CHAPTER ONE

Health

Ancient forests are deeply healing.

Every opportunity I get, I’m out in the forests, rivers, mountains, beaches, and lagoons. Wilderness has healed me. For twenty years I was sick with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. I could hardly ever sleep, had painful muscle spasms to the point I could barely turn my neck, and my digestion was a mess. I was tired all the time while trying to raise my girls and break some epigenetic patterns of generational trauma.

When I first became ill, it was a gradual process. I was OK as a student because I slid through school without taking it too seriously or working too hard. When Steve and I were married, I felt more pressure to become a real adult. My sleep and digestion first became fragile when I took a job teaching emotionally disturbed kids. It was intense! Once a child tried to stab my hand with her pen. Another time one of the kids told me he was going to set me on fire. When I checked his file, I discovered he was there for having put kerosene around a sleeping man in a park and lighting a fire around him. It was so disturbing, and I was under constant pressure to apply behavior modification techniques, which was not my forte. For me, the worst part was that I’d dream with the kids at night. One night, I dreamed that two of the kids were psychic and I was afraid of them. The thirteen-year-old boy was throwing balls of lurid green and dirty red energy at me. I kept dodging, but was aware somehow that if one of the balls actually hit, I’d be immobilized and at his mercy. The next day when I went to school the eleven-year-old girl, who had been the second character in my dream, said, "You were in my dream last night along with [she named the boy], and we had psychic powers and you were afraid of us." She gave a sinister laugh and continued, "We almost had you." It was true and exactly what I’d dreamed.

So my health wobbled. I left that job and was better until I had my first daughter. The stress of being responsible for her well-being felt overwhelming, and she was colicky and didn’t sleep. Soon, I also lost the ability to sleep. On a good night I’d snatch four or five hours. Many nights, I was up all night listening to guided meditations, doing yoga, drinking herb tea, and taking Epsom salt baths, but not sleeping. I never fell asleep during a nap either. It was a form of torture. I felt like jumping out of my skin. Becoming ill crept up on me with a cascade of increasing symptoms. My digestive system broke down first, followed by my ability to sleep, followed by muscle spasms.

My will to love my daughters and give them a good chance in life was so strong that, despite feeling ill, we somehow made it through and it all turned out well. We are happy together. Love is strong medicine. We also had Steve. He worked a lot, so most of the childrearing was on me, but he has always been loyal and steady as a rock. We could rely on him without question.

I cut out most of the activities in my life that weren’t absolutely necessary and lived simply—taking walks, cooking, cleaning, and chauffeuring my daughters wherever they needed to go for their many activities. I didn’t have the energy to have much of a social life. About ten years into the sleepless torture, I discovered tranquilizers actually helped. I used them sparingly, afraid of addiction. That worked for a decade until my youngest daughter’s appendix ruptured, and she was in the hospital for ten days, during which time I used tranquilizers every single night. When I tried to stop, I could not.

Until I spent time in the redwoods.

Ancient forests are deeply healing. Spending time in forests is proven to accelerate physical wound healing, hasten recovery from surgery, and help kids with ADHD focus. These benefits are not only due to the serenity of the forest but also to chemicals called phytoncides, which trees put into the atmosphere to protect themselves from insects and fungi. Phytoncides are antibacterial and antifungal and stimulate our bodies to increase the activity of a type of white blood cell called natural killer cells, which attack cancerous and virus-infected cells.

Being in the forest likely boosted my damaged immune system. But more than that, it embraced me: I was held and soothed in the sheltered environment of the trees. Beauty opened my heart and filled me with gratitude. I bonded deeply with Earth, feeling held by Gaia’s gravity, expanded by her beauty, and filled with elemental grace that enlivened my cells and made them sing.

Similar to the way my illness crept up on me with one symptom leading to others, healing happened by mending one broken system after another. This is a well-known phenomenon in energy medicine practices, such as acupuncture, reiki, jin-shin jyutsu, chi-gong, and homeopathy. When they work, the effects don’t exclusively cure one broken part of the body but manifest throughout in beneficial ways. I knew that. What I did not know was that being within the forest was energy medicine.

Improvements to my health were gradual. I felt more peaceful. I slept a little more. Many mornings I awoke eager and excited to go to the trees. I felt overwhelmingly grateful to have the time to visit the parks, the car to drive me there, enough money for gas, and a lunch. Bit by bit, I healed until now, at sixty-nine, I feel remarkably well.

Sitting with the trees rewired my nervous system. Spiritual guidance came through, as if the trees were connecting me to divine nature intelligence. Over and over again, I was shown my next healthy step, until I learned to trust the universe and live one step at a time, following my intuition and heart wishes. Slowly my body, mind, spirit, and emotions mended in one of the few forests on Earth that have never been interfered with by human beings.

Recalling how I became ill with an almost domino effect of symptoms, one leading to another and all of them exacerbating each other, and then how I have healed has given me a model of how our environments can also be restored. My healing journey was the reverse of the one I took on my way into chronic illness. As each system in my body improved a little bit, others would also spontaneously improve. They are all interrelated, similar to the way ecosystems are intricately woven together. Unravel one, and others are strained and sometimes come undone.

As we humans put efforts into restoring environments ravaged by our misunderstanding, ignorance, greed, and generally out-of-balance lifestyles, we can start anywhere and discover it has beneficial effects for the whole. Protect clean water, and it will continue to nourish soil. Clear the air, and plants will have an easier time breathing. Plant more trees, and they will keep the soil from eroding. There’s no place too small to start, and that includes taking care of and being kind to one another. Every little effort counts.

And so now I am off on this gorgeous spring day to frolic in the woods with my friend Allegra. We can’t wait to find out what the trees will share today.

Forest Guidance

Our health is inextricably linked to the health of our environment. We need to protect both. Allow yourself to witness what you are called to care for. What are you guardian of? It doesn’t have to be something huge. You may be guardian of a child, a relationship, a pet, your own sleep, or a particular tree or stream. Settle into your favorite spot in nature and ask, "What am I guardian of?" Perhaps you are a guardian for that particular place. If you are drawn to do so, use your nondominant hand to write the answers you receive. This will help you to connect to the intuitive side of your brain. A few more questions you might ask are, "What is my next step in this guardianship?" "What support or healing do I need in order to be effective?" "What else am I guardian of?"