Disconnect from the distractions of daily life and reconnect with nature with Wild Walking, an enticing and comprehensive introduction to forest bathing--or shinrin-yoku, in Japan.

Full sensory immersion in the beauty and wonder of nature and trees can produce mental, emotional, and physical health benefits. Research has shown that forest bathing lowers blood pressure, pulse rate, and cortisol levels; improves mood; and may even boost our immunity to cancer and other diseases.

Wild Walking invites you to experience the benefits of this healing practice for yourself. Learn the history and background of forest bathing, followed by detailed instructions for establishing a forest bathing practice in your own adopted wild home, encompassed in three steps:

1. Disengagement from your daily routine
2. Deep breathing and nature connection through a series of quiet activities or invitations
3. Transitioning back to your daily life

This restorative activity can be enjoyed by people of all ages and abilities: children, teenagers, and even senior citizens with limited mobility and people recovering from illness and surgery. And you don't need to travel to the Japanese alps to experience the benefits of forest bathing. All you need is a small patch of untouched (or lightly touched) nature to adopt as your wild home.

Within, find practical tips and inspiration for forest bathing through the seasons: in the winter, when the leafless trees open up new vistas; in the spring, when you can hear the melodious serenade of song birds as they nest in the newly formed green canopy; in the summer, watching the butterflies nectaring on wildflowers; and in the autumn, when you can catch glimpses of hurried squirrels storing food for the winter.

Wild Walking introduces a variety of activities that can be enhanced with forest bathing elements, such as mindfulness practices, exercise, art and writing, and outdoor celebrations. Learn, too, how surrendering to the mysteries of nature can provide guidance through difficult times.

As you find nourishment in nature, you will instinctively begin to wonder how you can preserve and protect this healing resource. This guide includes suggestions for tending to your wild home.

Illustrated throughout with enchanting and immersive artwork, Wild Walking is the perfect guide to enhancing your life with the wondrous world of nature.

2015 IPPY Silver Medalist, Best Mid-Atlantic Nonfiction

Twice the size of Central Park, Rock Creek Park is the wild, wooded heart of Washington, DC, offering refuge from a frantic city pace to millions of visitors each year. Rock Creek Valley, which serves as the spine of the national park, has a long and storied history--from Amerindians who fished the creek, hunted the woods, and quarried the rock outcroppings, to Euro-Americans' claims on the land as mill sites, to widespread deforestation during the American Civil War, to its ecological restoration and designation as a federal park in 1890. Melanie Choukas-Bradley, renowned naturalist and writer, spent a year in Rock Creek Park walking and skiing its trails at all times of day, observing and recording natural events in all seasons and weather conditions. Enhanced by the evocative photographs of Susan Austin Roth, A Year in Rock Creek Park takes readers on an incredible and unforgettable journey.

Distributed for George F. Thompson Publishing (www.gftbooks.com)

Washington, D.C., boasts more than three hundred species of trees from America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, and City of Trees has been the authoritative guide for locating, identifying, and learning about them for more than twenty-five years. The third edition is fully revised, updated, and expanded and includes an eloquent new foreword by the Washington Post's garden editor, Adrian Higgins.

In the introduction, Choukas-Bradley describes the efforts of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other prominent Washingtonians who helped the nation's capital evolve into the City of Trees, a moniker regaining popularity thanks to present-day efforts encouraging citizen participation in tree planting and maintenance.

Part 1 gives the reader a guided tour of the nation's capital, highlighting historic and rare trees of the urban canopy. Part 2 is a comprehensive, simply worded, and fully illustrated botanical guide to the magnificent trees of the nation's capital and surroundings. The guide also includes botanical keys, an illustrated glossary, exquisite pen-and-ink drawings by Polly Alexander, and color close-up photographs of flowering trees, many by the nationally acclaimed photographer Susan A. Roth.

What to look for in the new edition:

* Added locations: the FDR Memorial; the Smithsonian Institution gardens; the Tudor Place grounds; the Bishop's Garden of the Washington National Cathedral; Audubon Naturalist Society sanctuaries; and much more.

* City of Trees history from 1987 to 2007, including the establishment of Casey Trees and the importance of the urban canopy in the twenty-first century.

* Twice as many pages of color photographs, new species descriptions and illustrations, and added habitat information.

Published in association with the Center for American Places

Listen for the calls of nesting ravens and warblers, watch the growth of wild geranium and black cohosh, and savor the first autumn blush in the tupelo trees. Revel, as did Frank Lloyd Wright, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt--among generations of other amateur naturalists--in the remarkable natural, historical, and geological treasures of Sugarloaf, the Maryland Piedmont's only mountain.

A favored destination of nearly one-quarter million visitors each year, some 35 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., and 50 miles west of Baltimore, Sugarloaf is a National Natural Landmark and privately owned park that is open to the public year-round. In this natural history and guidebook, Melanie Choukas-Bradley presents a fascinating blend of local, natural, and historical detail that transports the reader simultaneously onto the slopes of today's mountain and into the region's past. Discover why prominent architects and real estate barons have found the land so compelling, why preservationists and botanists strive to protect the natural habitat of so many native species, and why families return again and again to hike, study flora and fauna, and picnic at Sugarloaf.

Choukas-Bradley lists practical information on how and when you might best enjoy a visit to the trails, wildflowers, and seasonal variations of the land. Her text is beautifully complemented by Tina Thieme Brown's pen-and-ink illustrations.

