Nature Companionship: an afternoon in the woods with Dr. Jeanette Banashak

“Imagine,” says our guide Dr. Jeanette Banashak, “what it would look like to be attuned, to have attunement, right out of your front door with the land and the trees and the plants in your house or right here at Whidbey Institute? By practicing nature companionship we try and attune with the ancestors in the land who were here before us.”

Heavily influenced by the Potawatomi botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer  - Braiding Sweetgrass and The Serviceberry -  Jeanette describes her work in the world as guiding people of all ages in urban and rural nature immersion experiences as an act of justice.

Fifteen of us gather this summer day with Jeanette to experience a kind of Shinrin-yoku, the Japanese practice of forest bathing and what Jeanette calls nature companionship. We start at the Storyhouse Meadow, sitting first in a circle together.

Rest is important today, Jeanette tells us. To really, deeply rest into nature and to be present - so that our practice of forest walking or bathing is not just forest access - it is to build relationship and reciprocity with the natural world.

Someone says they can feel their heart rate slowing down. 

Jeanette says, “Let’s go gently play.”

We move first into the Listening Circle in the woods. Hidden from sight from the meadow itself, the Listening Circle has been home to many sacred gatherings over the years, for groups and solo forest travelers. 

Here Jeanette asks us to to ‘tune in’ on a sensory level - using sight, smell, taste, touch and sound. “Notice the colors, notice the textures. What do you see with your eyes? What do the trees smell like, the rocks? This is for you to really increase your inhalation, increase your exhalation. Knowing that the air that you are breathing now is on the other side of the world too. Knowing that with every breath you take in - trees provide for you that life.

What do you taste? Maybe you want to stick out your tongue and taste this day. What do you feel? Your exposed skin to feel this fresh air? What is the quality of air feel like under exposed skin? What do you hear? Is there anyone who has made it so that you could be here today? Anyone who instilled in you a love for the natural world, for the plants, the owl? Just offer some gratitude, some quiet gratitude for their care inviting you here today. And if your eyes are still closed, you can open them and just see."

"Beginner's eyes.”  Jeanette pauses. “Your place loves having you there.”

We share our reflections in a circle.

-I noticed the dappling of the lights.

-The deep peace.

-Everything is greener.

-I feel joyful.

-Mama is nature.

We continue our journey through the woods. Jeanette references marine biologist, conservationist and author of Silent Spring, Dr. Rachel Carson, with her walking invitations for reflection, “What if I’ve never seen this before? What if I never see it again?”

She invites us to build a relationship with a tree and spend several minutes with them.“Maybe you’re swaying with the trees, what does it feel like to be like a tree, to move like a tree?

“There's this little skinny tree over there”, Jeanette points. “It comes upwards and then it just takes a sharp 45 degree angle. You know, there's a story. I wonder what her story is. All of us have our stories that we're bringing. All the other trees have their story. There's definitely a big story over there.”

Back in the Storyhouse Meadow and Jeanette talks to us about a sit-spot, an Indigenous practice to sit and be with nature. “It is literally just sitting with eyes open and having no agenda but to notice. It is quietly sitting with eyes open with a soft fascination for 20 to 40 minutes.” 

Each of us chooses our sit-spot and there is a silence now, a pause, a noticing.

Attuning to place and its history, Jeanette asks us to acknowledge the Indigenous people who tended and cared for the land and continue to do so today. She tells us about a phone app called Native Land, so that we know who to acknowledge and thank wherever we are.

We end our nature companionship morning together with a closing circle and chamomile and raspberry tea in the circle. Jeanette asks us what we are noticing,  either externally or internally, what are we noticing now?

This whole practice “is really about practicing non-domination, just being gentle, and every step is prayer. Every step a new beginning, every step a prayer.”
 

Jeanette was with us at Whidbey Institute by invitation from our Board Member Allyssa Jomei. Allyssa is a former student of Jeanette’s. Thank you, Jeanette and Allyssa!

Dr Jeanette Banashak is the author of Mindful Pilgrimage and What Teachers Need: How the Education Community Can Promote Sustainable Well-Being and Help Heal the Profession. She teaches social and emotional learning at Erikson Institute and founded The Spiritual Guidance Training Institute with programs in Nature Companionship as well as interfaith and interspiritual direction.

For more information about Jeanette’s work and trainings, email her at spiritualguidancetraining@gmail.com