October 2021: Join me in curiosity and wonder. Let's share our stories, our grief, our pleasure and lean in to this great mystery of life.

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Earlier this October, I co-led a 4-day nature and forest therapy guide training immersion in Lincoln, Massachusetts. This was the culmination of a six month training where newly trained guides gathered from across North America to practice guiding, incorporate their guide journey, and crossed the threshold towards completing their certification. Our mornings were spent in meadows and woodlands. Our afternoons were filled with discussions on the more nuanced pedagogy of what it means to be a guide and the magical craft of making our philosophies tangible. We capped the days with sunsets and reflections at Walden Pond. Henry David Thoreau's Walden audiobook was my soundtrack for my daily commutes to the trailheads. I imagined the former village that he describes in chapter 14, acknowledging those who came just before him who inhabited the shores and surrounding woods of Walden. They were former slaves, immigrants, and outsiders who were not welcome to live in Concord, Massachusetts. They made their lives tending the sandy, rocky, woods of Walden Pond on the outskirts of town. Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts, by Elise Lemire shares more of these stories. I recently made a pilgrimage up to Brister Hill, named after Brister Freeman (1744-1822), who spent the first 38 years of his life enslaved in Concord before enlisting as a soldier in the in the American Revolutionary War. He then gained his freedom and moved up to a sandy grassy hilltop in the woods near Walden. Nearly 200 years after his death, thanks to the writers who kept his name and stories alive, and thanks to the Toni Morrison Society and the Walden Woods Project, a stone with a plaque and a bench was installed recognizing his life and contributions. I headed up to his spot while wandering along the Emerson-Thoreau Amble, a footpath thru a pine forest weaving around Fairyland Pond where Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and many others may have meandered between Concord MA and Walden Pond. I sat on the Brister Freeman bench and pondered Brister's life up there, watching the trees and grasses waving in the breeze, wondering what the views might have been like before the forest grew back after it was cut to build Concord. Join me in curiosity and wonder. Let's share our stories, our grief, our pleasure and lean in to this great mystery of life. Become a Forest Therapy Guide! Train with me via The Association of Nature and Forest Therapy. This six month Forest Therapy Guide Training is a truly incredible journey and whether you go on to guide walks for the public or for friends and family or even just deepen into your own personal and collective nature connection, there are so many gifts that come from this course.  Join me in 2022! Blue Spruce Cohort begins on January 7th, 2022 on Friday mornings from 9am-12pm Eastern Standard Time.     Sweet Fern Cohort begins July 15th, 2022 on Friday mornings from 9am-12pm Eastern Standard Time.   Snowshoe Hare begins November 3rd, 2022 on Thursday mornings from 9am-12pm Eastern Standard Time.     Learn more: https://www.natureandforesttherapy.earth/guide-training/training Learn More at ToadstoolWalks.com Copyright © *2021* *Toadstool Walks*, All rights reserved. My mailing address is: *tamwilley@gmail.com* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

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https://mailchi.mp/5e4b4b2ae2ae/oct2021