Forest Healing

03/09/2026

Waterfall of the Day. Sort of!

02/09/2026

Human structures don’t exist outside nature. Nature continually surrounds, changes and eventually absorbs them.

The ancient monuments on Orkney weren’t simply built in nature. They were built as part of a landscape that already had meaning.

01/09/2026

Standing among the ancient stones of Orkney can produce a strange sensation. For a moment, the usual measure of time seems to fall away. We are accustomed to thinking about time in terms of hours, days and years. We remember birthdays, anniversaries and seasons. We think about what happened last week, what we might do next month, perhaps what we hope to achieve over the next few years.

But standing beside a Neolithic monument can stretch the imagination in a completely different direction.

Suddenly, fifty years seems very small.

A hundred years is barely a moment.

A thousand years feels strangely close.

And then the mind begins to struggle with something much larger — the possibility of standing in a place where people were living, working, raising families, observing the seasons and looking out across the same landscape thousands of years ago.

This is one of the gifts of what we might call ‘Deep Time’.

Follow the link in the comments to read more!

30/08/2026

Whilst on holiday here, I am exploring what the landscapes and monuments of ancient Orkney can teach us about how our ancestors experienced their relationship with the living world. I’ll be turning it into an article at the end of my trip, but here are some pictures for starters though.

29/08/2026

I have worked for over 20 years in therapeutic roles including work with drug and alcohol users, and later as a Nature and Forest Therapy practitioner. I now combine the two using nature to support recovery and improve mental and emotional health and wellbeing with people who have experienced problematic drug and alcohol use. In my earlier work, I would meet ‘clients’ in a private one-to-one space indoors, but now my ‘consulting room’ is more likely to be an opening in a woodland or sitting on a rock beside a river.

When therapeutic interactions move outside of the 'consulting room' and into nature, something interesting seems to happen to the relationship between myself and the people I work with and support. Nature can create a shared space where we walk alongside one another, notice the world together, and sometimes discover that healing becomes less about what one person does to another and more about how two people can explore things together.

There is something wonderfully simple about walking alongside another person. We don't necessarily have to look directly at one another. There is no desk between us, no chair positioned opposite another chair, and no expectation that one person has all the answers. Instead, there is a path beneath our feet, trees moving in the breeze, birdsong in the distance and the changing landscape unfolding around us.

Conversation can and does seem to emerge much more naturally.

Sometimes it is easier to talk while walking.

Most of the time silence becomes more comfortable.

Perhaps something noticed in the landscape provides the beginning of a conversation that might never have happened inside four walls.

This is one of the intriguing possibilities offered by nature-based practices — nature can change not only the location where therapeutic work takes place, but the relationship through which that work happens. This relationship is most commonly described as the ‘Therapeutic Alliance’ and is the topic of this week's article.

When therapeutic interactions move outside of the consulting room and into nature, something interesting seems to happen. Nature can create a shared space where we walk alongside one another, notice the world together, and sometimes discover that healing becomes less about what one person does to an

22/08/2026

The Importance of Smell

Discover why smell is such an important part of our connection with nature. Explore how the scents of woodlands, earth, trees and seasons can influence relaxation, memory, mood and wellbeing — and discover simple ways to awaken your sense of smell during time outdoors.

Discover why smell is such an important part of our connection with nature. Explore how the scents of woodlands, earth, trees and seasons can influence relaxation, memory, mood and wellbeing — and discover simple ways to awaken your sense of smell during time outdoors.

21/08/2026

I’m here at the Heal Scotland Wild Festival all weekend, and delivery a guided Forest Bathing and Nature Connection Walk tomorrow (Saturday) from 12-2 so come and join us for a weekend of natural medicine and come and say ‘Hi’ to me!
Hugh 🌻🐝

15/08/2026

Waterfall of the Day

14/08/2026