Remembering Our Love of Trees, with Heather Dorfman
Trees hold a special and mythic place in the hearts of humans, and in this conversation with Heather Dorfman, the founder of Rose and Cedar Forest Therapy, we explore these amazing beings and how we can build relationships with them in a thoughtful way.
About Heather:
Heather Dorfman, LMSW (she/her) is the founder of Rose and Cedar Forest Therapy. Heather guides groups and individuals in the practice of Forest Therapy; offers Grief Care; provides organizational consulting, training, and retreats; and is also an adjunct professor of social work. In all of these realms, Heather is co-creating a world of justice and liberation for all beings.
To connect with Heather: Website: https://www.rosecedarforesttherapy.com/ and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roseandcedarforest
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Megan: Welcome to A Wild New Work, a podcast about how to divest from capitalism and the norms of modern work and step into the soulful calling of these times we live in, which includes the call to rekindle our relationship with the earth. I'm Megan Leatherman, a mother to two small kids, writer, amateur ecologist, and vocational guide. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and I'm your host today.
Hi friend and welcome. Thank you for being here. I'm excited to share this episode with you today on trees. I'm wondering if you have been noticing new buds forming on some of the trees. Yesterday I was around a big old willow tree and noticed the little fuzzy buds coming out. There's a big current bush in our backyard that has buds on it.
So things are happening. And that's, feels really exciting and I hope it enlivens you a little bit too if, if that's happening in your area of the world. Last week on the show we talked about blood and how our circulation systems mirror, uh, What is happening in the ecosystems around us? How circulation is sort of a key aspect to life and living things.
And today I'm very happy to bring you a conversation I had with my friend, Heather Dorfman about trees, because so much of us mirrors the wisdom of trees as well. You know, trees are nourished in part by a network of mycelium under the ground, threads of a larger sort of fungal body that, um, these threads often look like, and maybe even operate like, the neurons that spread information in our brains, in our mind, in our heart, in our gut.
Our lungs take the shape of tree roots. If you've ever looked at, like, a photo or a drawing of lungs, they definitely appear to, look similar to tree roots. We breathe what those trees emit via photosynthesis and even our fingerprints look like the growth rings inside of a tree. I don't know if you have seen that art piece by the Farwoods.
I'll try to link to it in the show notes. Um, This, like, image of a human fingerprint put next to growth rings of a tree, and it's really beautiful. So, as you will hear in this conversation, trees share resources with one another, regardless of species type, and I would like to think that in addition to our physicality sort of mirroring trees, that at our core we also know how to form networks of resourcefulness and support.
Among one another, like trees do among themselves in a forest or a grove. One of the tasks of being alive in this world right now is remembering what we know. And one of the things that we've known since we evolved and what many people who live close to the earth never forgot is that there is a kinship with trees that we can live into and honor and Heather has so many wonderful insights about how to do that.
So let me just introduce Heather to you. Heather Dorfman is the founder of Rose and Cedar Forest Therapy. Heather guides groups and individuals in the practice of forest therapy, offers grief care, provides organizational consulting, training, and retreats, and is also an adjunct professor of social work.
In all of these realms, Heather is co creating a world of justice and liberation for all beings. And that has certainly been my experience of her. Um, I want to share two quick announcements before we go further. One is just that my class, Eating Capitalism, is coming up on February 23rd. Eating Capitalism is a workshop series on the origins of capitalism and how we can digest it and metabolize it and turn it into new energy for ourselves.
How can we take this toxicity that we sort of live in and have to breathe and how can we actually turn it into something else? And we will be going through a really incredible book called Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici. It's going to be a really rich weekend, um, full of embodiment, and some ritual, and discussion, and sharing, and you certainly don't have to have your video on if you have been on video on Zoom all week.
My intention is for it to be really restorative and rejuvenating. So I'd love to have you. Again, we start February 23rd, and the link is in the show notes, or you can go to A Wild New Work dot com slash eating dash capitalism. I also want to say thank you to all of you supporting the show financially.
That means so much to me that this isn't just something I do on my own, but that there are many of you sort of holding up the work. Um, if you're in a position to chip in once or monthly, you can do that at buymeacoffee. com slash Megan Leatherman, and I'll put that link in the show notes as well. Okay, so let me take us into our opening invocation.
