Monica Sander Burns works with Pemberton’s Clear Course Consulting, and also runs the Society of Trees forest therapy and guiding services. She did a week-long takeover for us last spring (see https://thewellnessalmanac.com/2022/03/12/a-week-of-forest-therapy-welcome-guest-blogger-monica-sander-burns-next-week/) and then she and I partnered up to co-host the Active Hope Climate Squad. She has shown me a lot about how to slow down, through the invitations and practices she guides people through, to turn “time in the forest” into something far more medicinal and nourishing, ie “forest therapy.” Here is her offering to the Secret Society of Poetry Appreciators and our collective microdosing on poems-as-psychoactive-substances adventure.

I recently came across this poem through Forest Therapy student of mine (77 years old and with the youngest spirit!). She reads it at the tea ceremonies which I think is magic, given that Forest Therapy creates a container for slowing down with the intention to notice. 

The art of standing and staring seems so simple, yet it can take you deep into the mysteries of the universe. To me, it offers solace by reminding me of how little we truly know, and I find that comforting, somehow.

William Henry Davies spent much of his life as a vagrant in the UK and the US, writing poems about, among other things, the way that the human condition is reflected in nature. This has been a core realization of my own life, nature continues to be my therapy.

I find my attention gets hijacked by so many things in daily life,  so to let it rest in the wonders of the earth is the most restorative medicine I have found.

It is pretty much my life’s mission at this point to encourage people to slow down and notice the wonder of life going on around them. Nature is full of curiosities, surprises, and ingenious solutions to the same problems we humans face.

May we all take heed from the sheep and cows.

Monica

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

– William Henry Davies