Dendrophilia is a love of trees. In some cases, this presents as a sincere respect for trees or a desire to protect and care for them and is more a platonic love. In other cases, it is more sexual. Once, a young man in Scotland tried to have sex with a tree. I do not know what it is about Scotland and trees, but during my holiday in Scotland I also got some inspiration to write an erotic short story for a competition… that happens in the wood.
Sleeping Beauty and Dreampunk
Not only Scotland inspired me. On February 14th, when I was on the plane from Asia to Europe, I read for the first time about dream punk, thanks to the instagram account of Queernature. It draw my attention, because I had just published a blog about solar punk (Changing the Stories We Live By #5: some romantic solarpunk for Valentine) and wondered what kind of punk this is.
“Dreampunk became necessary when the future became colonised. When we started to sleep less… When sleep became inimical to capitalist progress. (…) Dreampunks are ones who know that sleep, rest and dreams — whatever the quantity or mode – are mystical practices to invite the earth to dream with us and through us.
My erotic short story is called ‘Sleeping Beauty’, because it is a (Disney) princess that feminists often do not like, because she is just… sleeping until she get saved. However, we do not know what she is dreaming. Imagine she is dreaming about the earth. In the week in Scotland, another forest therapy guide recommended me to read ‘Gossip of the Forest’ by Sara Maitland, part travelogue, part folklore, where she journey into 12 British forests and connects them with the 12 months and 12 fairytales. I bought the book and looked which forest and fairytale was reserved for February. To my surprise, it was Sleeping Beauty, but even before I read the fairytale, I realised it made sense. It was a fairytale that I had considered for a title for a blog about guiding forest therapy in February. Everything is hibernating and sleeping – but still beautiful things are going on underground- , and the previous text about dreampunk let me made a click. Perhaps Sleeping Beauty was not so passive. When I read the retelling by Sara Maitland, I got another another click. What Queernature wrote about earth dreaming, came back. Oh my god, I told myself, Sleeping Beauty is a Dreampunk, just like Alice.
Erotic shortstory as an ecofeminist act
I have not written erotic stories, but I wanted to challenge myself and realised it is quite a feminist act to try it out. The 800 word counting story is about the beginning of a forest therapy session, where the guide brings her friend (an unrequited love story) to the forest during a February day, as a sort of last way to get him. Some small note: a forest therapy guide should not have a personal agenda. However, during the week on-site training we talked that ‘forest therapy guides make better lovers’ and my roommates and I made cheeky T-shirts for our trainers (and ourselves). The practice of forest bathing is also a very sensory experience, just like making love, and both bring you in the presence.
In my main story, my main character believes that forest therapy can let her friend rediscover her through the eyes of the land where she comes from, that this different perspective might help him to cross the line between friendship and more. In forest therapy, we believe the forest gives you exactly what you need. Sleeping beauty refers to the nature and the current state of romance in her life, which seems dead, but she realises it is just growing under the sleeping surface. Just relax, lie down and wait.
The guidelines of the competition explained the difference between porn and erotic storytelling. In addition, they referred to the text ‘Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power’ by Audre Lorde, explaining me that ‘The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling.’ It is actually very feminist to write an erotic story opposite the pornographic that erases ‘feelings’. I can even call it an ecofeminist act, because it is also about the relationship between the main character and the heath land in which she is guiding.
I had a lot of fun writing it by turning the table. Normally in a sex scene, a lot of metaphors are used, of some which create an opposite effect (and explains the existence of the Bad Sex in Fiction award). What my main character senses, are not really metaphors. She sees more and more the parallel of the sensory experience of forest bathing and making love, and it grounds and centers her. Let’s see what the judge thinks about it. I’ll know the result in two weeks. Anyway, I had so much fun I sneaked in some more little erotic scenes in the draft of my second novel ‘wood wide web stories’, like one based on a real sassy conversation I had with a foraging expert in Scotland about mushrooms.
