Schedule and Location
Wednesday, August 28, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
Arbor Room, Thornhill Education Center
Fees and Registration
Course Description
Discover forest therapy, a research based approach to mindfully experiencing nature, with leading practitioners and authors.
Simply being present in the natural world - with all our senses fully alive - can have a remarkably healing effect. It can also awaken in us our latent but profound connection with all living things. This is "forest bathing" or forest therapy, a practice inspired by the Japanese tradition of shinrin-yoku. It is a gentle, meditative approach to being with nature and an antidote to our nature-starved lives that can heal our relationship with the more-than-human world. It is a research-based framework for supporting healing and wellness through immersion in forests and other natural environments, with a wide array of demonstrated health benefits, especially in the cardiovascular and immune systems, and for stabilizing and improving mood and cognition.
Spend an evening with Amos Clifford, founder of the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Training, and author of Your Guide to Forest Bathing, and Rosita Arvigo, forest therapy guide, herbalist, and author of The Urban Herbalist: Medicinal Plants of American Cities. You'll learn more about how forest therapy supports health and wellness by combining traditional techniques of mindfulness with a unique approach to nature connection. You'll also discover fascinating medicinal plants that grow right outside your door in your local neighborhood, city parks, and empty lots. Books will be available for purchase and there will be opportunities for book signing following the program.
Course number
Instructor
Amos Clifford is the founder of the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs and author of the best selling Your Guide to Forest Bathing (Conari Press 2018). A student of Buddhist philosophy for over 20 years, Amos founded Sky Creek Dharma Center in Chico, California, where he emphasized the importance of meditation practice in wild places. Amos is also widely known for his work in restorative justice. He is founder of the Center for Restorative Process, where he has led the inquiry into how the principles of restorative justice can inform ways to heal the broken relationships between humans and the more-than-human world of nature. Amos holds a BS in Organization Development and an MA in Counseling from the University of San Francisco. Amos has been the primary developer of ANFT's acclaimed training programs.
Rosita Arvigo, DN, is a certified Forest Bathing Practitioner (Cohort 11), author, and international lecturer, and has been a practicing herbalist for forty years. She has written several books on medicinal plants of Belize where she currently lives. She was an apprentice to Maya shaman, Don Elijio Panti, for thirteen years. She is the founder of The ARvigo Technqiues of Maya Abdominal Therapy, Rainforest Remedies Herbal Company, The Belize Ethnobotany Project and Ethnobotany in the Classroom, and the author of several books on ethnobotany. Her latest book, The Urban Herbalist: Medicinal Plants of American Cities, is a great resource for learning to identify common and tasty wild plants.
Course Details
Notes: Held indoors. Limit 100
