Back when I was teaching at an outdoor education centre, I was trained in forest bathing. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a Japanese practice called shinrin-yoku, and it’s really just slowing way down in the woods and letting your senses soak everything in. The light coming through the branches. The wind. That smell of wet leaves after rain.
Somewhere in that training, someone mentioned an idea called soul foraging, and I have carried it with me ever since.
Soul foraging is picking up the little bits of nature that call to you. A smooth stone. A leaf with a funny shape. A wildflower growing right in the middle of the path. I’ll be out walking and something will catch my eye, and it’s like a little voice says, take this with you, you might need it one day. So I do. My pockets are usually full of such things.
This practice turned out to matter a lot more than I expected. Struggling with loss and sadness, I would go and gather things from nature, mostly because it gave me moments of lightness. And it wasn’t really the things I found that helped. It was the looking. Every time I bent down to pick something up, it felt like I was picking up a bit of light and the possibility of healing. I began to feel I could put myself back together, bit by bit, by seeing and feeling first hand that beauty was all around me, even when that lightness felt so hard to believe in.
At some point, I noticed I was doing the same thing on the inside. Gathering up memories and feelings and little truths, the way I’d gather flowers. That’s where this next idea came from.
I first shared this prompt a couple of years ago as part of a longer creative blog series, and it’s still one of the posts people find their way to most.
Here’s the question I asked myself. If my inner world were a place, what would it look like?
When I closed my eyes, I was standing in a birch forest. Paths everywhere, crossing over each other, going nowhere in particular. It looked exactly like my brain felt at the time. But then I spotted a little nook tucked into the side of a hill, full of pillows and blankets and candles, with a pot of tea waiting. A cosy spot where everything felt a little more sorted out.
And I thought, oh. Even when it’s all a tangle in here, there’s still a safe, still place inside me.
So I decided to create this little world in my art journal. I started with paint and washi tape and wrote out my thoughts in the first layers. The birch trees came from strips of washi tape and painted paper. I was going to add gold lines for all those tangled paths, but when I got there, I decided to leave the chaos out. For the sanctuary, I tore a heart from thick handmade paper, tucked green paper underneath for moss, and gave it a teacup and some flowers. I kept the colours soft so it would feel safe and warm.
It reminds me to look for that little spot in my inner landscape, where I can find sanctuary and just breathe.
If you want to try it, here’s how I’d start. Go for a little walk and pick up anything that calls to you. Then sit down, close your eyes, and see what your inner world looks like today. Wide open fields? A thicket you can’t see through? Somewhere in there, look for the spot that feels peaceful, even if it’s tiny. And it doesn’t have to make sense.
Scribble it down on whatever paper is close by. Then build on it with paint, collage papers, and maybe that leaf or flower from your walk. Nobody else has to understand it. It’s yours.
While you’re working, it’s worth wondering what the mood of your landscape is, whether the chaos and the calm are getting along, and what your sanctuary is holding onto for you.
I’d really love to see what you make. Tag me on Instagram, or share it in the comments here, and tell us a little about what came up for you. Someone else might need to hear it.
P.S. If this way of working speaks to you, see what I have to offer in Creative Delight Studio.
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