A bit about me
I have had a strong love of the outdoors since childhood – making homes and hideouts among the trees, exploring creeks and camping with family. I’ve always had a strong sense of place and as a true northwesterner even found cedar groves to spend time in while living in Connecticut and Montana. A need for the lush, green, mossy forests of the Pacific Northwest drew me back to the PNW to make a home in Bellingham, WA almost 20 years ago.
A lover of slow, meandering walks, I have always preferred taking my time to spot the tiny bits of nature magic along a trail or finding a spot to sit and just be. Recently, after studying the positive health benefits of time in nature and developing a Parkscriptions program locally, I began leading forest bathing walks, based on the principles of Shinrin Yoku. I am grateful to have learned from practitioners both here in Bellingham & in Finland and I am a certified Natural Mindfulness Guide. I know I experience stillness, peace, calm and joy when slowing down and taking time to be mindful in nature and look forward to sharing this passion and sense of connection with you.
While not leading forest walks, I work with non-profit organizations in town, bake, read, dabble in many crafts and enjoy bringing my camera along for macro photography on my slow nature walks.
~April
I acknowledge I am residing and leading programs on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, most notably peoples of the Lummi and Nooksack nations. The Lummi People are the original inhabitants of Washington’s northernmost coast and southern British Columbia. They lived in villages throughout this territory and continue to have an ongoing relationship with these areas. Since Time Immemorial they have celebrated life on their land, water ways and on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of their People to perpetuate their way of life.
When I am among the trees
When I am among the trees,
especially the cedars and the douglas fir,
equally the spruce, the maples and the alder*,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
–Mary Oliver
*trees changed to those that call to me here in the PNW