So wherever you are, you can just sort of feel The rootedness of you right now. See if you can feel the weight of your body and time and space and how gravity sort of hugs you into the earth, into the surface of the earth. You might want to take a breath. May each of us be blessed and emboldened to do the work we're meant to do on this planet.
May our work honor our ancestors, known and unknown, and may it be in harmony with all creatures that we share this earth with. I express gratitude for all of the technologies and gifts that have made this possible, and I'm grateful to the Multnomah, Cowlitz, Bands of Chinook, and Clackamas tribes, among many others, who are the original stewards of the land that I'm on.
All right, well, Heather, thank you so much for being with us again today.
Heather: Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to talk with you about, especially about our beloved friends. Yes.
Megan: Maybe we could start by hearing a little bit from you about what you feel like makes trees so special and not that they're like better the best or anything like that, but they are just so, I mean, you have a really, I think, deep and strong relationship with them.
So what, what do you love about trees just in general? And if there's specific trees you want to bring in, that's beautiful too. Yeah,
Heather: ,thank you. Well, I was thinking about this, and I think, you know, it's interesting, we look at human history and human cultures all over the world, and there, this, uh, relationship with trees is so common, such a common piece of our myths, our symbols, the way we kind of make sense of the world, whether it's the tree of life or the world tree, or, you know, there's something about trees that really speaks to humans.
Yeah. And, and I feel that very much. And I think a few of the things that I've been thinking out about are a couple are first that, you know, when I think about trees or we speak about trees, we, we really, whether we're explicitly bringing it in or not, we're speaking about so many beings. And so I think about, you know, whether there's, we're thinking about the forest and the relationships and the interdependence of trees, or even an individual tree.
That tree is so many beings and holds and kind of inhabits and is inhabited by so many beings. So there's the moss and there's the lichen and there's the insects and the fungi and the squirrels and the birds that are in deep, deep relationship with the tree. So that's one piece that is so meaningful to me is that I just feel that there's such a clear teacher of.
That any kind of separateness is, is really a delusion and that we're also deeply interrelated. So that's one piece. The other piece that I think about with trees is a little more a sort of concrete and material, which is, you know, for so many of us that love trees, we probably also love plants and we love to go and maybe be outside.
But trees, you can literally get up to and, and hug or touch or, you know, it's a little tougher to hug like a salal bush or like hug a, I don't know, a fern. Um, you could go up and maybe touch them or gently like hang out with them in some way, but trees, you can go up and you can give them a big hug and you can rest against them or lean against them or lay under them.
Um, and so there's something just like so material about that, uh, physical relationship. That I feel like is really important to, yeah, those are just a few things that come to mind. And then, yes, I could talk forever about special specific individual trees as well.
Megan: Yeah, I love that. And what you were saying about the sort of interconnectedness of them and how they, there's not really a separation between them and all of the beings that live in them or around them or on them.
Um, can you talk a little bit about this idea of. the mother or what you called the hub tree and just how even if we can't see the rootedness and connection underneath what you know about, about that. Yeah.
Heather: Oh my gosh. I, I love this so much. And, you know, it's such an example when we talk about mother or hub trees, it's such an example of kind of more Western science finally catching up with aboriginal or original people, knowledge and wisdom, which is that trees are deeply connected and that they care for each other.
Like literally there are these trees. In all forests, typically, or maybe almost always, it's the tallest tree and, um, that tree has so much access to sunlight that it's often has more kind of carbon and the materials it needs than, than it actually needs. And so then it shares those materials. With the rest of the trees in the forest, and they have seen that these mother trees are connected to vast numbers of other trees in the forest, and they're connected through Michael Reisel networks.
So the fungus that's living in the ground interweaves and grows deeply within the roots of the trees, and they share sugars and other nutrients that way. They also share both through the mycorrhizal networks, but also through chemicals that they release above ground information about insect attacks or diseases that are spreading.
So there are really these ways that these mother trees really deeply care for the trees around them. And I think that that's just such a beautiful. It's so important for us to know that it brings. a beingness and a kinship, um, an understanding of the kinship of the trees. And again, that's knowledge that, um, Indigenous people have had and, uh, information that they've shared.
