The forest, the woods, and the tree are archetypal images that cross the mind of every person, in every era, in every place and in every season. They are such powerful symbols that they have always been part of our everyday mythology, of the language we use, and of the metaphors we need to bring order and make processes and paths understandable.
We speak of the tree of life or the family tree. We speak of roots. Even our own body is often imagined as composed of a crown, a trunk, and so on…
The forest, through the repetition of its elements — similar yet never identical — creates a simplified environment that mirrors transformation itself. Many forests, none exactly like another; many woods, each unique; within them, many trees of the same species, yet no tree is identical to another. Countless branches, all different; countless leaves, blades of grass, and so on. These are intervals within which we can recognize reassuring and evolutionary healing patterns, while preserving continuity and, above all, connection.
Scientific evidence — including work carried out between 2019 and 2020 by the Club Alpino Italiano together with the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, whose original protocol was called “Forestfulness” — is helping to build a new discipline: Forest Therapy. This is an evolution of more anthropocentric forest bathing practices, bringing to light elements of life and vitality within a natural environment made of plants, trees, and their astonishing inhabitants.
These studies are already generating therapeutic protocols for physical and psychological well-being, designed for doctors and psychotherapists. Such care paths may include duration, frequency, activities, plant species, time of day, and seasonality.
Because wherever there are trees, moss, leaves, or bark, there is life, energy, evolution, and transformation — in every season of the year.
One thing is now clear to science. A forest or woodland is a system in which every element constantly communicates with everything around it and is capable of continuously adapting to what enters or leaves its perimeter.
Trees communicate with each other through hormones, chemical substances, and signals carried through the air or through their root networks in the soil. The so-called “mother tree” can send nutrients over distance to “daughter” plants that have grown later.
The passage of every living being, humans included, modifies the system for a certain period of time: it is perceived and absorbed, and can produce noise as a negative disturbance, or bring value and benefit.
This happens in every season of the year. If autumn and spring are often perceived as moments of intense natural activity, when we tend to gain greater benefit and well-being from nature, we can also begin to consider winter as a time when everything remains alive, when our presence is not in an aseptic or dormant environment.
It is a season to sharpen the senses and observe, to tune ourselves to the principles of solidarity, reciprocity, and community that allow the forest to survive adversity, unless they are unbalanced by forced human intervention.
It is about feeling the respect of the silence of our footsteps — sensing where they land, what they touch, and how. It is about breathing more slowly because the trees we walk among breathe more slowly: their roots work slowly, their branches grow slowly, and the movement of the forest’s inhabitants is slower and more sparse.
Nothing in a forest is truly dead. Every element is alive because it is matter in transformation. Therefore, it is a transformative experience for us as well.
Thus, Forest Therapy becomes an opportunity to understand with reason what humanity has known through the heart since ancient times. The forest was once seen as a magical and living space of mythological creatures, a place of refuge because it provided warmth and shelter, and a sacred setting at the centre of many initiation rites.
Over time, we have forgotten this bond, subordinating the forest to our own needs, intervening in its relationships and balances, believing we could destroy and then replant at will. And in doing so, we have also weakened ourselves: ecosystems and human communities alike have suffered, alongside the spread of diseases and the increase of catastrophic climatic events.
Forests are biotic pumps. In every season, they recycle moisture that helps trigger rainfall carried by winds even over great distances, through natural and balanced processes.
This is why winter offers a chance to learn to look at the forest — and to look within ourselves — to understand the life it preserves and to sharpen our senses in listening. In a word: to learn respect.
In the mountains of Trentino, winter is a good time to rediscover this relationship. The forest can be seen as a playground under the open sky when colours return and nature awakens. Our ancestors knew this: they were able to preserve, protect, observe, love, and wait without harming.
Let us enter the forest, even in winter, with our best smile — in a spirit of gratitude and joy. The trees will be thankful, and so will the planet.
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