What is the Inntirety Forest Bath?
There’s nothing like a soothing soak in a steamy tub in a snowy wonderland or even the immersive experience of bathing in warm water in the rain. No matter the season, an outdoor bath can help you feel more connected to the earth around you—helping you find a greater sense of connection with nature and yourself.
The Inntirety Forest Bath, featuring an open-air tub, is simultaneously one of life’s simple pleasures and the ultimate luxury for mind, body, & spiritual nurturing. Alfresco baths, or garden baths, have been embraced worldwide for this very reason—they give us permission to leave our cluttered lives behind, pause, and immerse ourselves in the peaceful envelope of nature.
The Healing Power of Water
Water is an essential ingredient to life on this planet. Spiritual traditions across cultures recognize and revere its necessity and dynamic capacities.
Water is a giver of life, a source of purification, and an element that can be infused with sacred blessings.
Water also symbolizes regeneration, fertility, purification, and transformation. Across the globe, spiritual traditions revere water and use it in rituals of purification, blessing, and connection into divine paths. Religious traditions have long utilized water in their rituals, from washing oneself before daily prayers (Islam) to pilgrimages to sacred rivers (Hinduism) to the baptism and admission of a soul into a religious sect (Christianity).
The Gaia Bathing Ritual
Inntirety Healing Center has taken the act of forest bathing and created what we call ‘The Gaia Bathing Ritual.’ This ritual is non-denominational and can be translated to your own spiritual belief practice.
Optional items to bring: Crystals, moon water, ect.
- Energetic Reading: The Gaia Bathing Ritual starts with an energetic reading of your five central channel chakras. We identify energy center blockages, overactivity, and generalized imbalance.
- Custom Essential Oil/Rock Salt Blend:
- Earthing Meditation: With every step, connect fully (mind, body, spirit) to the land. Immerse your senses as we walk to the bathing area. Oṁ
- Filling the Tub: Chanting to yourself or aloud – Vām.
- Gathering of Flowers: From the wildflower & rose garden, you will choose the flowers that call to you. You will thank the plant for every flower bloom that is taken. Chanting to yourself or aloud – Lām.
- Gathering of Earth & Stones: You will be given a paper sack to fill with stones & dirt from the forest.
- Gathering Wood: We will intentionally gather wood, twigs, and kindling in and around the forest. Chanting to yourself or aloud – Lām.
- Starting the Fire: Chanting to yourself or aloud – Rām.
- The Gaia Forest Bathing Meditation:
A. Mantra: Oṁ, Lām, Vām, Rām, Yām, Hām
Lām – Earth: stability, mass, solidity, substance, sense of smell, the root chakra and/or lower legs.
Vām – Water: emotions, nourishment (too much or too little), sense of taste, elimination, birth, the quality of flow, and pelvic region in the body.
Rām – Fire: transformation, digestion, heat, charisma, light, sense of sight, the region of the body from belly to heart.
Yām – Wind: motion, chaos, change, instability, mind, sense of touch, the region of the body from heart to eyebrows.
Hām – Space: awareness, consciousness, witnessing, “enough room,” sense of hearing, and the area of the head from eyebrows upward.
B. Purification:
Choose a purification technique, such as burning incense, sprinkling rosewater, or ringing a bell. Purify your body, tools, materials, and area.
C. Divinize the Body (nyāsa).
Place the heel of the right hand on the forehead so that the wrist is over the third eye and the middle finger is on or near the top of the head. Chant Oṁ three times, drawing the energy of this sacred mantra into the hand. Then, place the right hand on the lower belly and chant Oṁ, imagining a ruby red light in the center of the pelvic bowl. Move the right hand over the heart, chant Oṁ, and imagine a brilliant cobalt blue light in the heart center. Then place the hand on top of the head, chant Oṁ, and imagine a radiant white light in the center of the skull. Pause and recognize that you have invoked your most expansive Self.
D. Declare your Resolve:
Once you are ready to begin, clarify your motive and intention. Set your resolve (sankalpa) by speaking it out loud. An example is, “I resolve to make a yantra of the five elements for the benefit of all beings.”
E. Combine the Elements:
With your resolve held in your heart and as an act of gratitude to this beautiful earth, place each flower, herb, and rock into the water. Gently spread the salts into the water. Pour in the essential oil blend.
F. The Bath:
Slowly enter the bathtub, and be mindful of every sensation in your body as you immerse. Once in the tub, wash and bless each part of your body.
Gently close your eyes. Take a few deep inhalations through your nose and down into your belly. Exhale. Stretch. Relax. Now, take a deep breath in through your nose, and fill your lungs completely; hold for several seconds, then breathe out through the mouth, and relax. Do this a total of three times. Continue to breathe deeply, and with each round of breath, relax your body even more. Don’t force your breathing; allow the natural rhythm of your breath to flow in and out of your sacred body vessel.
Allow the spiritual energy to flow into your crown chakra. To allow the flow, you must be in a relaxed and receptive state of being. Hold your intention and resolve to call in only those spirit beings that provide guidance, love, and higher teachings. You can say something like, “I now invite in all of my loving and wise, spirit guides and guardian angels to be with me now. I am in need of guidance and assistance.”
Be still, open, and present. Hold no expectations. Do not ‘wait’ for a response. Spirit comes in many ways. If you have an ‘idea’ of how you think Spirit will come to you, you might miss it. It could be by a sensation, a download, a sound, a smell, a metaphoric visual, an animal guide, or the wind. The more you ‘let go’ and create space in your mind, the more comes through. - Immediate Aftercare:
Thank your Gaia, guides, and angels for their love and support. Slowly towel off. Drink water or hot tea. Find a quiet place to rest and reflect. If you practice journaling, take a few minutes to jot down a few notes about your experience.