Nature Bathing

(surf breaking) (soft, tranquil music) My name is Eileen Hall. I am a creative director and artist based in London, and today I'm gonna take you for a walk out to nature. The thing I do when interacting with nature is I always try and slow down, and I always try and find places of silence where I can be just feeling my body, feeling any of the elements, the wind, the sun, things touching my skin, and really entering this sensory world, this elemental world. As I walk through the forest, I'm very aware of all the various trees and leaves and the light pouring through these spaces that then have this way of helping me meander through the path. And I really like to pay attention to how the forest smells. And as it opens up into the beach, I really love experiencing a sense of spaciousness, a sense of stillness. I like to feel the wind on my face or on my hair. And as I walk towards the water, I really like to connect to the sky and the water at the same time. The act of slowing down, of using breath as a bridge between me and nature, allows me to really soften my awareness and bring lightness to it. My relationship to nature really flourished or came into being in a beautiful way just after my dad died. That was the time in which I discovered nature to be my teacher, my guide. I began to feel that nature was just this amazing platform, this grounding place that I hadn't found anywhere else. The elements of nature really inspire my work as I always find that they can be used as direct mirrors for my own emotional or internal experience, and it's why I use watercolors and water as a way to represent consciousness and the dream world. And its beauty helps soften my mind, and it softens my awareness. And it's within this deeper connection to place that I find a sense of connection, a sense of belonging, and again this beautiful luminous awareness that comes through in the space when you enter something that is beyond yourself....