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The Vision

We believe interaction with nature is a powerful path to creativity, fulfillment and accessing our innate healing potential.

At Healing Forest Guide, our mission is to strengthen the health-building collaborative partnership between human communities and the natural environment. We are at a crossroads as humans, facing a crucial need to bring our way of life back into a sustainable balance, on an individual, community, regional and global level. Healing Forest Guide activities and programs are designed to rebuild this health-giving partnership and connection. Join us and become part of a community committed to supporting the wellbeing of people and planet. 

 

We stand in solidarity with this land and the indigenous people who cared for it for generations. Without their gifts and dedication, the richness and diversity of these places would not be what it is. We cherish our partnerships with the descendants of first nations as we reconnect with nature in a respectful way.

We Support the Sogorea Te Land Trust

Many Healing Forest activities, as well as our home base, occur on ancestral Chochenyo Ohlone lands. Healing Forest Guide supports the work of the Sogorea Te Land Trust to Rematriate the Land. The Sogorea Te Land Trust is an urban Indigenous women-led community organization that facilitates the return of Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone lands in the San Francisco Bay Area to Indigenous stewardship. Learn more about Sogoreate Land Trust and, if you reside in the East Bay, support their effort through giving Shuumi Land Tax.

Time to rematriate the land

Forest

What is

Guided Forest Bathing?

Humans have evolved in a partnership with the natural world. This evolution is a type of conversation, where humans and their habitat have shaped and responded to one another. As we have silenced our end of this conversation by staying indoors and disconnected, or viewing the living world as material to plunder, we have cut ourselves off from the many healthful benefits a relationship with the natural world provides.


The contemporary practice of Forest Therapy takes a clinical approach to the reintroduction of therapeutic nature. In Japan, where Shinrin Yoku (which translates literally to “forest bathing”) has been studied since the 1980’s, the practice has been clinically documented to lower blood pressure, improve immune function, and help the body and mind cope with stress. Participants in forest therapy programs report feeling calmer, more relaxed, more focused, and more connected to nature.

Benefits of

Forest Therapy

Humans have evolved in a partnership with the natural world. This evolution is a type of conversation, where humans and their habitat have shaped and responded to one another. As we have silenced our end of this conversation by staying indoors and disconnected, or viewing the living world as material to plunder, we have cut ourselves off from the many healthful benefits a relationship with the natural world provides.


The contemporary practice of Forest Therapy takes a clinical approach to the reintroduction of therapeutic nature. In Japan, where Shinrin Yoku (which translates literally to “forest bathing”) has been studied since the 1980’s, the practice has been clinically documented to lower blood pressure, improve immune function, and help the body and mind cope with stress. Participants in forest therapy programs report feeling calmer, more relaxed, more focused, and more connected to nature.

Meet Ramona Moonflower Rubin

“Science teaches us about the world, and spiritual experience grants us a taste of devotion and union. The highest level is informed action, guided by a collaboration of head and heart. It is my wish that these teachings and practices allow people to tap into their deep knowing in a way that guides their actions, from the personal to the planetary, towards right living and harmony.”

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Ramona Moonflower Rubin walks a path woven of science, spirituality and activism connecting human and ecological health. Ramona studied Cultural Ecology at the University of Santa Cruz and has a Master's in Public Health from the University of Michigan. She founded Healing Forest Guide to facilitate a deep conversation about how we experience and relate to the natural world. Ramona lives in Berkeley California on Chochenyo Ohlone ancestral land at the ancient settlement of Huchiun. She teaches from her diverse fields of scientific study: ecology, permaculture, California native plants, sustainable agriculture, nutrition, public health, integrative medicine, cannabis science, ethnobotany and forest therapy. Based in her Judaic heritage and influenced by Buddhist, shamanic and earth-based traditions, Ramona’s approach to spirituality is open and grounded in welcoming the sensory experience of the present. Her ceremonial practice is based on the conviction that other beings embody an intelligence, and that it is our sacred heritage to include and connect to this consciousness.

Certifications

  • Certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide; Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs

  • Masters in Public Health, Epidemiology; University of Michigan

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  • Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Ecology; UC Santa Cruz

Qualifications

  • Permaculturalist

  • Nutrition Educator

  • California Native Plants Docent

  • Tree Planter

  • Public Health Epidemiologist

  • Herbalist

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