New sounds. New sights. New smells. Nature immersion and forest bathing (shinrinyoku) is a restorative and grounding practice that heals us from the inside out. Walking along the forest floor, noticing new redwood shoots sprouting from fallen trees, seeing tiny mushrooms and banana slugs hiding behind pockets of leaves, and hearing the gushing sound of waterfalls awakens the senses. Without the noise of traffic, without screens, and without phone reception in these parts of the forest allows us to reconnect to deeper parts of ourselves. There is nothing to distract us from the beauty that surrounds us. Forest bathing directs us back to the present moment- helping us to become more mindful and connected.

We only have one planet Earth. And with today being Earth Day, it's important to understand that your individual food choices largely impact our environment. By choosing to eat plant-based (even if it's just one or two meals a week to start), this helps save the environment from thousands of tons of carbon emissions and reduces water use used for animal agriculture. 

If everyone in the world consumed a predominantly whole food, plant-based diet, we would have the equivalent of nearly 5 billion football fields worth of arable land that could be returned to forestable land that can be used to grow food to feed more of the world's population. It starts with you and me. And it starts with food. 

Happy Earth Day!