Welcome to the first walkcast I ever recorded - not from my home studio but directly from a forest. And there was a good reason for it: in this episode I'm talking about Forest Meditations deck which supports the practice of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing).

It's a practical review of this beautiful and supportive deck created by Joanna Węgłowska and Przemek Węgłowski, forest bathing guides from Poland, and illustrated by Aleksandra Świder. I'm taking you on a walk where I pull two cards from the deck and talk you through the mindful exercises. There is also an ongoing soundtrack of singing birds and a cameo appearance of my dog, Sophie, so it's a very special episode :)

(Also, I checked... The bird that is called sójka in Polish is English jay.)

If you are in the UK and anywhere in the world apart from the EU, you can buy the English version of the deck from my shop, Las Vistas Tarot & More.

If you are in any EU country, the most cost-effective way is to buy it directly from Joanna and Przemek on their website Forest Power Cards. (They have English, German, Spanish and Polish versions).

Host: Gosia Rokicka of Las Vistas Tarot & More

For a 10% discount in the Las Vistas Tarot & More shop exclusive to podcast listeners, use code PODCAST10 at checkout.

To be up to date with Las Vistas Tarot & More news, join the inner circle and sign up to the newsletter.

Disclaimer:

Tarot readers, healers and practitioners of "woo" can offer valuable support, but they’re not substitutes for licensed mental‑health professionals. Listeners needing therapeutic help should seek accredited counsellors.

Hello, magical beings and creatures of the forest.

Today I'm greeting you from, from the forest.

Or maybe that's a bit of exaggeration.

It's a park,

a park on the edges of London called Eastbrook and Country Park.

I hope you can hear some birds,

but there are lots of birds.

And I just thought that I would do a walk cast today.

I'm just going to walk around the park and tell you something about,

about a particular deck which I want to present to you today.

And there is no better place to do it than a park or a forest.

Because this time it is not a tarot deck.

It's a forest meditations deck.

And it's a deck designed for forest bathing which is Japanese practice of Shinrin Yoko,

which is translated into English as far as forest bathing.

And I just find it a bit confusing, to be honest.

I don't know,

you know, if you speak Japanese or if you are Japanese,

then you may have a different feelings about that.

Maybe Japanese vibe of this term is different.

But in English or for that matter in Polish,

the translation just seems to me like it sounds like something that you digest.

Wild, sweet, swimming in a forest.

That, that's the vibe that I'm getting from

it.

But it's completely not that what forest

bathing is is just experiencing the nature,

bathing yourself in the nature rather than jumping into a pool of water in a forest.

Which by the way, I'm just by the pond.

So the park I'm in has fishing ponds.

There are some anglers on the other side of this pond.

I can see them with all their equipment and the tent.

I mean, do you know what? I don't do this.

I don't fish.

And it always puzzles me how much effort people put into setting up this angling

station, so to speak.

They're always men, almost always middle aged and elderly men.

And they have those tents and all this equipment.

And I'm pretty sure they are not really catching much many fish to be fair.

But I think it's this whole experience of just setting it up.

It's like a shrine, a shrine to your hobby.

It's beautiful.

And I just, I'm just on the other side of the, of the pond with my dog.

So if you heard splashing, that was my Sophie, German shepherd getting into the pond and

splashing in it.

She doesn't swim.

She's the only dog I know who cannot swim.

She's a terrible swimmer, it's ridiculous.

But she likes actually paddling in a water and going in as long as she has ground she's fine.

So, yeah, that was a bit of a digression.

Getting back to the deck.

So Forest Meditations.

Forest Meditations Deck is designed for supporting your practice of forest bathing,

which is immersing yourself in nature and interacting with nature in a very mindful way.

Usually how you do it is you do it with a guide or you do it on your own, but you have

to design your practice somehow.

It's not about just going into going for a

walk or like, yeah, with your friends or with your dog or with your, your child.

It's actually recommended to do it on your own or in a group, but a group that is dedicated

to this practice.

It's not like you just go with mates and chat.

It's you.

You go and you walk and you experience the

nature mindfully and consciously and you concentrate on that rather than on just having

a walk, basically.

So probably walking with a dog is not the

ideal thing because I have to pay attention to her.

I have to.

I cannot completely, like, switch my brain

off.

I have to pay attention where my dog is and

what she's doing.

But also, to be fair, I'm recording the podcast, so it's not like I.

I can fully be present in this practice.

So that's fine for today.

But yes, generally the point is to just be in

nature and not pay attention to anything else except for nature.