A thorough yet user-friendly companion to the authors' popular paperback Sugarloaf: The Mountain's History, Geology, and Natural Lore--both books are the result of a ten-year collaboration--this volume is an exquisitely illustrated guide to 350 eastern woodland wildflowers and trees found on site at Sugarloaf Mountain, Maryland. Many of these plants also thrive across a wide region of the eastern United States and Canada, making this guide a remarkably helpful resource for both mid-Atlantic naturalists--amateur and experienced--and botanical enthusiasts across North America.

Author Melanie Choukas-Bradley and illustrator Tina Thieme Brown have teamed up once again to create a practical tool for answering the age-old question frequently raised by visitors to the woods: What is that plant over there? At the same time, Choukas-Bradley and Brown aim to educate by presenting the plants grouped by family, so that the observer will learn to anticipate the presence of certain plants based on an understanding of their family characteristics. The text describes each plant's flower, leaf, and growth habit, gives its ideal habitat and range, describes similar species that might be confused with the plant, and gives an herbal history where applicable. And because plants are organized by family and genus, the scholarly reader can build on his or her botanical knowledge.

An Illustrated Guide to Eastern Woodland Wildflowers and Trees includes a user-friendly key, an illustrated glossary of frequently used botanical terms, and is packed with nearly 400 elaborately and artistically detailed pen-and-ink drawings to make plant identification simple and fun.

A thorough yet user-friendly companion to the authors' popular paperback Sugarloaf: The Mountain's History, Geology, and Natural Lore--both books are the result of a ten-year collaboration--this volume is an exquisitely illustrated guide to 350 eastern woodland wildflowers and trees found on site at Sugarloaf Mountain, Maryland. Many of these plants also thrive across a wide region of the eastern United States and Canada, making this guide a remarkably helpful resource for both mid-Atlantic naturalists--amateur and experienced--and botanical enthusiasts across North America.

Author Melanie Choukas-Bradley and illustrator Tina Thieme Brown have teamed up once again to create a practical tool for answering the age-old question frequently raised by visitors to the woods: What is that plant over there? At the same time, Choukas-Bradley and Brown aim to educate by presenting the plants grouped by family, so that the observer will learn to anticipate the presence of certain plants based on an understanding of their family characteristics. The text describes each plant's flower, leaf, and growth habit, gives its ideal habitat and range, describes similar species that might be confused with the plant, and gives an herbal history where applicable. And because plants are organized by family and genus, the scholarly reader can build on his or her botanical knowledge.

An Illustrated Guide to Eastern Woodland Wildflowers and Trees includes a user-friendly key, an illustrated glossary of frequently used botanical terms, and is packed with nearly 400 elaborately and artistically detailed pen-and-ink drawings to make plant identification simple and fun.

Los japoneses son los inventores del t rmino karoshi, que significa muerte por exceso de trabajo, y tambi n del que designa a su codiciado ant doto: el shinrin-yoku o ba o de bosque. Si sientes que el ritmo cotidiano te supera, tu mente se bloquea y se atrofia tu creatividad, puede que sea el momento de reconectar con la naturaleza y darse un ba o forestal. Esta bonita gu a ilustrada te descubre c mo hacerlo en cada estaci n del a o y en funci n de tus necesidades. Con sencillos m todos y consejos, aprender s a disfrutar en calma de la naturaleza con un paseo por el bosque, el parque, la playa o la monta a, liberando de nuevo tu esp ritu creativo.

The Japanese term karoshi means death due to an excess of work, and the prescribed antidote is the shinrin-yoku, or forest bath. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the rhythm of everyday life or experiencing mental blocks and stunted creativity, it might be time to reconnect with nature and take a forest bath. This attractive illustrated guide offers suggestions and methods for reconnecting with nature any time of year--in the woods, park, beach, or mountains--to nourish and free your creative spirit.

'She lets us see the often chaotic and nature-starved modern world through the eyes of our foremost conservation president ...a view that is at once uplifting and provocative, but always fascinating.' Tony Flemming, Geologist and co-author, Geologic Map of the Washington West Quadrangle, Oct 24, 2020

Washington D.C. naturalist Melanie Choukas-Bradley dives into the natural history and beauty of Theodore Roosevelt Island, an island wilderness less than two miles from the White House and a memorial to the United States' foremost conservationist president. In 2016, as the presidential election dealt a body-blow to progressive thinkers in the US, Melanie sought the solace of Theodore Roosevelt Island. In this book she reflects on the inspiring environmental legacy of Roosevelt, and how immersing oneself in nature can help to heal, restore and encourage a person, even in the midst of the strange new reality of a divisive occupant in the White House. Melanie leads the reader along walks and kayak trips around the island, as together with other Washingtonian nature lovers, birders, conservationists, and even descendants of Roosevelt, they find solace in the island's natural wonders, and ponder their nation's future. Includes a foreword by Tom Lovejoy, Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation.

Nature is one of the best medicines for difficult times. An intimate awareness of the natural world, even within the city, can calm anxieties and help create healthy perspectives. This book will inspire and guide you as you deal with the current crisis, or any personal or worldly distress. Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and certified forest therapy guide who leads nature and forest bathing walks for many organizations in Washington, D.C. and the American West. Learn from her the Japanese art of forest bathing how to tune in to the beauty and wonder around you with all your senses, even if your current sphere is a tree outside the window or a wild backyard. Discover how you can become a backyard naturalist, learning about the trees, wildflowers, birds and animals near your home. Nature immersion during stressful times can bring comfort and joy as well as opportunities for personal growth, expanded vision and transformation. The Resilience Series is the result of an intensive, collaborative effort of our authors in response to the 2020 coronavirus epidemic. Each volume offers expert advice for developing the practical, emotional and spiritual skills that you can master to become more resilient in a time of crisis.