Tim's Tales: A ‘bath’ in Butterdean Wood

BEING surrounded by trees, in a wood where the world outside cannot be seen, is a primeval experience. It connects us to our ancestral origins and reasserts our relationship with nature, of which we are also a part. There are few such important gifts that we can give our children, and ourselves, than a regular forest bath.

The term forest bathing of course comes from Japan, where it was first coined in the 1980s to describe the mental health benefits of regular meditative time spend in the woods. But the spiritual and mental uplift that nature provides has long been known, and here in Scotland the Celtic tradition in particular has a powerful relationship with trees and the nature.

But we are forgetting it all. We are forgetting who we are and from what we came. And we are suffering as a result.

Another recent term is nature deficit disorder, a phrase created by Richard Louv who wrote Last Child in the Woods in 2005. While it is not an actually recognised medical condition as such, putting a name on the effects of nature deprivation has made people more aware of it.

So for my final journey of discovery this summer, I took a friend who is unused to spending time in nature for a walk in Butterdean Wood. I cannot put into words how important this place is for my family and my soul. My children have grown up, and are growing up, in this wonderful wood. It’s a cradle of nature where you can feel simultaneously lost and found, for the trees envelop you, as if to say “welcome back”.

It’s horrific to think that a number of years ago there was a plan to cut the wood down, but thanks to Gregor Neil Robertson and others, a campaign to save the wood, supported by Friends of the Earth, was successful.

My friend suffers from depression and anxiety. When I told him I planned a walk in a wood he protested. He has weight issues as well, and going for a walk is something he knows he should do, but doesn’t enjoy.

“You will enjoy this walk,” I reassured him.

“Don’t think so,” was his reply, but he nonetheless finally agreed to come along, after I’d promised it would only be a short one.

There are different options when you begin to explore the wood, but my family have a favourite part and so that’s where I took him. Trees have a way of bringing feelings to the surface and soon my friend was talking about stuff.

We first wandered through the pine wood. It’s planted with mainly non-native pine trees but has a wonderful atmosphere.

I told him of the story about the brownie who hides in the wood, because he is fearful of humans whom he believes to be cruel after witnessing a farmer’s son whip a horse.

The story took us to what my children call the ‘faerie bridge’. It is here that the wood changes in character. Once across the bridge the wood is more mixed, with mainly deciduous trees: oak, rowan, ash, sycamore, beech and hazel, but also the occasional Scots pine.

“Check for something metal on you,” I told my friend. He looked at me funny. “Eh?”

“Something made of iron or metal of some kind,” I reiterated.

“What for?”

“Well, because the faeries live in the part of the wood across the bridge, but iron undoes their magic. So you are safe if you are wearing something made of it,” I explained.

“Seriously?”

I just smiled. He was lucky, he had a metal strap on his watch. And so we ventured over the bridge.

This part of Butterdean Wood is vivid green in high summer. We soon reached a junction in the path.

“OK, this is the short way back, we’ll take that.” I was keeping my promise that we’d only go on a short walk. But my friend protested.

“Oh naw, let’s go on for a bit more, I’m actually enjoying this.”

And so we ventured further, past the tall beech tree which still has the rough end of a rope tied round one of its upper branches. It was here, in summers about 10 years ago, my now grown-up daughters would swing on the rope swing I made for them.

We sat here for a short while so my friend could take a breath. He noticed the silence, which was then softly broken by the swish of tree tops swaying in a breeze. We sat for perhaps two minutes, not looking at each other, but just being present under the canopy of nature.

“OK,” he said, “you’re right, it is magic.”

I smiled and nodded.

We walked, at a guess, over three miles through Butterdean Wood on this day. I introduced him to different trees and we paused often, soaking in the power of it all. It’s a place of constant minor changes, as all woods are, and it’s only when you visit them regularly that you notice the changes.

As we left, my friend commented on how much better he felt, how his anxiety had eased and that he’d want to come back with his son.

“Butterdean Wood would be a gift for your son,” I said, “let him bathe in the forest too.”

We all need this, and on a regular basis. We need to find time for it, find a wood we can reach and bathe in. It benefits our health in so many ways but it also helps us to connect and have a relationship with nature. It should be a birthright of our children to run free in the wood, to explore and become part of it.

Later in the week I returned with my children. We followed our trails of memory, my older daughters walking in their own footprints of younger years, which are now overlaid with the imprint of their younger siblings. I searched but saw no signs of autumn.

But soon the summer will end, and the heatwaves of 2018 will become part of our folk memory.

Autumn in Butterdean is nature’s show, but it’s not ready for that yet, it’s still fully clothed in summer’s colours.