Welcome  

Take Root is a forest therapy practice in Wilmington, Delaware offering restorative, guided nature experiences.

As a heart-centered practice, forest therapy plays a role in helping humans wake-up from a culturally rooted sense of separation from nature to a holistically rooted sense of interconnectedness. This reconnection helps us move from dominance over nature to kinship with nature, from a consumer species that takes, to a restorative species that gives.

Forest therapy guides offer the direct experiential opportunity to mindfully connect with nature or, as Jane Goodall says, “…to come back into conscious engagement with life,” to shift from a cognitive experience to a sensory, embodied one that awakens the heart and widens circles of compassion. In other words, to fall in love with life again. 

Meet Bethany

I have always felt most at home outdoors.

Growing up in lower Appalachia I spent most of my childhood hours outside. Welcoming the spring frogs at grandmother’s creek, running barefoot with cousins catching fireflies, canoeing the pond across the pasture, gathering enough blackberries for mom to bake a pie…walking through the woods before dawn with dad listening, noticing, learning with every step and every stillness.

I have always felt most loved outdoors.

Warm sun on my face, wind in my hair, moss under my feet…a planet living and breathing, generous and kind…a place for connection and love.

I have always felt that the Earth is my friend and I would love to introduce you.

Explore Offerings

“The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world—we've actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.”

— Joanna Macy

  • As we walk together we’ll be slowing down, opening our senses, and relaxing in the present moment. Along the way, I’ll offer a series of invitations (or opportunities) for you to engage with your senses and connect with the natural world. After each invitation, I’ll call us back together for some sharing time. To close our time together I’ll invite you to tea and a time of shared gratitude.

  • Forest Bathing is not a hike or a naturalist walk. We may cover very little ground in our time together. I am not a therapist. I am a forest therapy guide. I like to say “the forest is the therapist, the guide opens the door.”

  • Shin-rin yoku practices like forest bathing and nature therapy are adaptable for all ages and abilities. Private Walks and Retreats are offered for ages 13 and up. (Family Pathway and Nature Circle for all ages coming soon!) Pets are wonderful, but not invited to join walks or retreats.