And how this beautiful deck can help you with it.

Well,

it's is designed by a couple called Johan Da Vergoska and Przemek Vengorski.

They are Polish.

They live in Warsaw and they run this forest

bathing practice where they invite other people to join them on forest bathing walks.

They are, I think they are doing it in different places in Poland, but primarily in

the woods on the edge of Warsaw where they live.

And they created this deck and they invited an artist called.

Let me just check.

I want to give her proper credit.

Alexandra Swider.

She's an illustrator and she illustrated those cards for them.

They are beautiful.

I mean, the illustrations are gorgeous.

I actually have not explored Alexandra's work.

I have to, I will do it because it feels like

she.

I can imagine she illustrates children's

books.

I'm sure she does.

She should,

because it's a very dreamy,

fairy taley way of drawing, painting.

The artwork is very dreamy and fairy taley.

So the deck contains of 35 cards.

35 cards and a booklet.

And they are packed in a beautiful canvas bag,

which is.

Makes it easier to carry them with you on your adventures.

They are, they are Also like printed with like sort of coated paper.

So.

And the booklet is also laminated, so it's very safe to take in all weathers.

It's.

It's quite sturdy.

And how you use it.

I mean, the booklet, the booklet explains how

to use it.

It has the whole like background of what

forest bathing is and how to work with the cards,

how a forest session can look like, how to prepare for forest bathing.

It's a very robust guide, I would say.

And each card in this booklet has its own page.

And basically the explanation what it is about and what mindful exercise you're supposed to

do when you pull this card and how long it should more or less take.

So the way how I use it is I basically go to the forest and I pull a card and I do the

mindful activity that came up on this card.

As long as it's, you know, it's practical and safe to do it.

You know, there are some cards, for example, that encourage you to walk barefoot.

So obviously not maybe necessarily every weather is suitable for that in every place.

I maybe tell you more what cards, what these cards are.

Come on, Sophie, let's sit somewhere.

It'll be easier for me if I sit down.

Let's come here.

Come on.

It's a nice place.

Okay,

so the cards are Underground Kingdom.

The Travel Companion Unity.

Raise your sight.

Komorebi.

My tree.

Forest colours.

The map.

Geometry of nature.

Light and shadow.

Woodland symphony.

Hare's ears.

The lesson of silence.

The touch of nature.

Barefoot Sensations.

A wolf's trail.

Scent of the earth.

An ant's life.

The forest Treasure.

A snail.

Space.

A fox's footstep.

Sight of a deer.

Mandala.

My space.

Trees, trees, trees.

Building with your eyes closed.

Movement.

A token of gratitude.

Seasons.

The souvenir.

The home of senses.

My breath.

And as it is.

Right,

so let's shuffle the cards and let's pull one and see what we're gonna get.

Okay,

My card is card number 20 with a forest treasure.

And the picture shows a bird sitting on a branch of acacia, I think, or something

similar.

And in the background there is a moon and the sky.

And the bird is.

I should know what bird it is.

It's.

Yeah, it looks a bit like Suica.

And I now just completely forgot how Suica is

in English.

So yeah,

I'll add it in show notes what the bird is.

I think it's Suica.

Completely blanked out the English name for it.

Okay.

Anyway, the bird is holding a key in his beak.

Right? So let's have a look.

Now let's have a look at number 20 in the booklet and see what it tells us to do.

So, the forest treasure.

Imagine that a treasure has been hidden in the area where you are.

Walk around the area and slowly explore the terrain.

Take your time.

Does any place seem like a good place to hide something valuable?

Perhaps a forest treasure is near you.

Where would you hide something precious yourself?

Maybe you want to look under a fallen tree, under a stone or mulch.

Or maybe the treasure is somewhere higher in the tree branches.

See where your body leads you and you might discover a new place in the forest.

Whatever seems right to you,

it can be your discovered treasure.

Let your imagination run wild.

And it says you can spend on average 10 minutes doing this activity.

So if you are hearing whining,

it's my dog, she's a squeaky wheel and she,

she squeaks like,

I don't know, old bicycle.

And she's very impatient.

And if I sit down,

she starts squeaking and wants me to move forward.

So I was sitting now when I was reading this and that was too long for her,

but we are now going to find a treasure.

So we're gonna move and walk around and see

what we can see here.

Well, I can tell you that I'm still around the ponds, by the ponds.

It's very overgrown.

This bit where I sit down, sat down.

And it has some bits.