There are beautiful stories about a grandmother tree, what we know as Western Red Cedar, who cares for her grandson in all of these different ways until he becomes. The larger tree and then the ways he cares for and protects her. So there's these ideas of the real reciprocity and the ways that, yeah, forests really depend on each other.
And going in and, um, they've also found that if the mother tree is removed, there are many, many more connections that are lost among the trees than if just sort of random trees were removed from the forest. So it's really important to pay attention to this. It's both on sort of an emotional and spiritual level, but also on a very practical, how do we care for these places that matter so much for our world in that way too.
Megan: Thank you for speaking to that. Yeah, that's lovely. Maybe this is a silly question, but the connections from the mother of the hub tree out. I assumed those would like cross species. Um, but is it only like the Western Red Cedar only cares for other Western Red Cedars, or is it like, you know, the, the big cedar in my backyard?
Like, is that connected to other, since this has been deforested, is it connected to other species of trees?
Heather: Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things. So Dr. Suzanne Simard is one of the folks. kind of in Western science who has done a lot of research into this and has been able to show this is, this is really happening.
These connections really matter. And it really matters to the health of the forest. Um, there had been this idea that for decades in forestry that, okay, we got to remove all the. Um, and they were looking for sort of the deciduous trees around the conifer so that the conifers can grow. And what they found is that actually, as the in the early stages where the deciduous trees are taller and absorbing more sunlight, they're actually giving more sugars to their little new nearby conifer friends.
So I think if I'm remembering right, it's um there's many of these relationships that have been found, and there's relationships between birches. Or it might be beaches. I get those two mixed up. And I believe Doug firs. And they are sending those to them. And then over time, when the conifer overtake the deciduous trees, they sort of return the favor and send more nutrients back.
So yeah, there are these deeply cross species relationships happening. Um, they do find that often mother trees Send a bit more to their own seedlings, which in itself is fascinating that they recognize who their literal kin are, but they're also caring for the other trees in the forest as well. So it's cross species and it's across sort of very close family ties as well.
Megan: Okay, cool. Thanks for clarifying. That's so interesting because you think of. I mean, this is so much about, like, the way we are taught to perceive the world that, like, I've heard about forests, you know, like, well, like you said, well, then the conifers take over the deciduous trees and it's like a conquering, you know, but it's really interesting to hear that, no, it's like, it's just a rebalancing and they are still nurturing each other and it's not this, like, imperialistic, like, take over, you know.
Yes. Yes. Thank you for sharing
Heather: that. Yeah, I've really appreciated learning more and more how much cooperation is a part. And it's, it's not always, like, sometimes there is a little bit of competition for sunlight. The relationships are complicated, just like human relationships and relationships between human cultures and communities.
So, I think so often we can sort of flatten what we perceive to be happening outside of the human world. We can either romanticize it or, um, just believe nothing deeply complex is happening there, but in fact it's very complex. Um, and there's many things that I think we can relate to.
Megan: Could you tell us a little bit about your like personal journey and connection with trees?
Like when did this, has it always been with you? Like how has it evolved? Um, yeah, just sort of a little bit about your own personal experience with that.
Heather: Yeah. Uh, well, I grew, I grew up in Colorado and, um, A really important part of my childhood was spending time with my father outside. Uh, he worked six days a week, nights, and so we had very limited time together.
But on that one day a week that he didn't work, and sometimes even in the mornings, before going to work a night shift, we would go and either walk near a river or walk around this nearby lake or go up to the mountains and foothills in Colorado and Trees were such an interwoven part of that So whether we were walking along the river or I can remember walking around this lake It's called Sloan's Lake kind of in Denver and there were cottonwoods everywhere and that smell of cottonwood Um, is such a part of, of my memories of him and I remember going to the, the mountains and seeing the aspens as they turned color.
So yeah, that was just such a part of my life as being surrounded by trees. And then over time, as I became older, and I, in my, my time really sort of rooting in, I guess, into, uh, this land that we call the Pacific Northwest, the trees just kind of got louder and louder, if that's, or just, uh, made their presence more and more known, and I, um, just became more and more drawn to them.
