LETTER FROM THE WILD: Forest bathing during lockdown

The Japanese have a term – shinrin yoku – which translates to ‘forest bathing’.

But they didn’t invent the concept.

Aeons of humans have recognised the healing, life-giving benefits of being immersed in a world of natural greenery – even if many have forgotten it.

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As our world descended into a hitherto unimaginable state of disaster and lockdown forced an instant divorce between human and outdoor spaces, a new type of grief crept into our hearts, even perhaps without us realising what it was that we mourned.

So primeval is our connection with nature that when it is denied us, we crave it more than ever.

And so, from 1 May and the subsequent permission to exercise outside in our immediate surrounds for a small window of time, it seemed that entire town of St Lucia Estuary came forth to revel in the sylvan paradise that surrounds our village.

Surely, this was echoed across the country as millions of cooped-up, cabin-fever-struck people searched for natural spaces to explore, reassuring themselves that there was indeed a world outside their confining walls.

In St Lucia, a town uniquely surrounded by the thick coastal forests of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, one doesn’t need to venture far before being engulfed in a verdant world of soaring giants, glistening with dewdrops and punctuated by shafts of light.

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Over the past few weeks, dozens of residents have discovered new pockets of beauty and solitude in the wild, tangled, multi-layered vegetation reaching skyward from the leafy floor.

Walking in the cool, dancing dappled light and shade, these green lungs draw in our expelled breath and in turn, gift us with the purest cleansing oxygen – nature’s antidote to disease, and the answer to all questions.

The forest is never silent.

Listen closely and you’ll hear the softly dripping dew, the faint crackle of leaves beneath a duiker’s hoof, the grunting of hippo in the nearby lake.

Birds flit through the shadows while bugs and beetles buzz lazily over the flowering shrubs.

Be still and listen, very carefully, and you’ll hear the forest whisper back to you: ‘I’ve been here the whole time. I’ll always be here’.

Nature’s therapy keeps us sane. It sets us free.

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