I think this park has undergoing some

improvements and,

you know, some kind of adding new pathways and clearing out some brambles.

So there are some places which are fenced off.

Off.

And I just sat next to a fence, so I can't go one direction because it's fenced off.

Let's see what's in the other direction.

And what I can see is,

you know, it's very green.

Well, I'm in London and it's April and London gets very, very green and beautiful in April.

And this weather is gorgeous.

So it's super pleasant to, to actually walk

and look.

And I can see brambles, I can see

blackberries.

And they have new,

beautiful new leaves, but also they still have old dry fruit from last year, like the old

branches which dried out and the fruits that were not picked by people or by animals dried

out completely.

And they are, they are still,

still visible,

but they are now being covered with new leaves and new branches growing out with new fresh

leaves.

And it's beautiful.

And next to it is a hawthorn.

And hawthorn also have some old fruit from

last year,

but also has new gorgeous leaves coming out.

And it's beautiful.

What's Here now is this combination, this kind of mix of still the old parts of plants from

last year and the new ones growing on kind of top of them and covering them with new fresh

leaves.

And it's beautiful.

They are ducks and geese,

mallards and Egyptian goose.

And another one,

which I forgot how it's called, this bird,

another from the duck family.

And they are floating in the pond.

The water is very blue.

It's like ridiculously blue.

And that is not a normal thing for a pond in London.

So I'm a bit worried.

They are like blue algae growing in it.

Because it's kind of imagine, you know, the blue water from ocean, from like Mauritius or

Galapagos,

you know, this kind of places blue.

And that is not how water looks like in ponds

in London.

So I'm a bit concerned.

Well, so I'm not gonna really necessarily let Sophie go into this pond,

which is gonna go a bit further and see what else we can find.

So now your turn.

Have a look around you.

Even if you are not in nature,

even if you are listening to me at home or on a commute while driving or while sitting on

the train.

Look around you.

Look what you see.

Look what you see through the window.

What can you notice that is different, that is new?

What can you see that wasn't here yesterday or that looked differently yesterday?

And even if you are in your own home, which looks pretty much the same every day,

I'm sure that depending on the time of the day, depending on the weather outside,

depending on the light,

some things look different.

Even, you know, books on your shelf or

whatever you've got.

You know, how the light comes into your room,

makes things look different.

So there is quite a lot of wind in this part where I'm now when I'm walking on this path,

I mean, the path is gorgeous.

There are some trees, which I think they are

probably crab apples.

No, they're not.

They're not crab apples.

That is a very good question.

What they are, I'm not sure,

maybe wild cherries.

And they are flowering already and they have beautiful white flowers.

So I'm just standing under this canopy of white flowers growing on the tree and there is

a dapple light coming through the branches and putting little patches of light and sunshine

on the path.

And it's gorgeous,

absolutely gorgeous.

There are some obviously sounds of some

machinery in the distance.

That's London.

There is no way to just hear nature.

There is no foresty park in or even actual forest outside of London where you can walk

and not hear traffic.

Or lawnmowers or things like that.

Sadly, you have to get quite far away from London to be able to be in a complete natural

silence.

And this is,

to be honest, some things I'm missing a lot.

And the probably main reason why I really want

to move out of London,

because I just love this complete silence of.

I mean, it's not complete silence.

You've got always of birds and nature and animals and the ruffle of leaves and things

like that.

And it's beautiful.

But I don't necessarily want to hear the

traffic,

but that's another story.

I really hope that my mic is picking up those birds.

I don't know.

It's the first time I'm recording outside,

so we'll see.

But if it doesn't, then believe me, the.

The birds are gorgeous.

So, yeah, that was.

That was noticing.

I can't tell what was the treasure.

I think,

to me, the treasure was just noticing how quickly the spring arrived.

And seeing this.

This very,

very tangible proof that the spring is here.

And this look of those white flowers and the

light going through those branches, I think that is my treasure for today.

So let's do one more card together,

right? Let's shuffle.

And my card is number four.

Number, raise your sight.

And the picture is literally that.

The picture is what you see when you look up.

It's the sky and clouds and the light.

You can see that there is this kind of like

when you look up and you see those patches of light because there's sunshine.

So they are beautifully rendered in this picture.

And trees, the branches of trees which you see above yourself.

And it's kind of painted in the way that you could tell that it's either spring, spring or

autumn.

The colors are green, but also red and orange at the same time.

It's very beautifully, beautifully drawn.

Yeah, I would say this is.

But also, to be fair, the cut.

