a walk in the woods

Regis and I went for a walk in the woods by they river yesterday. We had an assignment for our photo club to take pictures at a state park, but being the lazy sort, we opted for a county park. Of sorts. There is beauty in our own backyards, my friends.

When Jane was here this summer, she mentioned forest bathing. I found this about it today:

This is the healing way of Shinrin-yoku Forest Therapy, the medicine of simply being in the forest. Shinrin-yoku is a term that means "taking in the forest atmosphere" or "forest bathing." It was developed in Japan during the 1980s and has become a cornerstone of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine.

No phones or Facebook in the woods. No politics. Just the peace of wild things. 

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.