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Showing posts from July 22, 2012

Shinrin Yoku - Forest Bathing

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If I offer an opportunity for arousing inspiration and creativity in the woods, Bards In The Woods, or simply a Walk In The Woods, the reaction is "nah, don't have the time, don't see the point" ... ... but give it an Oriental name and it becomes magical, special, and something I could probably charge thousands of euros to teach :-) . "Shinrin Yoku" is fast becoming fashionable around the USA and is creeping around Europe now.  Shinrin Yoku means "forest bathing". It simply refers to spending time in the woods for therapy as a kind of "spa", a "bathing". Among trees in a woodland or forest I notice those with us on Bards In The Woods feel tension slip away, and this is when inspiration flows and beautiful words have been written, often by people who have never written a poem, song, or meaningful story ... or may not have done so since being a child. For those of us who rely on science for truth, there are reports no

Why Do We Build Temples?

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I am often in discussion with people who spend time, sometimes a lot of time, in large human created temples both ancient and new. In these temples they dedicate a lot of reverence to "closeness to nature" ... and this totally boggles me? The building of big temples is something I have had a lifelong personal bug about. I have also been an almost lifelong fan of finding and discovering ancient temple sites, so called sacred sites. I have been doing this for over 55 years now and my question I still live with is "why do we build temples?". I'm not looking for the answer, as I believe no answer offered is or could be the "right" one because a singular straight answer could not exist ... unless all temples are really all fake. A side question, and much of my motivation with Bards In The Woods, is "why do and did humans replace the sacredness of nature through building human designed and created temples ... and then regard them as more sacred an