I would go to. Peer Park, which for any Portlanders, uh, they might know that park as a very kind of forested park right in the middle of the St. John's neighborhood. And I'd collect wind fallen cedar branches and dung fir branches. And there was a time where I was doing that before I even knew those names for those trees.
I just knew I, I, I wanted to connect with them in some way and bring them into my home and get to know them more. And then over the last, I don't know how many years. More and more trees have, have just been so, my relationships with them have just deepened and I've learned to really sort of slow down and spend really intentional time kind of getting to know them, really paying much closer attention and sort of listening really deeply and that has both incredibly deepened my relationship with them and also the relationship, it's just so beautiful to have with them.
Yeah, these relationships with these incredible beings in so many places that I go.
Megan: I've heard you talk before about this idea of like the names of the trees and naming and, um, can you talk a little bit about your experience of like relating to trees individually or the concept of like placing a name or giving a name, um, to a certain type of tree, anything you want to say about that?
Yeah.
Heather: Well, yeah, I think about naming as this really, again, kind of a complicated piece of being human, which is that when we know someone else's name, that can really help us in making a connection with them and getting to know them, you know, as humans, we'll meet each other and we'll share, you know, ask for the other person's name, share our name.
And that's a, you know, kind of foundational step to us getting to know each other. At the same time, naming can be this way to sort of make a claim over another being or kind of categorize another being, especially when it comes from humans to other beings. And so, when I think about the names that I know in most trees, Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, trees as those come from white systems.
Typically, you know, white men got to name these trees, and now they're accepted as as the sort of scientific and official name of these trees. And so I think a lot about the names of trees that people who have been in, you know, thousands year long relationships with these trees, what are those names? Um, and how do we honor the names and the relationships that they represent?
So I think about that, and I also think about then, for the actual individual trees, is, is there a way that they sort of name themselves or are known by the other trees and the other beings that they're in relationship with? And is there a way that we can sort of listen in for that, um, in a really sort of respectful and humble, humble way?
Because, you know, I was recently reading something by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who is an ethnobotanist, pretty well known for writing Braiding Sweetgrass and a number of other pieces. She talks about naming as, as a really important piece of building relationship. And so I think about, you know, it can be done in a very respectful, reciprocal way.
But I think, again, requires bringing a lot of intention to that, rather than just sort of like, I'm claiming you, I'm putting this name on you without any interest in being in dialogue with you about how you perceive yourself. Yeah,
Megan: I really appreciate that outlook. Do you want to talk a little bit more about how, um, some of these systems or colonization, um, has, been detrimental to humans sort of very natural relationship to trees specifically and how you see still that's still happening today.
Heather: Yeah, I mean, I think there was very much and has continued to be, um, this strategy of white settler colonialism of separating humans from the rest of the world. And so now we have this idea of humans. Over here, and then nature, quote unquote, over here, that is a pretty new idea and, um, one that really, uh, serves the aims of settler colonialism and capitalism, which is then the rest of the world.
And again, quote, unquote, nature becomes simply a resource to be exploited. Endlessly, instead of, oh, these are our relatives, or these are our kin, um, we are deeply interdependent with these other beings. So how do we really. Be in a caring, perhaps stewarding relationship, but also we're being very much cared for by these other beings.
Those are really different world views. And I think, you know, we can look around and see how much harm that has caused. We see it even today in, for example, the, the project of settler colonialism that has happened in Palestine. So Israel has, um, over many decades has had a project of cutting down olive groves, for example, and really strategically Harming, um, and violating that relationship, often hundreds of year long relationship between Palestinian families and their, the olive trees that they're in relationship with.
And of course that harms. Livelihood and simply the food that people need, uh, to survive. Um, but also it really is a piece of sort of a claiming of land. So raising olive groves and instead planting trees that are not indigenous to that, or not native to that region. So we see that project happening.
Throughout the history of settler colonialism, and so, um, I think this is a piece of why it's so important to try to come back to that. The relationships that I think are pretty common throughout peoples, uh, whatever our heritage, we can go back to wherever we were indigenous to. Our, our people, our ancestors likely had very deep and very respectful, careful relationships with the trees.
And the other plant and animal beings around them.
Megan: Thank you. Maybe we could shift a little bit to talk about like how you practically connect with trees. Like, so there's a tree you like, and then what happens? Like, how do you approach them? Um, are you actually like, do you feel like you're actually communicating with them?
