy enough to return to her motherland with me, thus following up on a challenge she had issued. But instead she headed off to Canada, and when I crossed the border in 1991 it was with other teachers in a tiny minivan, and took an hour to scrape through, as one did in Eastern European borders at that time.

This time we arrived by car, with author and photographer Ese Kļava as my translator and journey companion, though having read her fascinating book, Butterfly Thy Name, I was worried if I could pull off the literary conversation that might arise, as well as the raw intimacy that could be covered should her book be broached, which covered her innermost desires, all substantially more revealing than my baptising Ukrainian midnight kiss.

Ese was disarmingly frank. `I have an idea that half Ukrainian, half Georgian would be an exciting, exotic mix,´ she declared.

I met Ese in Burgas, Bulgaria, where she was writing her current bestseller.

`I think will need to base my main character on you,´ she said by way of introduction, `as we'll be spending time together.´

`But you'll have to drop your pants. It 's an integral part of the book.´

`And an integral part of me,´ I said.

`I'll use that line if you're not careful!´ she said.

While I proofread her manuscript she drove up through Bulgaria.

Ese was disarmingly frank. `I have an idea that half Ukrainian, half Georgian would be an exciting, exotic mix,´ she declared.

I met Ese in Burgas, Bulgaria, where she was writing her current bestseller.

`I think will need to base my main character on you,´ she said by way of introduction, `as we'll be spending time together.´

`But you'll have to drop your pants. It 's an integral part of the book.´

`And an integral part of me,´ I said.

`I'll use that line if you're not careful!´ she said.

While I proofread her manuscript she drove up through Bulgaria.

Starý Smokovec was the ideal writer’s retreat. A small town in the Tatra mountains, with clean air, not too much to do except walk, and write, a language that I did not understand but was charming to the ear, and prices that meant I was able to concentrate on the book without worrying about where my next meal would come from.

The Tatra mountains were just right for the writer — easily accessible but out of the way, with those great mountain hikes and lubrication. Even the tea was good. I wrote in all seasons, in chalets and pensions and bars, over garlic soup, cheese and bread. I took trips to Moldavia, in the new Czech Republic, just as Dubček, one of the architects of the 1968 Prague Spring died in a mysterious car crash. I took trips down to Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia, where I travelled with false documents as the Serbs in Belgrade tried to get rid of Milosovic and his Lady Macbeth, until the Serb police got rid of me.

Despite an ex-boxer prime minister who arranged to have the country’s president’s son kidnapped, beaten up, and dumped at the border, Slovakia was one of my favourite destinations some 15-20 years ago. More particularly, Starý Smokovec, in the Tatra mountains.

Slovakia was a country with an attitude in the early 1990s. In next-door Hungary the prime minister had just announced he was not prime minister of Hungary, but of all Hungarians; tantamount, just about, to a declaration of war. With its sizable Hungarian minority, history of being invaded by Hungary (the last time in 1968, as fighting strafed the streets of Prague during the Prague Spring), and while Yugoslavia nearby crumbled, Slovakia tensed.

Mercier, the infamous Slovak prime minister, argued for Slovakia joining the newly formed CIS, formed from the ex-USSR, to become the’’richest state in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) instead of the poorest in the European Union, and banned shops using only the Hungarian language on their signs.

I loved the atmosphere of turmoil in Eastern Europe at the time. Writers need tension, conflict and pressure — just ask the Czechoslovak authors who wrote the masterpieces they did under the communist regime, permanently fighting censorship or worse.

But most of all I loved coming to Starý Smokovec. I was in various locations in Eastern Europe in those early years of the decade, but whenever I wanted to add a few more chapters to my burgeoning book, I would head straight for the mountain town for a few weeks, in summer, winter, spring and autumn. I stayed in various different pensions, each one clean, charming, with a table in a room with a view. Considering the pensions started around €5 per night at that time, I was able to spend all my breaks ensconced in a room, coming out for breathtaking walks among trails, or a few Tatran beers, surely the world’s finest beer, if also the most unknown.

