Car air fresheners to dominoes on the forest floor

This time it is Pete writing.

I like Pete’s texts and asked if I could send one of his Shinrin Yoku – also known as forest bathing – assignment texts to you.

You might have read that Pete and I completed last year Forest Mind training (in Finnish Metsämieli) and we are currently in the middle of Shinrin Yoku training which includes 11 weeks online training and five days in-person in Japan (and quite a lot of homework too!).

“A couple days ago, during our firewood-making operation here at Vaavunjärvi, I did one of the homework assignments for my Forest Bathing course.

This past winter, six pine trees and one birch tree along the lakeshore of our property fell during a storm. Now that spring has suddenly arrived, it’s time for us to deal with those trees. So today Tuulia and a friend and I began the work to turn those fallen trees into firewood for winter heating and for sauna heating.

After hauling and splitting several trunks, I was stacking the chopped firewood. Suddenly, I noticed how fragrant the air was. I held one of the pieces of chopped pine to my nose and inhaled deeply. Ahh… A wave of fresh pine oil wafted into my nostrils. I paused and enjoyed the moment.

From the single piece of pine in my hand, I then looked at the hundreds of other pieces of pine that I’d just stacked. The collective aroma emitted from them was amazing. I took in another deep breath. And again enjoyed the moment.

I thought: “Somehow we should harness this scent to have in our daily lives!” Seemed like a brilliant idea. Then I remembered that actually pine-scent has already long been common in household products. I laughed as I thought about how, for decades, I only knew pine scent from car air fresheners and furniture polish and kitchen cleaning products. Now I was smelling that scent directly from the source. I inhaled deeply again and smiled.

I paused from stacking the firewood and walked deeper into our forest. A few other trees had also come down in the winter and I wanted to assess them. When I reached the trees, I noticed they were in a jumble on the forest floor. One of them was a massive pine tree. I surmised that the giant had fallen first and knocked down the others like dominoes. I climbed over the trees to get a better view. 

While I was standing on one of the fallen trees, a sudden waft of warm air flowed over me. I closed my eyes and felt it on the skin of my face and on my arms and hands. I noticed I could even feel the warm air on my chest, through my T-shirt. I smiled again.

The warm draft lasted for about seven seconds, a seemingly short period of time. Yet less than two weeks ago I was walking on the ice on the lake. Now this unexpected wave of warm forest air was the first I had felt in 2025. (Today was a day of several firsts, including seeing the first frogs and toads emerge from their wintersleep and hop off towards the marsh, as well as me receiving my first mosquito bite of the year.)

I studied the pile of fallen trees like a giant game of pick-up sticks, trying to understand which tree was atop or under the other trees. Then I realized my initial hypothesis was incorrect. The largest pine hadn’t knocked down the others. The jumble of trees was actually a mix of trees that fell down in a storm this past winter as well as some trees that had fallen in a winter storm about five years ago.

I pondered whether we should also turn these newly fallen trees into firewood or leave them on the forest floor to become deadwood food for the insects and other organisms (as we’d already chosen to do with the trees that were on the bottom of the pile).

I considered the question as I took another deep inhale of forest air. I would need to discuss the matter with Tuulia. Either way, I felt gratitude for the newly fallen trees that I was looking at. Either they will be used to keep us warm in the winter (and hot in the sauna) or they will feed a great many forest organisms, eventually providing nutrients for a new generation of trees. I liked that thought. And then another deep breath…”

Love,
Pete (& Tuulia) ❤️