What does that seem like? Do you make offerings? Do you like tell us? Just for those of us who maybe don't have this type of practice, like, what does it actually look like for you?
Heather: Yeah. Yes, to all of that. Um, so I, uh, what I will do when I'm hoping to kind of get to know a tree is come to them. And again, with, well, you know, as much humbleness and respect as I can and real kind of carefulness, I think I kind of approach trees.
As I would like a human elder, like I'm going to come in from a real place of I am going to be very careful and be very quite formal almost, um, until that relationship feels established. So I will come in and sort of ask permission to approach. I start to think about long before we get to sort of the trunk of the tree, which I think a lot of us think of like, that's the tree is the trunk.
There's so much of the tree that's underground, and often it's at least as much as what we're seeing of the trunk, if not more. So quite a ways back, we're already starting to walk on ground that their roots are under. So I start to think about that, of, you know, how do I approach, and I'm even walking over part of their body.
How do I do that in a careful way? And then, um, I will usually introduce myself. Sometimes I do that out loud, sometimes not out loud. I sort of feel what feels best in that moment. Um, I usually will make some kind of offering, so that may be some water, maybe a hair from my head, or something else I might have.
Just something to sort of say, you know, I'm offering something over. And then, you know, I will try to just really listen. I have had trees that it has felt like they are like, Yep, come, come right up. Come on in. Like, let's get cozy right off the bat. And I've had, there's been other trees where I feel a real like, you know, you have to really go slow with me.
There are a couple of oak trees at a park nearby that are very close to each other. They're huge old oaks. And one of them was very much, To me felt like they said, you know, come on up and very sort of welcoming and then the other one felt much more like you're going to have to take your time and be very careful and slow and building this relationship.
And I realized over time that other tree, they have a lot of scars, and I don't know exactly what happened. There's like a lot of scars where there were clearly very big branches, even sort of scars in the bark that I'm not sure what would have made those scars. So, who knows what their relationship with humans has been.
Part of what, so I I have a couple of cedar trees that I'm still very close to. And one time that I spent a long time with both of them, one of them kind of taught me a few things. One was there was, there is sort of this real focus I feel for trees on this idea of here ness because I mean, that's, that's.
You know, sort of the essence of a tree is absolute sort of here ness. There's not a moving to other places. And as humans, we're obviously always moving about. And so, the cedar tree sort of taught me that the way I should, one of the ways I should greet them, and I often do this with other trees too, is to sort of Feel myself rooting in and then say something like here, as in I'm here and we're here together.
And that helps me become really present with them. The other thing that the tree kind of showed me is that they do in fact have their own naming systems. And it's this beautiful web of relationships really. And it speaks to kind of their particular location and whatever land they're in. Their relatives around them, unique features about that particular tree.
It's, it's this very complicated piece that I only can get bits and pieces of, but, you know, it feels very, it felt like a very, really a gift to be shown that. And, you know, one of the things that I think you and I have even talked about, you've spoken to is that sometimes when we have experiences like this, we can have this thinking of like, Am I just making this up?
Like what's going, what's up here? And what I keep coming back to in part, thanks to your encouragement is like, it doesn't really matter if I'm making this up, that's okay. What this does for me is it really helps me to become very present with these incredible beings and to offer a lot of gratitude and slowness.
And that in and of itself is so important. It's an active counter and antidote to the rest of the messages that I so often receive from Capital, which is that I should be producing. I need to be going on to the next thing. How, what am I doing to kind of prove myself in some way? That shit's made up, like, so if anything they, and our lives are shaped by that, so to me, what, it's only a benefit.
Whether it's quote unquote real or not, or I'm making it up or not, being able to be really slow and have really sweet time caring for and being cared for by trees, that's can only be a good
Megan: thing. Yeah. Thank you for speaking to that. I made a note of like, I wrote, what is happening? What does Heather think is happening when we're like communicating with these trees?
Because yeah, it doesn't really make sense all the time in our minds. One of the things that helps me feel like it is real, and I do think it is, just, I mean, we are all energy. That's like a now scientifically proven fact. So, um, but one of the things that makes it feel genuine to me is that it's not this, like, I'm going to hug every tree.
