Apr 5

Apr 5 Nature Immersion at Taft

Written by Jessica Pregnolato | Photos of Elena Rios by Francine Gealer  Additional Photos by Nicholas Weissman | Sounds by Mikael Jorgensen

How often do we give ourselves the experience of having a quiet moment to watch our breath, to be in wonder, and gaze at something with awe and humility? To feel ourselves dissolve into the air and world around us, in harmony? To let the natural world be bigger than ourselves and our problems?

I attended Elena Rios' Nature Immersion Experience at Taft Gardens for just this sort of medicine. Curated mostly with South African and Australian natives: trees, bushes, and flowers that thrive so well in our unreliable and extreme climate. In South Africa, where my parents live and my father was born, it is presently autumn while here in Ojai, it is undeniably spring. The last to arrive, I join a standing circle of eight women as Elena taps a drum and sings us into a soft-focused silence. Her voice immediately triggers an emotional reaction, my body knowing I am where I need to be.

Elena walks the circle while burning Copal, a resin sap taken from a type of pine tree, clearing the space and bringing in positive energy. She tells us a bit about her extraordinary life as an artist, a dancer, a nature guide, an author, a firefighter, a mother. She speaks briefly of her grandmother; a medicine woman and bone-setter.

Elena tells us the Chumash creation story, how they crossed to the mainland via a Rainbow Bridge and made their homes along the California coast. We often hear about how we are on Chumash land, but as I stand in this circle and hear the story again, centuries of abuse and devastation experienced by the Chumash rustle my peace.

Studies of the Japanese art of forest bathing, Shinrin-yoku, have revealed numerous health benefits such as lowered blood pressure, decreased cortisol, and increased immunity. In Japan, one can get a prescription from her doctor to take time off work if feeling out of sorts or ill due to stress. Every indigenous culture has its version of forest bathing, in which one pays reverence to nature, quiets the mind, and forms a relationship with the plants, trees, rocks, and wind.

Elena reminds us this is not a guided walk to name plants and their uses, but to invite us to drink in the gardens, to go slow, and see where our bodies are instinctively drawn.

Copal lingering on the air, crunch of mulch underfoot. My eyes are closed as we are asked to spin around slowly and stop our bodies where we feel pulled.

I lose my sense of direction for a moment, new neurons fire, breath deepens, exhaled sighs extend, and spring erupts everywhere we look. The unbroken hum of invisible bees, the Pincushions staring back with their multiple eyes.

TOP: BEE BY USGS | ABOVE: PINCUSHION by david clode

Gently I feel I am breaking out of my trance.

Aware of my own body that has lately been going through the motions. I have not been taking time to marvel at my own presence and ancient physical communication. My parts are constantly at work, carried along by a frantic mind and bloated ego. I am now placed into a possibility with no expectations, humbled and enveloped by nature. I realize I am in a Dr. Seuss world that has collided with the Southern Hemisphere. Gnarled roots and branches, the bulbous trunks of a Bottle Tree, crooked and divine greenery.

She asks us to wander and find a tree with whom we would like to commune and that might be open to communicating with us.

The Cabbage Tree immediately catches my eye with large, awkward leaves resembling the pale green vegetable. It is a scant tree, not formidable, but impressive in its originality. It calls out to be admired. I start to see my reflection in every plant I come across. I fall in love with the diversity and stunning growth patterns; the unusual and wild way a plant can survive and adapt to its environment.

We are encouraged to touch and interact gently with the paper-like bark, the spindly leaves. New growth shows off at eye level while my eyes scan down to where a tree reveals her age; tight, gnarled skin making way for succulent leaves, bursts of color, buds so fecund and pulsing.

If you trace a plant or tree from the ground to sky, you can see its life story, its struggle. You can see it surrender and flourish and make room for itself and its neighbors making room for it. We often underestimate the intelligence of nature and the plant world that I am overwhelmed by with its dazzling array and interlacing of species peacefully co-existing. I am just right.

Our bathing concludes under a large oak overlooking the Santa Ana Valley, boulders offering perfect seats as Elena pours us tea of local Hummingbird Sage. There is a tray of Pixie Tangerines and crispy seed snacks. Joy and contentment are apparent through masked faces.