I took trips to Romania, during those infamous days when miners were paid to come to Bucharest to crack a few demonstrating student heads open, after the fake ‘revolution’ that got Ceaucescu and his own Lady M out of the way, and I traveled to the Ukraine, with its visas issued not to the day of departure, but hour. Then I returned to Starý Smokovec to write. Those were special days of change.

You might be surprised to learn of another reason: trees maintain a memory of their origin that helps them adapt to their local conditions. In this article I will discuss epigenetics: a novel area of research that pertains to both modern medicine and forestry. So what’s in a tree seed? Tree seed contains DNA, the genetic blueprint of the tree, along with carbohydrates for the developing embryo and a seed coat for protection. But DNA alone does not determine what the tree will look like. Scientists are learning that chemicals bound to the DNA influence how the tree looks and functions. These chemicals are referred to as the “epigenome,” and they function to turn genes ‘on’ or ‘off,’ much like a light-switch. This means you can have genes for a trait, but those genes might not be expressed. In fact, there is a field of science devoted to studies of the epigenome called epigenetics, Latin for “outside the genome.”

Genes are inherited from parents, and the epigenome maintains a “record” of life experiences that you inherited from them. Sounds like a science fiction novel? Here’s the rub: the epigenome shuts genes on or off based on life experiences. For example, a child’s brain is in a heightened state of development and wiring. Life experiences can switch genes on or off through the epigenome, essentially leaving a record on your DNA. The really crazy part about epigenetics is that the “position” of the DNA switches, whether “on” or “off,” can be passed on to their offspring. In this way, your grandparents’ life experiences may influence the way your genes are expressed. between obesity and diabetes. In medicine, scientists are just beginning to understand these trans-generational links between health and inheritance that complicate studies of disease and susceptibility to disease. The epigenome provides an important mechanism by which experiences are imprinted onto our DNA to help us adapt to modern life.

Back to trees. Trees, like people, experience a huge range of environments during their long lifespan. Unlike people, they cannot run from bad environments, and spend a great deal of energy reproducing to disperse their offspring to better novel environments. In this way, trees are masters at adaptation. Like humans, experiences can be imprinted on seeds. In this case there is an evolutionary advantage at stake: trees imprint clues about the local photoperiod and possibly local temperatures onto developing seeds. Scientists recently, and unexpectedly, observed this mechanism in Norway spruce trees. Scientists in Norway conducted a simple experiment. They selected Norway spruce trees with established pedigrees that reliably produced tree seed adapted for reforestation in the northern part of the country. These parent trees were copied through grafting, and the new grafts were planted into a location farther south. After the trees matured, seed was collected from them and planted back north. Much to their shock, the seed from this southern orchard more closely resembled trees growing in the southern environment than their kin in the northern part of the country. The growth rhythms of the seed from this new southern orchard were more in tune with the day lengths and temperatures of the southern environment. In fact, the seed from this southern orchard was not suitable to plant in the northern part of the country. Genes, assumed to be the blue-print for tree growth patterns, had been trumped by the effects attributable to the epigenome. The scientists later learned that they had just witnessed adaptation due to epigenetics. This was one of the first reports of this phenomenon in trees. The effect was pronounced within a single generation. I had the good fortune to meet one of the scientists at a meeting in Thunder Bay, Canada last summer. I asked Dr. Johnsen how his colleagues accepted the news that he had essentially made a discovery that contradicted Darwin’s basic theories of evolution. Epigenetics works alongside natural selection to provide an additional mechanism for trees, and other organisms, to adapt to their environment. As the climate changes, developing seeds receive environmental cues that allows them to make adjustments to improve their ability to grow in a novel climate. At some point, our climate may change too drastically for

In order to write wtn I decided to live in Chamonix, France, next to the Mont Blanc, highest mountain in Western Europe. I took a job as a mountain refuge warden there for a while, at some 2,000 metres altitude, but soon enjoyed reading the mountains more than a reader would have reading my never-appearing novel, so I moved down to the centre of town as winter set in. I loved Chamonix.

