Forest Bathing

I've been hearing about this practice for quite a while now. A quick Internet search revealed articles on this subject from Time, National Geographic, webmd, ForestryEngland, Country living and The Guardian. That was in just the first two pages of a DuckDuckGo search, using the title of this Blip as my search term.
As usual when these ideas come up I was rather sceptical. I live on the edge of forest, spend a lot of time there, and am well aware of how it helps my well-being to spend time among the trees. Would it really add to the benefits to go on a guided walk, where a leader suggested activities, and ideas to think about?
Then our very good friend Lasse went on a course to be a leader and started leading such walks. He's taught me Qi-Gong, helped me learn Tai-Chi, and fixed various ills I've had, using acupuncture, as well as just being fun to be with, so I have a lot of time for Lasse. Time to give it a try.
So, today was the day for some forest bathing. We used a forest reserve (Lögdö bruk) where many of the trees were up to 150 years old, which is always a good place to be.
Today's blip shows the first stop where we sat comfortably and experienced the forest through our various senses. We walked slowly from place to place trying out different peaceful activities. (See Jan's rather spectacular blip). We finished off by wandering alone to find a spot that suited us and spending 10 minutes or so being peaceful, before the final activity which was building a mandala from available materials. (I first heard of that idea from Kendalishere, on Blip.)
And that was it. A slow walk back to the cars, chatting to each other about what we’d experienced and thinking about next time - maybe in the snow, and with a fire involved.
Was I right to be sceptical? I don’t think so. I got quite a lot out of the experience and I can imagine someone who wasn’t so used to being out in the forest would have been even more impressed. I’ll go again with Lasse, maybe every couple of months to enjoy the different seasons, and I’ll be using some of the activities when I’m out on my own too. (You don't have to be in a forest either, anywhere with a bit of nature can be used.)
In the extra I set the camera to panorama, pointed it at the tree trunk, clicked and walked around the tree, making the circular trunk flat.  In this case I didn't get all the way round so here there is about 75% of the circumference and a small section of forest to the north and another to the west.