It's all so lovely, dovey. And like, it's not this like, um, blanket relationship. Like you really, you in particular, like there is, You're getting a different sense from every tree, so it's not, and I don't think you're making it up because you have told me things that, like, I don't think you would think of.
And I've had that experience too. Like, this isn't just me. So, yeah, thank you for speaking to the fact that, A, it doesn't matter if it is made up because you're right. It is such a lovely counterbalance. And two, I don't think it is.
Heather: Yeah, and yeah, I mean, you're so right because I, you know, there's the oak trees I spoke to. I even have this beautiful, um, blue spruce in my front yard that, I mean, it's this incredible tree. And for the longest time, I felt like I could not Really connect with them and, uh, and like you said, there are some trees.
Yeah, where it feels like the second I see them, they're like, yeah, come on up. Let's hang out. And then this tree who I literally see all day, every day. I didn't feel a connection with until finally I was like, Hey, I, I'm feeling like, how do we connect? I would love to build a relationship with you. And what I felt like I heard from them was like, you walk past me a million times and you never say hello.
If I was a human standing here, would you just like walk by and not say hello and like, how are you? And, and I just felt like it was a real sort of putting me in my place. And since then I've made it a practice to always be saying good morning, hello. And I feel like that relationship is really building.
So yeah, it's not just this sort of like now every tree is my best friend all the time easily. Yeah. Yeah.
Megan: Yeah. You got to do the work just like you would with humans. Right. It's just politeness and respect. Yeah. Right. Yeah. What are you noticing like in your forest therapy practice about how trees might want to collaborate with you when you bring other people out or and or what are you noticing in terms of how the people you're leading are feeling in terms of like connecting with trees?
Like, just what are you? Sort of noticing in that part of your life or practice.
Heather: Yeah. Um, well, a few things. I mean, my sense You know, usually always, uh, before I do forest therapy, I will go out like I get there quite a bit before folks arrive and go kind of greet the forest, let everybody know what the, you know, that I'm going to be bringing people, make sure they're feeling okay about it.
And always, it seems like trees are just really happy to invite in. People, especially people who are, are doing that, like kind of moving slowly and really paying close attention because so often, so many of us who are, who go out for hikes and other things, like we're just moving really quick and it all kind of becomes a blur.
So what I feel I hear from the trees is like, Oh, okay, like here's some humans who actually want to spend some time, um, and are paying attention and that always feels really welcomed. There are some trees, especially, so the two cedars that I mentioned, who, they live at Hoyt Arboretum, and there's this sweet little spot where there's two cedars and a hemlock and then lots of other plants.
And anytime I lead forest therapy there, I go and check in with them and let them know, and it seems like they're, again, they're very happy to have people come and spend some time. And people who have sat, uh, kind of in this one piece of florist therapy that have sat by those cedars or with those cedars always report just feeling this incredible connection to them, this sort of like sturdiness and love.
People have had squirrels scamper around their feet and they're like, there's just a real welcome of all of the, the sort of beings there. There's another beautiful hemlock tree there that very recently, uh, when I led a Tu B'Shvat, which is the Jewish New Year of the Trees, I led forest bathing, and we ended up sitting under this hemlock, and people talked about feeling just what you spoke to.
They, they were touching the roots and the trunk of that tree, and they could feel this flow of energy. That was especially Both are really interesting and kind of tough for us therapy because this was right after the huge ice storm that we had here in the Portland area and there were downed trees and downed very big branches and so it turned out there was a lot of heavy equipment being used to try to, you know, take down the trees that needed to be taken down.
And so people were struggling with that noise. And also feeling, one person talked about feeling like the tree that we were sitting with was, was afraid hearing that sound. So there was a real kind of relationship built and not a very much time. And so that's what I hear from people over and over again is that they find a tree, whether it's when we're together as a group or when they go out as kind of on their own.
They find trees that they feel kind of welcome them and then really sort of often have some kind of communication with them. And, and also people find trees to be really good listeners. And so sometimes people can share stories or feelings or experiences with trees that they can't share with anyone else in their lives.
And that in itself can be so meaningful and important.
