- Project 2018-2022 (although it is a spiraling inward journey that never ends)
- Academic output: Wuyts, Wendy. “Finding Satoyama -“Forest bathing as a creative practice of knowledge creation and healing in/with/through damaged landscapes.” Journal of Ecohumanism 3.2 (2024): 105-133.
- Fictieboek: Tussenland
My journey:
Forest bathing and foregrounding plants in Finland – two ecofeminist choices
This blog post offers guidelines on photography inspired by care ethics, particularly during intimate experiences such as forest bathing. It also acknowledges the practical need for promotional materials for our study circle and small enterprises, balancing respect for participants with the necessity of sharing our work. Please comment if you have feedback. Forest bath One…
Writing(with)Oak trees – an outdoor experiment in Denmark and Discovering the initial thread for a new journey into financial ecofeminism.
Over the past few years, most of our writing sessions were conducted online within plant circles, with participants generally isolated in their rooms. Despite this, we were aware that some participants chose to walk outside during the sessions, which indeed required a certain level of presence. The facilitator, however, always remained indoors. During a spring…
Forest bathing as a way of life (?)
The International Forest Therapy Day (IFTD) are returning this summer, with an interesting new theme. I am not original and copied the theme in the title. Forest bathing Forest bathing – or shinrin yoku is a term coined by the Japanese in the 1980s. This practice emerged in a period when the Japanese government noticed…
One year already as a certified forest therapy guide (In Belgium): a spiralling perpetual journey
In the end of March 2020, I published my harvest project ‘Becoming the Frog’, some kind of graduation project if you follow the training via ANFT and did a small medicine walk to show I passed a new threshold. ANFT told us that it does not mean the journey ends, and they are so right.…
Ecofeminism anno 2021: ‘return to’ forest (healing) activism
In February I connected with a Brazilian serial rooter, currently rooting in Brussels, who is doing her Master thesis about urban gardens as commons applying an ecofeminist lens. The exchanges of thoughts and questions reminded me that I should write my annual blog about ecofeminism, after writing one in 2019 (Ecofeminism in 2019) and 2020…
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 the teachers very well. I am not only a guide, but also a scientist, always between this boundary of explanation…
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, I do not want to talk about biodiversity, but cultural diversity. Cultural diversity is important because our workplaces, schools, our forests and…
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 started to miss the community bonding and tending that guided forest therapy walks can offer. These circles, these moments of…
Changing the stories we live by #6: from Princess Mononoke’s Curse Spirits to the Corona virus
Last June, I got to know the curse spirits of princess Mononoke in real life. I organised a group excursion to one of the certified forest therapy bases in Japan. Now I see some similarities between the ‘story’ of the curse spirits and the corona virus. But first we need to talk about the concept…
Becoming the Frog – retelling my woodwide story of the past 6 months
“The Frog Prince” (German: Der Froschkönig, Dutch: de kikkerkoning) is a fairy tale, best known through the Brothers Grimm’s written version; traditionally it is the first story in their collection. Since some months, I have a project or tendency to understand my own psyche through the forests I visit and images that remind me to a…
Dendrophilia in the Time of Corona
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…
Let Us Believe in the ‘End’ of the Cold Season – a snow flurry forest bath
Since a few days I am back in Belgium, sooner than I expected when I was writing my last woodwide story about Belgium in end of November: A kiss in the shadow of a linden tree. In the last weeks, the whole world is panicking because of the corona virus. But it is not the…
Spring Clean in early February
May the wind inspire you, earth protect you; water heal you, and fire always warm the heart I read this verse or spell in a book about Imbolc. They advice you to say this, when you clean your house, declutter everything what is not needed, to make space for new things and new chapters in…
Changing the Stories We Live By #4: Grief
Last month, I wrote how forest therapy in Japan is almost becoming an ecofeminist act. Last Saturday, I donated two workshops to the students of the HeForSheClub, the feminist student club of Nagoya University and members of the Girl Power class. In the first workshop I guided a forest therapy walk. Since two years I am attending…
The Snow White Effect: when forest therapy becomes an ecofeminist act
For some reason, I start to connect forest bathing experiences with fairytales. Last month, for instance, I got a Russian fairytale experience during a forest bath in Norway . Since a week I am back in Japan, the country that let me realise why we need feminists. And ironically, or not, Snow White elements infused…
Fear and Floating in a Flemish Forest
To be a guide is more than a job. It is a calling. And with callings for other ways, these seeds of wisdom I am collecting offers a path for continuously learning and growing into a life in which we can fully embody our mission: to connect people with the land, the others and themselves.…
Trolls in a magical forest in Belgium
A few months ago, I read you can find trolls in a magical forest in Belgium. Of course I looked up and read that Thomas Dambo, a Danish artist, made rolls with old palettes, recycled wood, fallen trees and branches – with the help of volunteers from the region. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary…
A Gravestone for the Witch tree and church bells: a call for a new world
Today I went bicycling in my paternal grandparents’ region. Some time ago, an old friend from university, a linguist with a big passion for history, who is born in the same village as my grandfather, promised me to share his local knowledge and stories about trees, stones and other beings of this region. Today we…
Guiding my first Forest Bath – and reconnecting with Belgium in October
As part of my 6 month long practicum with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT), I have to guide 4 forest baths. Directly after I did the on-site training in Colorado and explored USA, I left for Belgium. I have not been in my country for 8 months, and in some view, even…
Changing the Stories We Live By #2: The Forest Sees You.
In the past weeks I am studying forest therapy and ecolinguistics, as part of my journey these days which I can call the Way of the Guide, but also to see if the Flemish circular economy fiction book I am writing is not reproducing the hierarchical system that is letting some people exploit other beings…
Stories from the Wood Wide Web 