Hart Park Soul Walk

by Gemma Tarlach

When I started this class back in January (ages ago!) I had great plans to go big in every aspect, including the Soul Walk, and to start a forest therapy business and go all in. Some four months later, things have changed in many ways. In truth, I undertook this training in hopes of helping others but the classes, our readings, and forest therapy itself have helped me the most as I grapple with challenges at my day job, with eldercare, and my own health. The path ahead is unclear, but I feel better prepared to continue finding my way thanks to this class.

For my Soul Walk, I chose the back trails of Hart Park in Wauwatosa on a gloomy, foggy, rainy, chilly Sunday, the day after a ridiculously sunny and hot (83 degrees! In Wisconsin! In April!) day. It felt right to go out and be in the woods when everyone else was inside. I also chose not to take any photographs. I find I can very quickly get hyperfocused on the perfect angle, the right lighting, etc. Instead of “dropping in” I am always at risk of dropping out.

So I headed out with just me and a heavy feeling from a number of challenges that have nothing to do with this class, but still weigh on me at the moment. Whenever I am stressed, I feel that walking is helpful. At first I just walked, still in my head, eyes on the path, purposeful. But then I realized what I was doing, which was basically just bringing all of my stress to the forest like a backpack of woe.

I found a fallen tree and made myself sit there for a long while, focusing on my breath and then what I saw, heard, and smelled. I thought of something from the four elements meditation shared in the class readings a few weeks ago, about feeling how the Earth is holding you. I sank into that feeling, with the strong, earthy smell of geosmin all around me, the trees dripping plops of collected rainwater onto the hood of my jacket and the tip of my nose, all the different sounds the rain was making as it hit different textures, from tree branch to fallen leaf to me, the sense of the liminal in the mist, beyond the point where I could see my surroundings clearly.

Eventually, after a very long time, I was aware that I wasn’t thinking about everything I had brought into the forest with me. Instead, I was just there. I still felt the weight of the challenges, however, kind of heaving against my fragile calm like barbarians at the gate.

So I started walking again, focusing now on how I placed my feet with each step, thinking both about stepping lightly but also making a connection with the ground and feeling rooted. I walked this way on a very small loop in the trail for a while, making circles. Then I started to worry that I wasn’t doing the Soul Walk right, that I was still in my head and focused on achieving goals (step lightly! But also feel rooted!) and also keeping the barbarians from breaking through (they were quite determined).

Since there was no one else around, I decided to stretch out on the ground (in my rain pants and rain jacket) and let the rain, which was just a drizzle at this point, fall on my face. The smell of rain and wet earth was more intense at ground level, and while I kept my eyes closed most of the time, when I did open them and look around I felt like the colors were more vivid, from the new leaves and brilliant mosses (which made me think of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s love of moss and how much her generous gifts of writing have echoed through this class) to the lingering orange and red in leaves that fell months ago, in autumn, and were now slick with the rain. I thought of how the new leaves and the old, together all around me, are a reminder not just of the cycles of the seasons and of life, but of nature’s effortless resilience. The tree doesn’t worry about falling over or losing its leaves, it just “trees,” and that’s enough, even when it does fall over or loses its leaves.

I got up as the light began to fade, and the colors with it. It had stopped raining, and the barbarians had shuffled off a respectful distance from the gate, perhaps to have supper.

As I got back to my car I felt a little disappointed that my Soul Walk did not offer some big revelation. When I sat down to type this up, I thought what am I going to say? Nothing happened, nothing transformative, nothing to share proudly with everyone. So I just started typing what happened and, as I did, I realized nothing had to happen. I went into the forest, honest with myself about the good, the bad, and the barbarians. For five hours, I was, and that was enough.

Hart Park Soul Walk is the Soul Walk Project created by Gemma Tarlach, FTS Certified Forest Therapy Guide, January 2024 cohort.