In the town I enjoyed a friendship with the PGHM, the mountain rescue team, a friendship I struck when working at the refuge, and particularly when one night a hammering at the door woke me; a man in a terrible state, having stumbled and jumped down the steep mountain side to the refuge after watching his wife fall over a cliff. The rescue helicopter went up to look with searchlight and found her, but radioed back they could not get near her in the cliffs at night, and that anyway, she had not survived the fall, that much they could see. I had gone up anyway to find her, especially after the helicopter team told me in no uncertain terms not to tell the man his wife had been killed in the fall until morning, as he might very well just step straight over a cliff himself at the news. So I went up the mountain in order to not have to answer his questions, and after a few hours saw she was not in a state of survival, and I waited till morning, standing at the door of the téléphérique, the cable car, to tell him, at which he crumpled onto the floor of the cabin, and the big moustached cabin operator later remarked:

‘’you know Hamish, I would have expected him to fly at you in a rage and hit, beat you.’’

‘’Yeah, great. Thanks.’’

The PGHM had recovered her body and then got into an argument with the local police, who wanted to take the man back to the scene for ‘questioning’.

‘’I’ve seen it before,’’ the station head of the PGHM had remarked: ‘’we’ll have two bodies over cliffs. He’ll jump.’’

There were other solid friendships; with the ski instructor, a woman who had skied down the very difficult Bossons glacier, after walking up with her skis for over eight hours, and who giggled at my British reserve when she and her friend had thrown their tops off to sunbathe at a mountain lake only hours after meeting me; and there was Catherine D’Estivelle, the climber, who that summer had climbed the Aiguille Verte —the Green Needle, alone, over eleven days, bivouacking on the rock face, and the woman who owned the bar that let me keep a tab running all winter, the bakery owning couple who made the freshest bread on the spot, which I ate where it was cooked, and the other mountain people, who regarded the tourists with mild indulgence; the tourists who had a penchant for acting like tourists — you know what I mean, of which perhaps the most touristy were the Swedes, who drank copious amounts of booze but would not touch the water, for fear of it not being pure, who boasted of a clean Sweden while uprooting all the Christmas trees in Viking exuberance and drinking coffee slowly each morning, wearing heavy mountain gear that clinked and jangled and jarred on their nerves.

And I decided to leave. To leave the town I loved. The blue/green late afternoons in the shade of the pine tree slopes of the mountains, the cream mornings of snow-capped mountains between open shutters, the newsagent who gave me my morning newspaper and coffee every morning when I walked through the door, and the mountains, again, and my mountain climbing partners and the seasons.

My last season in Chamonix was late summer, in the Saami definition of eight seasons. I was living my last few weeks in a tent at the bottom of the Mer de Glace glacier, and my morning plunge into the water rushing off the bottom of the glacier brought a new definition to the word cold, as well as embarrassment, when one morning I had jumped in, lay down briefly in the current and clambered out quickly, and heard a ‘’coooeeee!’’, looked left, looked right, looked behind, looked in front, my skin growing red, my vital parts shivered to mere millimetres, and then heard the ‘’coooeee!!’’ again, looked left right front back sideways and finally..upwards, to see a woman on delta wing, circling before landing, and laughing at my lack of restraint.

And the morning I left I met a silver-haired solitary Czech climber, who was hammering nails in his boots and knotting old ropes — his dream happening at last: climbing Mont Blanc, his food with him in cans, his home a tarpaulin over a wire, his happiness complete.