Megan: Oh, I love that. Thank you. Sharing those anecdotes. Maybe we could pull on this thread a little bit. What are some of your hopes for human relationships to trees now and in the future? Yeah,
Heather: I, my hope is, and so much of the sort of motivation for the work that I do is offering people that opportunity to remember we are not separate from nature, we are deeply a part of nature.
I mean, this is just the world and we are of the world. We're like a moving around. Out and about part of the world. And we have been very sort of forcefully and strategically made to forget that. So many of us, not all people, many, many people have maintained those relationships, um, culturally or individually or within families.
But, but many of us really have, have struggle to remember that. And so, um, and again, that forgetting is such a part of what has led to the harm that we see around us. Of the of the world around us. And so, um, I think there's something so beautiful and important in in and of itself. Those relationships of like, Oh, right.
Trees and plants and the birds and the animals that I see around me. They don't have to be some completely foreign other. Some kind of backdrop to the kind of movie that I'm moving through my life, right? But but they're deeply a part of our lives and we hopefully can be part of their lives, too So I think that in and of itself matters and then I do feel And I think we see that that those that we have intimacy with We build care and we build yeah, really they are in our thoughts.
They're in our hearts And so that's the more and more we get to know someone we think about, Oh, what can I do to help take care of this being, or maybe they need something or how do I show up and advocate for them in spaces where that needs to happen. And so that's my other kind of aspiration is that.
Through this time, people experience that care and that beauty of connection. And then they take that with them and use that to, to care for this world that so deeply needs it.
Megan: Beautiful. Thank you. I love that vision. It feels so good. It kind of feels like when you just start seeing the world that way, you just.
Kind of have friends everywhere and again, not like everyone wants to connect with you But it is just you just have like a nice friend waiting by your front door Now at the spruce tree like it's just a sweet moment of connection like they talk about how You know If you just have one small chit chat with the checkout person at the grocery store like your happiness level increases Like you could just have that with all of these beings around you, you know, and yeah, so grumpy.
So Yeah, I love that Um, maybe before we start wrapping up, do you want to say anything about like your grief work and how trees and grief and joy are weaving together right now and what you're doing?
Heather: Well, what I have noticed, so I have, I have worked with grieving people for many, many years. Um, and, It's a pretty deep grief for myself.
And so I knew as soon as I kind of embarked on this path to offer a forest therapy or forest bathing, um, that I wanted to create ways that it could also support people who are grieving. And so I will every so often offer, um, forest therapy that's specifically for groups of grieving people. What I find is that even outside of those groups.
So often people that are coming to force therapy, often grief arises. And I think sometimes people know that that grief is very present. And this is a piece of the way they're taking care of themselves. I think sometimes the grief sort of is like, Oh, you know, you're slowing down enough and you're not in front of some kind of technology or in other ways, sort of distracting, which no shade against that, like we have to distract sometimes, but.
I think many of us have the experience that when we turn away from distraction, then suddenly the grief is very present. And so what I have seen over and over again is people feel really supported by the earth and by the trees and by the plants around them. People see the relationships in a forest and see the, the dying and the living and the dying and the living and feel.
sort of held in their grief and also feel their grief able to move. And so I've seen that happen again and again, both in, again, times that it's specifically for grief and times that it's not. And so I will continue to offer those in groups, um, those times for people in groups, but I've also seen that people sometimes need kind of their own individual care that's still deeply rooted in Connection with the living world and the dying world.
And so I have started to offer a type of grief care that again, brings in the support. And I think of myself as working in partnership with the other than human world. So sometimes just kind of sitting and feeling held by another human, but also feeling the sturdiness of the earth below us. Feeling the being able to listen to the sounds and the smells around us, it can kind of open us up a little bit when we've been sort of closed in and protective around our grief, which again, completely understandable, very sort of normal, whatever that means, and often, it can just feel like too way too damn much for one human to hold.
And so this can be a way to sort of perhaps to release some of that into the earth, be held by that in. See it start to transform just as we see transformation all the time when we're in the forest or anywhere outside.
Megan: Thank you. I feel like it feels like when you're out in a more wild space, that relationship between grief and joy is so much more obvious.
