Our skin is how we experience the tactility of the world, a porous membrane of knowledge that allows us to communicate through the language of touch. The skin is a border space between the interiority of ‘I’ and the flow of the natural world.
Nature too has skins, the bark of a tree, the thin film on the oceans surface, the underbelly of a leaf, that welcome us to converse with them. Here is an intimacy, a moment where we decide to map the space between our static state and the dance that leads us into nature. To truly immerse our bodies within the bodies of water, earth, wind, finds the human in a space where they can accept the enormity of nature and understand that they too are a part of its totality. Much like the importance of skin to skin contact for a new born baby and mother, so do we need to rest in the arms of our nature mother. Doctors are beginning to prescribe this kind of contact with nature for many ailments including stress and anxiety.
‘Forest Bathing’ is an example of this, practiced in Japan for decades and known as shinrin-yoku, which means "taking in the forest”, this practice helps instil a clarity of mind-body health. By travelling through the body-house and finding it’s walls, we can also understand our place within the outside world and the barriers we have built for ourselves. The simple act of taking time with nature, running our fingers along its dimples and cracks, padding our feet into the mossy floor, nestling in natures skin places, allows for a broadening in our sense of self.