It's so colorful that it could be summer as

well.

It's definitely not winter, but I think you

can identify with this card apart from winter in any other season.

So number four, raise your side.

Let's pull out my book from.

From my little pouch and see what the book says.

And what it says is, number four, Raise your sight.

Find a place that is convenient for you.

You can sit under a tree or lie down in the

grass.

Make sure that you are comfortable.

Look up and just be aware of what is happening above your head.

Watch the sky, the clouds, the treetops.

Does any element give you a particular

pleasure while watching it?

Is the image of that element Static or changing or maybe something surprises you.

And then there is a little additional note which is very interesting, so I'll read it to

you.

Looking up in the forest, we can notice the phenomenon of so called crown shyness.

Canopy shyness.

The crowns of trees look like a jigsaw puzzle with gaps between them.

Most often this phenomenon occurs between individuals of the same species,

but it can also occur between representatives of different trees.

There are several theories about this phenomenon.

Trees want to avoid collision with their neighbors during windy weather.

By keeping their distance, they manage to avoid abrasion, which is cost effective

because it is expensive for a tree to grow a new tissue.

Another theory is that growing branches are very sensitive to light and stun their growth

when they encounter adjacent foliage.

Gaps between tree crowns may also prevent the spread of parasites.

That is a very interesting scientific fact.

So the raise your size exercise is designed for 10 minutes.

And I'm not gonna do it now just because as I explained at the very beginning, this is

actually very good example why you should do this activity of forest bathing when you can

be fully present and,

and can just immerse yourself and just stop paying attention to anything else.

And one thing is that I don't want to necessarily lie down because it's still.

The ground is very cold and I'm not super healthy today.

But also mainly because I cannot switch off.

I have to pay attention to Sophie is doing.

Actually this is a very good example because there is another dog coming and Sophie,

right.

She's not great with other dogs.

So that is a very good example why I should be

actually present with my dog.

Sophie, come this way,

this way,

this way.

We'll just wait until they pass.

So yeah, that is actually a very good real life example of why this practice is designed

to be your own time for yourself and why it is very, very important to actually do it and do

as I say, not as I do.

Because I'm kind of a person who mostly goes to the park with my dog.

I very rarely,

honestly very rarely spend time in nature without my dogs.

Yes, just was always me and dogs in nature.

So I think it's also very important to cut this time for just for yourself.

And the forest bathing practice is a fantastic option to do it.

When you, when you struggle with getting into nature without your dog or without your kids,

maybe forest bathing practice is something that would give you this push to actually do

it because I think it's really, really worthwhile.

I actually noticed something really sweet now.

I looked up and I just saw a nest,

a brand New nest on a tree branch.

There are no birds in it, so I think they've

built it, but I don't think they are sitting in it.

Gorgeous. It's beautiful.

It's so well hidden and I notice it just

because I looked up.

I don't think we look.

I mean, I don't know, maybe you do, but I

don't look up often enough so I'm not going to do it for 10 minutes.

But I looked up a moment and I got rewarded with this beautiful nest.

So this is it from me for today.

I hope you got inspired to do some forest bathing on your own in wherever in the world

you are.

Have a look online if there are any forest bathing guides in your area.

If you, if you are a kind of a person who prefers to do it with a guide.

If you are more like me and you like doing things, things on your own,

I'm sure you have some lovely nature, even a small one, even like a really small park next

to where you are.

And if you, if you want some inspiration and

some help,

forest meditation cards are there for you.

The link is in the show notes.

You can buy them from my shop, Las Vistas and if you are in the uk, that's definitely the

best way to get them,

possibly also in many other parts of the world like the US and Canada and Australia and New

Zealand and lots of other places.

But if you are in the eu,

the best way is to buy them directly from Przemek and Joanna from, from Mozlasu, which

is their, their brand.

I will add the link also in the show notes and I only have the English version of the cards

but they do exist also in Polish and German and possibly in Spanish, I'm not sure but I'll

check and I'll add the link.

And they are based in Poland, so they are posting from Poland and that is definitely

there most cost effective way to get them if you are in the eu.

But if you are in the UK or anywhere else, I invite you to my shop Las Vistas.

And the link is in the show notes.

The cards are gorgeous.

You can get some other forest bathing cards so if you, if you want different ones,

have a look around, have a look online.

But those ones are the most beautiful and wonderful I found.

So I do recommend them and I really, really love them.

So that's it.

Stay magical and I shall speak to you next time.

Bye bye.

Sam.