Um, you know, Martine Prichtel talks about how grief and joy are roommates and the landlord is love. You can't, you really can't have one without the other. Um, and I feel like in our human constructs. Sometimes I just get lost, like, in the grief that's, like, sort of all that's there, but I'm not working it enough that it's, like, really metabolizing.
But I feel like when you're out in the natural, I mean, we are the natural world, but when you're out in a more wild space, you can feel the heaviness of that grief and of, you know, the hemlock tree that's afraid you're going to cut it down. But then, you know, a chipmunk run, runs by or like a little sliver of sunlight comes through and it just feels like they're so close, you know, it's so obvious how connected they are.
They're one thing really. So, yeah, I just wanted to add that. That seems like one of the ways that being outside is really. Nurturing to me, at least.
Heather: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. And that makes me think about, so that same hemlock tree that a couple people spoke to, that wondering of like, how is this landing for them?
Hearing those sounds. They also spoke to how they would get really distracted, humans would get really distracted by the noise, and then suddenly a huge drop of water would fall from a branch. And they would sort of like, Oh, right. And they felt like it was the tree, like, Hey, pay attention, like come back.
Um, and I do feel like that is so often the case that people can be sort of crying and deeply in their grief and sort of honoring and holding space for that in one moment, and then the next minute they're laughing, because as you said, a squirrel has run by carrying something or. They've had some experience that reminded them of their person in this very joyful way, or, you know, a million other things happen, and it really creates the space for all of that, so that we're not sort of trying to close out or shut out either.
And to be able to access joy, absolutely, you know, making space for grief is so crucial. Um, they are, they're so deeply intertwined. Mm
Megan: hmm. Mm. Anything you want to add that we didn't really touch on, anything that you love about trees in particular or wish more people knew or understood about them?
Heather: Uh, I think I would just say that I just really encourage people to, yeah, to spend some time getting to know trees, and know that you might feel silly, and know that it might feel uncomfortable, and if you're just sort of standing next to and looking at a tree or touching a tree, people might look at you and wonder what you're doing.
But again, there's so many really silly ways we spend our time. If we really think about it, it can be just such a beautiful and life giving practice to just really slow down and spend time with and get to know trees. So I hope that more
Megan: people do that. Me too. Well, can you share a little bit about where people can find you and how they can work with you or learn from you?
Yeah. Where can everyone get in touch?
Heather: Yeah. People can find me on my website, which is Rose Cedar Forest therapy.com. I'm also on Instagram at Rosen Cedar Forest and I am often working with local arboreta or local botanical gardens nature parks to offer kind of public forest bathing. And people can also schedule individual and or private group sessions with me for forest therapy.
And then I'm also, uh, offering this kind of one-to-one. What I'm calling grief care out of the Portland Grief House. So there's lots of different ways to connect with me. Uh, the other piece that I do is work with organizations to create trainings, retreats of all sorts. And so that's another opportunity.
So lots of different ways to connect.
Megan: Cool. Thank you. I'll put those links in the show notes. Are you weaving forest therapy techniques into the organizational work as well? Do you want to speak to that at all? Yeah,
Heather: that is my goal. Um, and the conversation that I'm starting to have with folks about how do we both like bring people together to focus on particular topics that you want to be sharing with your people, and then also make time for people to spend some time outside, spend some time with each other, and how supportive that can be for both the individuals and the kind of group or team as a whole.
Megan: Cool. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here. This has been lovely.
Heather: Oh, lovely to be here. Thank you.
Megan: Okay, my friend. I hope you loved that conversation. I want to encourage you to check out Heather's work. She really does such grounded, connective, things in the world. Her newsletter is great.
I encourage you to go to her website and sign up for all the things or follow along on Instagram. Thank you again to all of you supporting the show financially. I really appreciate that and if you're in a space to do that and support this work either once or monthly you can check that out at buymeacoffee.com slash Megan Leatherman.
I also want to say that You, as a podcast listener, probably know about other podcasts and I love being on other shows and having conversations like this with other people. And so if you know of a podcast that might be looking for a guest or be a good fit for me, I'm totally open to hearing about that and you can reach out at helloatawildnewwork.com or find me on Instagram. I'll be back with you next week to continue this discussion on our vast connectedness. I hope you take such good care in the meantime, and I'll see you on the other side.