I was going to Oymyakon, the coldest town in the world (lowest temp recorded -71.2ºC/ -96.16ºF) , in Yakutia, Siberia, and chosen because I was sure that sitting in a hut in the coldest town in the world was a sure-fire way of writing, and importantly, completing a book. Immediately I set about planning an expedition through Yakutia, until I remembered it was to write I was going, and to attempt to ensure I was getting myself stuck into a small cabin, with a pile of logs, tea pot and long lost love deep in fur. The last one was not actually a requirement, though it was true that having someone to cook always means a necessary routine can be installed into a writer’s drab existence at the table, which is in reality a window of course. Yakutia, and in particular Oymyakon, fits some requirement’s of a writer’s retreat, but not all: it was exotic, not pricey — the cash flow is going in 1 direction after all, if the book is to be scribed — and the fish can be caught and cooked, a welcomed way to meditate. Oymyakon is a small town, the nature is beguilingly beautiful, but it forces you back to the writing table quickly, and the natives are not too restless. The town is found on the infamous Road of Bones. It does get a sprinkling of tourists, which is nice, and not all are similar to the Norwegians who got stuck and needed rescuing, claiming to be broken down, or the Germans who also got stuck and chose not to leave their vehicle when being rescued to thank the rescuers. (They would have been charged in another country of course, in places like Vancouver, but then would have probably found ways to sue for being charged for stupidity, as some do.) The fact that conditions were harsh, and risky, like the mountains of Chamonix, is something of a bonus for a writer. But it is also a pleasure when the little luxuries are available — bananas were prevalent, which was comforting, because at -55ºC ( -67ºF) they are more useful to hammer nails into wood than a badly made hammer, and don’t stick to the tongue like the head of a hammer does — something I can personally vouch is true, and if you don’t think you look absolutely stupid walking around town, even in Oymyakon, with a hammer stuck to your tongue, then think again. The wolves do hunt at night, and it if true that if the cold mist descends with the plummeting temperature in the deep snow and you are lost, then you have about 15 minutes to unlose yourself and find your way. After that your chances get pretty slim pretty quick, except your chances of being found next morning when the day is clear, a mere few metres to your cabin. But this provides the tension for your novel, so is worth the risk. Did I write the book? Yes. Did I find a cook deep in the fur, in a cabin down the road? The culture in Yakutia is captivating. And for those against fur, I can honestly tell you from experience that artificial fur just shreds; falls apart at those temperatures, and not keeping warm is not a question of fashion. Everything is different in summer though, when they welcome dawn on the longest day of the year at the summer solstice. Travel narrows our horizons — the more we learn about other cultures, the more sure we are about universal truths. And in Yakutia a universal truth is hugging cooks keeps you warm, as long as you compliment the mammoth steaks - tens of thousands of mammoth bones or even frozen mammoths have been found throughout history, so there’s a chance...

Some benefits of Forest Therapy

Lower concentrations of cortisol (indicator of stress)

Increased Natural Killer Cell count (enhanced immune response)

Lower pulse rate

Lower blood pressure

Greater parasympathetic nerve activity

Lower sympathetic nerve activity

Results of physiological measures show that forest therapy effectively relaxes people’s body and spirit (emotional state).

Heart rate during forest walking was significantly lower than that in the control. Negative mood states andanxiety levels decreased significantly by forest walking compared with urban walking.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2008/05/02/national/forest-therapy-taking-root/#.VFiY6DSUdAU

Notes from a train window

A forest cannot be tamed

time is different among the trees

baby milk powder, in Africa, cutting down trees, removes happiness from the equation.

There is no other forest like the pine forest. When I write in my haiku that I fall asleep under the boughs of a pine tree, I mean that can happen for a night, or even during winter, where heavy snow does not make it under the thick boughs that trap the warmth. I am writing a book about the benefits of forests on health, specifically pine forests, and I can honestly say that a few hours spent filtering thoughts through pine branches while dozing off under a tree is a natural way to recharge. Perhaps it is the scent I like most, as well as the gentle grandeur of the pine forest.

seeking comfort

I sleep on a mat of pine needles

I am rejuvenated

Among the many reasons to preserve what is left of our ancient forests, the mental aspects stand tall. The notion that forests have a special place in the realm of public health, including an ability to refresh the weary, is not a new one. Medical doctors, including Franklin B. Hough, reported in early U.S. medical journals that forests have a “cheerful and tranquilizing influence which they exert upon the mind, more especially when worn down by mental labor.” Individuals report that forests are the perfect landscape to cultivate what are called transcendent experiences—these are unforgettable moments of extreme happiness, of attunement to that outside the self, and moments that are ultimately perceived as very important to the individual.

