Meet your guide…
Martha (Mattie) Miller Decker, Ed.D.
Dr. Mattie Decker is a certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT), an educator and a writer. Mattie is also a mindfulness teacher, a Zen practictioner, an Episcopal oblate, and a retired professor of education. She is certified in wilderness medicine and first aid. Mattie likes to share this saying from her forest bathing mentors: “The forest is the therapist. The guide opens the door.”Shinrin-yoku in Japanese and Forest Bathing, are names for the medicine of being in the forest. Spending time in nature in a way that invites healing interactions, includes not only such benefits as cultivating wellbeing but each invitation is crafted to help participants slow down and open our senses, giving the forest access to our emotional, physical, and psychological and spiritual being. We discover our RELATIONSHIPS with the more than human world and how our presence may assist nature.
Conserving Carolina - Forest Bathing Walk with Dr. Mattie
Jan 30, 2022 | 10:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.
188 Mt Tabor Way, Hendersonville, NC, USA
Yes, Winter "Forest Bathing"--can be deeply nourishing, "come rain or come shine" as we dress in layers and prepare for it...We invite you to immerse yourself in the forest and experience your deep connection with the natural world, as you join one of our monthly forest bathing walks in Conserving Carolina preserves. The walks are led by Dr. Mattie Decker, a certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide. Mattie is also a mindfulness teacher, a Zen practictioner, an Episcopal oblate, and a retired professor of education. She is certified in wilderness medicine and first aid. Mattie likes to share this saying from her forest bathing mentors: “The forest is the therapist. The guide opens the door.” Many forest bathing walks will take place on our beautiful Transfiguration Preserve in Bat Cave, NC. Additional walks may be planned for other places of wonder that Conserving Carolina has helped protect. In addition to forest bathing walks, in 2022 we will be offering special events that incorporate music, art, photography, writing, or foraging for edible plants into the forest bathing experience.
The Zen of Welcoming Winter Walks
from "In Deep Winter":
We are in deep winter now. All is quiet in the forest. I want to know this stillness and this rest. It’s as if all the earth is calling out, “slow down now, pay attention to this wisdom from the land . . . You can do thi
