Deepen your forest bathing practice and learn how to guide a forest bathing session with your clients and community.
October 15th-17th – Jefferson Memorial Forest – Louisville, KY
Friday 9am -6pm (evening activities optional)
Sat 9am – 6pm (evening activities optional)
Sunday 9am-3pm
Camping accommodations and dinners are included for 2 nights
Join us at Jefferson Memorial Forest in metropolitan Louisville, KY area for a 3 day forest bathing immersion guide training. If you are interested in learning more about Shinrin Yoku, developing a personal practice and gain skills in guiding others in forest bathing experiences, this training is for you! Learn from your guide, Juniper Owens who is one of the most experienced and trained Shinrin Yoku, Ecotherapy and Nature Connection guides in Kentucky. I crafted this training to be relatively affordable, accessible, experiential and fun.
In this training, you will learn:
🌲How to sequence your forest bathing offering to meet your group goals.
🌲Review research of forest therapy and nature connection for health and wellbeing.
🌲Learn basic nature connection practices including somatic embodiment, art and expressive techniques and spiritual/metaphysical offerings (and how to craft your own invitations).
🌲Find your personal guiding style and how to create a safe container for exploration, healing and connection. Learn how to lead a group in verbal processing and integration.
🌲Learn basic naturalist skills (such as plant and animal identification) and basic wilderness safety skills.
🌲Participate in ceremony and ritual and begin to incorporate your own sacred practice in your forest bathing sessions.
🌲How to choose location based on landscape, energetic qualities, healing factors and goals of session.
🌲Ethics and forest bathing/nature connection.
Optional evening activities such as fire circle, drumming, dancing, story telling, poetry, solo nighttime invitations, star gazing….
AND MORE!
What To Bring:
We will be sending a detailed list of what we recommend for campers and all participants. Campers will need to bring personal camping gear (tent or hammock, sleeping bag/pad etc.) as well as personal breakfast, lunch and snacks. Dinner will be provided on Friday and Saturday night. We will make an ice run once per day, in order to keep any food/drink items cool.
What to Expect:
This training is a forest therapy and nature immersion. For 3 days and 2 nights we will be nestled in a forest atmosphere with the trees, plants and animals. Fall in Kentucky is quite pleasant and rain/hot weather is not expected, however we recommend being prepared for all conditions. We will be hiking, sitting, laying and standing in diverse areas in the forest. All ages (18+), fitness levels, abilities and humans are welcome. If you have concerns about any of these activities, please reach out and we will discuss how to support you.
This type of immersive experience can be incredibly powerful. We highly recommend planning some time/space before and after the training to recharge, process and integrate your experience. Please come with an open heart and mind and take what resonates and is nourishing, leaving the rest behind. Juniper will be offering optional mentoring (for an additional fee) to support participants of this training in their future guiding.
Juniper Owens, LCSW (she/they) Juniper is a certified Yasei Shinrin Yoku guide and practitioner and is also a certified ecotherapist and nature connection guide. They are the Co-Founder and Director of Education and Ecotherapy at Bridge Counseling and Wellness, an integrative mental health center in Louisville, Ky. Juniper is also a Kentucky Master Naturalist and has studied with Animus Valley Institute, Earthbody Institute, Wildcraft Forest School, Nature Reliance School and Living Earth School and has presented at a national Ecopsychology conference on Shinrin-Yoku in clinical practice. Juniper is a Work That Reconnects facilitator focusing on grief and despair work around climate and justice issues.
Juniper has experience leading groups in outdoor activities such as backpacking, kayaking, hiking and loves nothing more that to witness a human’s first time waking up in a tent, starting a fire with a flint or walking barefoot on moss. A Kentucky native, Juniper is passionate about connecting folks to their wild nature, authentic selves and fostering the tender nurturing and protection of our planet Earth. They love climbing trees, camping under the stars, fermenting, foraging, wilderness skills, Celtic/Druid and pagan based spirituality and traveling the world in search of high mountain peaks and communion with her “other than human” family.