In 1982, the Forest Agency of the Japanese government premiered its shinrin-yoku plan. In Japanese shinrin means forest, and yoku, although it has several meanings, refers here to a “bathing, showering or basking in.” More broadly, it is defined as “taking in, in all of our senses, the forest atmosphere.” The program was established to encourage the populace to get out into nature, to literally bathe the mind and body in greenspace, and take advantage of public owned forest networks as a means of promoting health. Some 64 percent of Japan is occupied by forest, so there is ample opportunity to escape the megacities that dot its landscape.

Undoubtedly, the Japanese have had a centuries-old appreciation of the therapeutic value of nature—including its old-growth forests; however, the term shinrin-yoku is far from ancient. It began really as a marketing term, coined by Mr. Tomohide Akiyama in 1982 during his brief stint as director of the Japanese Forestry Agency. The initial shinrin-yoku plan of 30 years ago was based solely on the ingrained perception that spending time in nature, particularly on lush Japanese forest trails, would do the mind and body good. That changed in 1990 when Dr. Yoshifumi Miyazaki of Chiba University was trailed by film crew from the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) as he conducted a small study in the beautiful forests of Yakushima. It was a test of shinrin-yoku, and NHK wanted to be there. Yakushima was chosen because it is home to Japan’s most heralded forests. The area contains some of Japan’s most pristine forests, including those of select cedar trees that are over 1,000 years old. Miyazaki reported that a level of physical activity (40 minutes of walking) in the cedar forest equivalent to that done indoors in a laboratory was associated with improved mood and feelings of vigor. This in itself is hardly a revelation, but he backed up the subjective reports by the findings of lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in subjects after forest walks compared with those who took laboratory walks. It was the first hint that a walk in a forest might not be the same as a walk in a different environmental setting.

Since then, university and government researchers have collaborated on detailed investigations, including projects to evaluate physiological markers while subjects spend time in the forest. The research team from Chiba University, Center for Environment, Health and Field Services, has collected psychological and physiological data on some 500 adults who have engaged in shinrin-yoku, and a separate group from Kyoto has published research involving another 500 adults. These studies have confirmed that spending time within a forest setting can reduce psychological stress, depressive symptoms, and hostility, while at the same time improving sleep and increasing both vigor and a feeling of liveliness. These subjective changes match up nicely with objective results reported in nearly a dozen studies involving 24 forests—lower levels of cortisol and lower blood pressure and pulse rate. In addition, studies showed increased heart rate variability, which is a good thing because it means the circulatory system can to respond well to stress and can detect a dominance of the “calming” branch of the nervous system (the parasympathetic nervous system).

Forest Therapy, Tree Density and Cerebral Blood Flow

Research has certainly shown that the emotions of pleasure and happiness are elevated with an increase in tree density within specific settings, even in urban settings. The bigger and denser the trees, the higher the scenic beauty scores—up to a point. If trees are too tightly packed—if a trail is too narrow or obscured—the scene becomes foreboding and fear will be increased.

