Today is my 32nd birthday. Since last night I stay on my own in a wooden cabin in the forest, for the following nights, with books, hot drinks and a live performance by squirrels and […]
Category: Belgian Wood Stories
Learning more about the effects of a nature immersion with the help of children’s drawings before and after a forest bath
Some weeks ago, just before the second lockdown in Belgium, I had the honor to guide a forest bath to 34 Flemish children in a nearby village. They were age 10-11. I know one of […]
Reading Landscapes, Remembering Local History
Hallo iedereen! I sent you warm autumn greetings from Flanders. This week I noticed a lot of squirrels collecting beech nuts for winter and I found a lot of fly agarics on the fairytale forest […]
When the beech loses her throne – about redesigning our cultural landscapes
The climate is changing. Faster than we had hoped. In August, many majestic beeches – the queens of the Germanic forests – dropped their leaves because they were under drought stress. The king of the […]
Rapunzel’s forest tale: a story of healing
It has been a month ago that I wrote a blog. The last blog was about my grandmother’s death and how I found solace and inspiration through the willow in our garden: My grandmother was a […]
Let’s address whiteness in the outdoors
The International Day for Biological Diversity is a United Nations–sanctioned international day for the promotion of biodiversity issues. It is currently held on May 22. This year’s theme is “our solutions are in nature”. However, […]
Branching out: A Tree Pageant
Each year, the Belgian Tree of the Year is elected. This is not necessarily the most beautiful or oldest tree, but it is a tree with a special story. Actually ‘pageant’ might not be the […]
It’s VE day. Let’s talk about Nazis and the environment
On 8 May 2020 we, in Europe, celebrate 75 years of victory over fascism. Victory in Europe Day, generally known as VE Day or V-E Day, is a day celebrating the formal acceptance by the […]
My first #Virtual Forest Therapy Walk was in San Diego, New York, Denver, Toronto and in Belgium – at the same time
In times of corona, I get to know the garden and forest surrounding my family homes better. I needed also time for myself to heal some inner wounds, but from the middle of April I […]
Geography of Fairytales: Why are the Germanic stories in forests?
According to Sara Maitland, whose fantastic book ‘From the Forest: a Search for the Hidden Roots of our Fairy Tales’, fairy tales are ‘site specific’. A geographer, I try to make sense of the place […]
