Enter the Forest by Veena P. Sivan

🌿Echoes to Carry Home

This space offers reflections, readings, and gentle resources to support continued connection with nature—beyond the forest walk. These are invitations, not instructions. Take what resonates, and return in your own time.


🍃 Reflection Prompts

  • Enter the forest. The forest carries both tales and quiet teachings.

  • Go to the land. The land holds stories you may be ready to hear.

  • Speak to the trees. They listen—and respond in their own way.

You may wish to return to these prompts slowly, in different seasons, or during moments of pause.


📘 Featured Book

🌲 Enter the Forest

by Veena P. Sivan

Enter the Forest is a children’s picture book written as a gentle, heartfelt invitation for young readers to connect with the wonders of the natural world. The language is poetic and lyrical, yet accessible—encouraging curiosity, imagination, and a caring relationship with nature.

Designed to be enjoyed with children—and also by adults, the book invites families to slow down, notice the living world around them, and reconnect through quiet moments together. It is both a story and an opening—an invitation to step outside, observe closely, and wonder.

Enter the Forest is available on Amazon:
👉 https://www.amazon.ca/Enter-Forest-Veena-P-Sivan/dp/1069964204

Veena P. Sivan is a Mississauga, Ontario–based author and nature educator. Through storytelling, she creates pathways for attentiveness, presence, and shared exploration—especially for children and families.

🍃 Reader Review

“A really delightful book for both children and adults! This book is not only a book to read, but a continuing exploration that readers are invited into beyond the book. I love how it inspires readers to use their imagination. Highly recommend.”

It’s time to enter the forest.


📚 Further Reading & Inspiration

  • Your Guide to Forest Bathing — M. Amos Clifford

  • Healing Trees — Ben Page

  • How to Meet a Forest — Cayla Samano

  • Forest Bathing with Your Dog — Nadine Mazzola

These books offer different entry points into nature connection—through practice, story, and reflection.


🔬 Research & Science 

Forest bathing, also known as Shinrin-yoku, has been widely studied for its effects on human health and well-being.

Research suggests that time spent in forest environments may:

  • Reduce stress and anxiety

  • Support immune function

  • Improve sleep quality

  • Calm the nervous system

For a gentle, accessible introduction:
🔗 A Guide to Forest Bathing — NPR (2023)
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/22/1195337204/a-guide-to-forest-bathing

(Additional peer-reviewed research is available upon request.)


🌲 A Gentle Note

These resources are offered to support reflection and curiosity. They are not intended to replace medical or therapeutic care.

Nature meets each person differently—at their own pace, in their own way.

This space is shaped by many voices, teachings, and quiet influences. With gratitude to the wider forest therapy and nature-connection community.