Adding to the strength of the research, in many of the studies, the objective measurements were also recorded in urban environments as a means of comparison. Here, the researchers controlled for physical activity, time of day, temperature, average hours of sunlight, and other factors. In other words, they weren’t stacking the deck by recording the objective measurements in rainy and cold urban settings compared with sunny and warm forest environments. In one study, the researchers went so far as to bring an instrument capable of measuring brain activity out into the urban and forest settings. The time-resolved spectroscopy system (TRSS) device allows for a reading of oxygen use in the brain via the reflection of near–infrared light off red blood cells. The Japanese researchers found that 20 minutes of shinrin-yoku (compared with 20 minutes in an urban setting) altered cerebral blood flow in a manner that indicated a state of relaxation. More specifically, the total hemoglobin (as found in red blood cells) was decreased in the area of the prefrontal cortex while in the forest setting. Hemoglobin levels are jacked up in this area during anticipation of a threat (stress) and after periods of intense mental and physical work—complex equations, computer testing, video game playing, exercise to exhaustion. So essentially, a decrease in levels means the brain is taking a time-out while in the forest. Although sedatives are also known to reduce activity in this area of the brain, they can have detrimental influences in cognition. Stress hormones can compromise immune defense; in particular, the activities of frontline defenders, such as antiviral natural killer cells, are suppressed by stress hormones. Since forest bathing can lower stress hormone production and elevate mood states, it’s not surprising that it also influences markers of immune system strength. Qing Li and colleagues from the Nippon Medical School showed that forest bathing (either a day trip or a couple of hours daily over three days) can have a long-lasting influence on immune markers relative to city trips. Specifically, there were marked increases in the number of natural killer cells, increases in the functional activity of these antiviral cells, and increases in the amount of intracellular anticancer proteins. The changes were noted at a significant level for a full week after the trip. The improvements in immune functioning were associated with lower urinary stress hormones while in nature. None of this was observed during or after the comparison city trips. As mentioned, the reduction in stress is almost certainly at play in the improvement of immune defenses. However, the natural chemicals secreted by evergreen trees, collectively known as phytoncide, have also been associated with improvements in the activity of our frontline immune defenders. Li has measured the amount of phytoncide in the air during the studies and correlated the content to improvements in immune functioning.

This is an interesting finding in the context of the century-old reports on the success of the so-called forest cure in tuberculosis treatment. In the mid- to late 1800s, physicians Peter Detweiler and Hermann Brehmer set up sanatoriums in Germany’s pine forests, as did Edward Trudeau in the Adirondack forests of New York. All reported the benefit of the forest air; indeed, contrary to expectations, the results seemed to be magnified when the forest air trapped moisture. There was speculation among the physicians of the time that pine trees secreted a healing balm into the air, and in yet another twist of the shinrin-yoku studies, the existence of an unseen airborne healer is being revealed.

Shinrin-yoku is alive and well today; the word has entered the Japanese lexicon. At present there are 44 locations approved as “forest therapy bases.” These are sites that have been not only the subject of human research indicating benefits to stress physiology; a team of experts from the Japanese Forest Therapy Executive Committee ensures other criteria are met before designation, including accessibility, accommodation (if remote) cultural landmarks, historical sites,, variety of food choices, and comfort stations. Chiba University’s Miyazaki, who played a massive role in taking shinrin-yoku from a throwback marketing concept to credible preventive medicine intervention, continues to perform research and is now looking at the physiological effects of time spent in Tokyo’s major urban parks.Since Ulrich’s original observation, there have been additional studies confirming that the mere presence of flowering and foliage plants inside a hospital room can make a difference. Specifically, in those recovering an appendectomy and randomly assigned to a room with a dozen small potted plants, the use of pain medications was significantly lower than that of their counterparts in rooms with no potted plants; they also had lower blood pressure and heart rate, and rated their pain to be much lower. As well, those who had plants in their rooms had comparatively higher energy levels, more positive thoughts, and lower levels of anxiety.

