Take a walk and notice your sense of sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing. What emotions come up? Take pictures touching things, or write notes of what you notice. Example image on the right.
We used to do this with my family every Friday. This activity increases family bonding and teaches us to help each other. We take food and we all share the preparation of it by the father, mother, and even the children, and then we play a family game like throwing the ball or hiding. Sitting in nature improves the psyche.
Plan your journey. This includes planning where you’ll be walking, how you will get there, how much time you will spend walking, what is the distance of the walking path, what food and drink will you bring with you, and what you will wear. 2) When you’re hiking or walking, make sure you have at least one break every hour, make sure you’re hydrated. 3) When you finish you can do stretching exercises then have a hot shower or relaxing bath with epsom salt. You could have a yogurt (check the yogurt drink in the food, recipes and remedies section) or a snack of dried fruit and nuts to restore your energy and electrolyte levels.
Hiking helps with increasing endurance, revitalising the body by inhaling oxygen, stabilising weight if done regularly (once every week or fortnightly), preventing heart disease and with preventing diabetes. It is also good for the joints.
Jogging on grass or in nature helps strengthen the muscles, joints and bones. It helps improve general health.
You can jog at your local park or a smooth space in nature. Make sure you do stretching exercises before and after
Collect the following items that you find in the woods or the forest:
1 pine corn
2 green leaves
3 large brown leaves
3 small brown leaves
4 orange leaves
5 twigs
You can use what you find to create artwork. Take a bunch of twigs of different sizes and shapes, a pencil, a pair of scissors, card, and either wood glue or cord/string for attaching the twigs to each other. Draw with the pencil the shape that you wish to reconstruct. Align the twigs so that they fill the shape using different shapes and sizes to help you bring out the form of the shape. You can use a pair of scissors to cut the twits with. Stick the twigs on a card using glue or attach the twigs together using a cord. This last step depends on the shape and on your preference.
You can make ink out of things you find in the forest, in particular wasp galls which you can find on trees. Galls come from the tree making a protective shell around a sleeping wasp. To make ink from them, collect a quantity of oak galls after the wasp has left (look for the small exit hole). Crush into pieces and infuse in water (ideally rainwater, although I used filtered tap water with good results), for a minimum of 24hrs. Strain the liquid off (muslin cloth, jelly bag or paper coffee filter all work well). The resulting sepia coloured ink can be used as it is or can be darkened with Iron Sulphate. You can add iron sulphate by soaking rusty iron items like nails in malt vinegar and adding the solution to the ink!