Love in the time of corona
Love in the time of cholera is about unrequited love, waiting and hoping for a turn of events. It is also a bit a Sleeping Beauty story. Also the current story of the world seems one. Many people are forced into some sleeping or reflection about our current lifestyles, and even finding better and newer ways of enjoying life and doing economy. The earth groans under the presence of an economy that does not respect any borders. Everything has to give way to growth: raw materials, trees, animals and people. The corona virus seems to create a massive pause in everyones lives… to step back, prioritise, and perhaps repair the broken ties with materials, trees, animals and their community. As if Corona Virus is a Spring Clean from Mother Nature. In China, factories were closed, resulting in less air pollution according to NASA. A friend joked on his Facebook wall to give the corona virus a Nobel Prize instead of Greta Thunberg, because ‘it stopped more flights than her’.
However, the Corona mass panic has also its drawbacks. It leads also to racism toward Asians and Asian looking people. I read upsetting news and I heard sad personal stories. I came from East-Asia last month, just before the outbreak in Japan became worse, and I also heard some ignorant remarks, like ‘should you not do a blood test?’ – but they were not targeting my race or ethnicity…
Forest therapy in the time of Corona
I follow a discussion among fellow forest therapy guides. In two weeks I will return to Japan and guide a forest bath there. But also in Belgium, where I am currently, we have corona cases since some days, so this asks for some preventive measures. As a guide we have to take care the participants feel safe and comfortable, so in next weeks, based on the advices by fellow FT guides, I will implement the next:
- I will limit group size to max of 6. When we do stand in some kind of a circle, we can keep a distance and still hear each other.
- I will not use a talking piece.
- I will not bring snacks. I will ask people to bring their own cup. I pour straight from my thermos.
- I bring alcohol-based hand sanitizers along and squeeze some on each participants hands (and my own).
- I avoid invitations that has to do with touch.
Forest therapy as a preventive measure
When we have the symptoms, Belgium’s Health Minister recommended us: ‘blijf in uw kot‘ (‘stay in your house’). But the best thing you can do is to improve your immune system by going outside (alone or in small group) in forest rich environments. Research shows that for the immunity of mankind connection with nature is of great importance. The reverse – an almost total lack of nature – can therefore affect the natural resistance to viruses and bacteria.
Since a couple of days, I increased my number of hours in nature. My parents are very stressed, partly because they know I have to return to Japan, which, in their eyes, is a high-risk country. Stress and fear are contagious (perhaps even more than the actual virus), so before breakfast, I do a walk in the village for 1-2 hours, almost every day, to stay calm and to make myself less susceptible to infections.
A forest minded expert shared today on his facebook that ‘That people prefer to believe in alarming messages rather than reassuring ones, evolutionary biology has ‘programmed’ us as a form of self-protection against possible dangers. But it is not adapted to our times. The nocebo effect – the expectation that something will end badly – increases the chance of illness (the opposite of placebo) . Humans are social beings, who mirror their behaviour and thinking patterns to each other via the mirror neurons in the brain. That’s how you get selffulfilling-prophecy.’
Trees also face infections. The monoculture forest that my grandfather planted decades ago, got killed by a pine beetle last year. But trees are a bit smarter than us when it is about self-protection. They share also information with other trees to warn them, but these trees do not decide to hoard toilet paper and pasta, but make phytoncides to kill. I just have to wash more often my hands, like the trees, and stay connected with nature.
Spring is coming
Today, during my long morning walk, I saw a sign of hope. The crocus is a herald of spring. Prince Charming is finding his way through the thorns to Sleeping Beauty. Persephone is returning from the underworld, bringing with her the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feelings. This power will spark some new life, projects and romance. When the crocus flourish, I feel, corona will -like other virus beings- start to retreat. Until then, we have to sleep a bit more, dream a better earth with more love and dendrophilia, perhaps create some erotic dreampunk ;).
Stories from the Wood Wide Web 