Since a view of nature or a few potted plants can influence subjective and objective measures of stress, and maybe get us out of the hospital faster, it seems likely that nature can keep us out of the infirmary to begin with. The first indication that this might be the case was in the reporting of architect Ernest Moore in 1981. In examining the annual sick records of the State Prison of Southern Michigan, he noticed there was a glaring difference in health-care utilization based on cell location. Specifically, those inmates housed in the cells facing outside to a view of green farmlands and forests had far fewer visits to the medical division than did those inmates housed in the inner half, with a view of an internal concrete yard. In addition:

Norwegian research shows that having a plant at or within view of an office workstation significantly decreases the risk of sick leave. A 2010 study from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, reported that levels of anger, anxiety, depressive thoughts, and fatigue all reduced over a three-month period, and not just by a little bit—these parameters were reduced by about 40 percent, while reported stress was down by 50 percent. On the other hand, those without the stress buffer of a visible plant indicated that stress levels rose over 20 percent during the study.

• Installing plants within a radiology department of a hospital reduced short-term sick leave by 60 percent.

• Research published in 2008 in the Journal of the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science showed that greening select high school classrooms with potted plants for a four-month trial period significantly reduced visits to the infirmary compared with age-matched students attending classes without the visible plants.

In Chechnya if you are not mafia the chicks don’t dig you. The capital of Chechnya is Grozny, and the Grozny football team, run by some mafia head who may also be president of Chechnya, one forgets these days, tends to win most of it’s home games. Getting into the stadium is not exactly easy, with all the machine guns around — bodyguards, security, police, passerbys with machine guns. Since the guy who runs the team, who also has mafia written all over his black shirt black tie black sunglasses black Mercedes Benz, and may also be president of Chechnya, is very rich, some very famous stars play for Grozny, and pledge absurd alliance to this poor, developing football team. Brazilians, Africans, ex-European footballers of the year. They train thousands of kilometers away somewhere in Russia then fly in for home games and fly out again immediately. They just love the club of course, in a wry sort of way.

That’s Chechnya, and if you don’t have cash bulging out your pockets you grow a beard like the kind they would not dare in some Arab countries, and then pretend you don’t care if the chicks don’t dig you and take to the hills, where if you shout ‘freedom for Chechnya!’ loud enough and proclaim faith to a god you did not find before at the bottom of a bottle of vodka, then someone somewhere will subsidise you, not necessarily some disparate Arab group, who know you do not fully understand what Jihad means, but perhaps even a spy agency from a land yonder who likes the idea of you harassing Russians.

Some of that changed, after Beslan, where nearly 1,000 people were held hostage without water for 3 days in North Ossetia, Russia, a part of Russia that has a dialect of Iranian as the regional language. The Chechyans, who arrived fully armed for the siege and easily bribed their gunladen way passed police check points, then massacred a few hundred fleeing victims, nearly 200 of them poor children, during a totally bungled-up and quite disgraceful attempt by police and army to break the siege. Chechyans were no freedom fighters; they were really bad guys.

Being a really bad guy in the Caucasus Mountains, where Chechnya is located, puts you in good company; it’s where Stalin was born in nearby Georgia, and for that matter Sadam Hussain was born only 300 kilometers away. But it’s also a beautiful area of the world. “When God was handing out land for different countries,” they say in the Georgia, ‛he forgot about us, because we were eating and drinking and dancing when we should have been queuing up for our land. Since he’d already given all the land he had to give, he was forced to give us the special parts he was reserving for himself.”

And in the Caucasus refusing a gift can start a war. Name two republics there and they’ve probably fought each other. It’s where the world’s first Christian nation is located, and the first holocaust of the last century. Near the mountains is Kolmykia, the only Buddhist republic in Europe they say, where chess is taught as a school subject, but the rest of the countries and republics are divided between variants of Christianity or Islam, and often a mix, where traditions include bride kidnappings, when the woman is plucked off the street by a gentleman on a horse, or worse, and instantly is therefore married to him, or these days bundled into a black Mercedes.

Paganism has long been associated to the worship of trees - and particular trees have been allocated different roles, almost similar to the role of a saint in the Catholic religion.

Quite rightly, too. Place your palm against a tree trunk and feel the energy. What if the energy is coming from you, and not the tree? So what, it is flowing - and what if you feel it is only your imagination? Even better, for imagination is more important than intelligence. And that comes from Einstein so don't take it up with me.

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