we are no longer used to it but when we manage to tune in to nature many ailments disappear. This was told by one of our journalists who tried a green mindfulness path
You know when with the wheel of a vintage radio you look for the frequency of a station but you can’t find it because it overlaps the others? “We are a bit like this when we relate to nature” says Marcella Danon, professor of ecopsychology at the University of Valle d’Aosta and green trainer of Ecopsiché (ecopsicologia.it). “Although it is our home, we have lost the habit of attuning to it.” But, as with an old radio, if you pay attention you eventually find the station you are looking for. So we too can reconnect with the landscape . “And we have to do it,” says the psychologist. «Because many of the mental and physical discomforts we suffer from depend on the distance created with the environment. Which, if you learn to grasp the messages that nature offers, it can turn into an antidote to the pain of soul.
This is exactly what happened to me when, with my eleven-year-old daughter, I experimented with Clorofillati, the path that the psychologist created for the Libera Università del Bosco (liberisogni.org/lub/itinerari/ Percorsi-clorofillati/), a path that unwinds among the wonderful woods of chestnut, birch and locust trees of Monte di Brianza. It is 8 and a half kilometers long, you cover it in about 3 hours and it is divided into stages, where signs suggest the exercises to do to reconnect with nature.
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The first exercise I try at the beginning of the path, from Ravellino to Scerizza, is called “centering” . And it teaches to face the itinerary with the right spirit, focusing attention on the body, starting from the feet touching the ground, and listening to the breath while letting every thought slip away. To do this, you must never lose focus. Only a couple of times did I want to close my eyes because, leaving them open, I was too distracted, but I tripped over my feet and stole a laugh from my daughter Fatou. In the end we did it, even if only for a few minutes, and we realized how important it is to forget everything while nature surrounds us. Only in this way can you feel the benefits.
In the second stage I sharpen the senses. Fatou would never stop chatting and when we read on the second sign that we shouldn’t have spoken for at least a quarter of an hour, she stared at me astonished. In this part of the path, from Scerizza to San Nicola, the aim was to keep the thought still and bring attention to the messages of the five senses. Without saying a word, we sharpened our eyes and it was natural to stop and touch a trunk, smell a flower, try to hear a noise. We also took some chestnuts, with the idea of savoring it once back home. But the nice thing was the knowing looks we gave each other and the feeling of serenity we felt.
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The third stage, which leads to San Genesio , is the one we liked the most. Here we have learned to listen. There were no other people on the path that morning and the woods seemed silent. We stood still for a few moments, with our eyes closed, and it was incredible to discover the sounds of the forest. “It almost felt like it was raining,” my daughter commented. In truth, it was the leaves breaking off the trees. But the exercise doesn’t stop there. Returning to the path we had to look around us for a message in an element of nature. My gaze fell on a trunk which, in the part near the base, was bent almost at right angles and then began to grow very straight again. “Trees know how to overcome difficulties great,” I told myself. And I thanked them for this example of strength.
Continuing towards Monte Crocione, you experience harmony with the environment . To make this experience you have to stop at a panoramic point to observe the landscape and nature as far as the eye can see and then focus on a positive word that matches your life, repeating it like a mantra, with your eyes closed. What Fatou and I thought is our secret. Instead, we can reveal what happened immediately after. When we arrived at Madonna dell’Alpe for the snack break, my daughter commented: «Of course we are just dots inside the Universe. We are many, all different from each other but each one makes the world wonderful. True?”
